The School Reform Commission last night quietly passed a resolution that adds a fourth kindergarten class at Penn Alexander School. The resolution strikes a deal between The University of Pennsylvania, which will reportedly pay for the additional class, and The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers.

An additional 18-student kindergarten classroom will be added to take pressure off the demand for kindergarten spots at Penn Alexander. Parents of young children who live in the Penn Alexander catchment area covet admission to the limited kindergarten spots because they usually assure admission to the 1st grade.

Penn Alexander has garnered attention across the city for the long lines for kindergarten registration. In January the line started 24 hours before registration started.

Neither the school nor the SRC has commented on how the school, which has experienced overcrowding in its lower grades, will accommodate the new kindergarten class.

(h/t Amara Rockar, John Myers and West Philly News and Kristen Graham.)

The Spruce Hill Community Association distributed a letter to the dozens of parents waiting in line yesterday to register their children for kindergarten next year calling on “the community” to “make itself heard.” The letter also restates the association’s stance that every child living within the school’s catchment boundaries has a right to attend Penn Alexander.

The letter begins:

“No one should have to line up in the cold for nearly 24 hours to register their child for kindergarten.”

A full copy of the letter is below.

Kindergarten registration began for schools across the District this morning, including at the Henry C. Lea School, which has received a lot of attention in recent months thanks to the work of the West Philly Coalition of Neighborhood Schools.

Pas Letter

The line to register a student in grades 1 through 8 at the Penn Alexander School began at 7:30 a.m. today, more than 24 hours before registration begins.

As of 9 p.m. this evening about 20 people had set up camping chairs along the school’s fence along Locust Street between 42nd and 43rd. A clipboard hung from the fence near the school entrance. Several parents, who will spend the night waiting in line in hopes of getting a spot in the school’s crowded lower grades, had been in line by 5 p.m.

“I feel like an idiot,” said one parent, a Penn professor who recently returned from sabbatical leave to realize he had to re-register his 3rd and 5th graders at the school. “I can’t speak for everyone here, but personally I feel like an idiot.”

Several parents in the line faulted the school for its reluctance to address the overcrowding problem. Suggestions have ranged from starting a lottery for the lower grades to expanding the school’s capacity by erecting temporary trailers.

Parents have often waited in line to register children at the school’s kindergarten, but the line to register students in grade school is a new phenomenon brought on by word that the school would for the first time institute a cap on lower grade levels.

Registration is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. tomorrow. School officials have already said that many who hope to register for the lower grades, particularly 1-3, will likely be turned away.
 

As the new school year approaches, parents and community members concerned about the cap on new students in the lower grades of the Penn Alexander School (4209 Spruce St.) have started an online petition asking that all school-age children living in the school’s catchment area be admitted.

The petition follows a letter sent by the Spruce Hill Community Association to University of Pennsylvania officials last month asking the university, which manages the school in cooperation with the School District of Philadelphia, to address the cap. Options recommended for investigation include erecting temporary classrooms and moving students from the middle school grades, where classes are sometimes under-enrolled, to a different building.

The group circulating the petition, Advocates for Great Elementary Education Everywhere (AGREE) West Philly, asks Penn President Amy Gutmann, School District of Philadelphia Superintendent Arlene Ackerman and Penn Alexander Principal Sheila Sydnor to “work collaboratively, and in a timely manner, with concerned community members to find a viable solution to PAS’s overcrowding problem.”

School officials have said that the K-8 school, which since its opening has pledged to maintain a lower-than-required student-teacher ratio, is overflowing with students in the lower grades. New Penn Alexander students begin to register on Monday (August 15), which will be the first indication of how many will be affected by the cap.

Groups advocating for healthy school lunches in the city are urging parents and community members to sign a petition opposing the planned closure of more than two dozen full-service school kitchens, including the one at the Penn Alexander School (4209 Spruce St.).

The proposed closure of the full-service kitchens, which are part of the School District of Philadelphia’s plan to balance its budget, would mean that Penn Alexander students and some 16,000 students at 25 other schools would no longer receive meals cooked at school but would be served pre-packaged meals shipped in from a company located in Brooklyn.

More than two-thirds of the district’s schools, which lack full-service kitchens, already serve lunch this way and the district estimates that closing the 26 full-service kitchens would save an additional $2.3 million. Many of the schools that serve pre-packaged meals now never had full-service kitchens.

But advocates from Fair Food, The Food Trust and a growing number of parents oppose the decision, which has not yet been finalized, arguing that the pre-packaged meals teach children bad eating habits.

These groups are asking parents and community members to sign this electronic petition, which will be sent to Superintendent Arlene Ackerman.

Fair Food and The Food Trust are also trying to save the “Farm to School” program at Penn Alexander and two dozen other schools in the city. The program contracts with local farmers to supply schools with fresh fruits and vegetables.

Alyssa Moles, the Farm to School program coordinator for The Food Trust, said by e-mail that her organization is lobbying the District to retain the program. She wrote that she has been assured that, even if the full-service kitchens are closed, that “it will not affect the Farm to School program at those schools and they are also looking at ways of making sure that the schools that were not part of the program will continue to receive fresh fruit and vegetable offerings every day.”

Many schools nationwide have made the transition to pre-packaged meals prepared off-site. These meals are not always hot. For some insight into what pre-packaged lunches are like, check out this blog from “Mrs. Q,” a teacher in Illinois, who ate (and photographed) them every school day in 2010.

The District’s proposal has also garnered national attention. Writing in Mother Jones magazine, Tom Phillpott argues that the cuts are indicative of a new austere reality in the United States.

The school’s losing cafeterias (from the Inquirer):

Baldi Middle, Barratt/Childs Elementary,Beeber Middle, Conwell Middle, DeBurgos Elementary, H.R. Edmunds Elementary, Feltonville Arts and Sciences,  Finletter Elementary, Franklin Elementary, Harding Middle, Hunter Elementary, Jones Middle, Juniata Park Elementary, Marin-Munoz Elementary, Marshall Elementary, Meehan Middle, Overbrook Education Center, Penn Alexander Elementary, Penn Treaty Middle, Pepper Middle, Shaw Middle, Spruance Elementary, Tilden Middle, Grover Washington Middle, Wagner Middle, Wilson Middle.

Other ways to follow the story:

Good School Food for Philly Kids (Facebook group)

Philadelphia Inquirer story on the proposed closures

The School Reform Commission, as expected, has formally approved the partnership agreement between the Penn Alexander School and the University of Pennsylvania for another 10 years.

The agreement between Penn, the District and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, requires Penn to contribute $1,330 per student per year to the school to help maintain reduced class sizes and support other services.

Penn President Amy Gutmann praised the partnership.

“Nothing is more important to the health and vitality of a community than the quality of its public schools, and the Penn Alexander School illustrates this important fact every day,” she said in a statement. “This agreement recognizes the partners’ wish for Penn Alexander’s continued success and supports the University’s goal to enable every child to benefit from proven educational practices at this award-winning public school.”

Penn Alexander has come under much scrutiny in recent months after an announcement from the district that the school would have an enrollment cap that would prevent some children who live within its catchment area from attending. A parents group formed last month, Advocates for Great Elementary Education, is trying to get specific answers from the school, the District and Penn about the enrollment limitations.