Parents can register public school students for the upcoming school year this Friday, Aug.  9 at the Family and Education Reunion at the School of the Future, 4021 Parkside Ave.

The Reunion runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will include free backpacks, educational workshops, entertainment and food. Registration is required for students who moved to another neighborhood during the summer, those who are new to Philadelphia or transferring from private, parochial and charter schools, and kindergarten students who did not pre-register in the spring.

There are some exceptions to that though. Placement for specialized services, Renaissance Schools, overcrowded kindergarten classrooms or English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and arrangements for children who live with an adult other than their parent won’t be available.

Also, it is unclear whether registration for Penn Alexander School, which last year had its own registration date separate from the rest of the District, will be available on Friday. General registration at neighborhood schools is on Aug. 19. UPDATE (8/7/13): We have confirmed that parents who want to enroll their kids in Penn Alexander School will not be able to register them at Friday’s event. For more information about the enrollment at the school please call 215-823-5465.

Parents or guardians will need the following to register:

• Proof of identification, including current PA driver’s license or photo ID card; a valid municipal, state or federal employment identification or a passport.
• Proof of residency, including: PA driver’s license; current vehicle registration; lease with name of parent/guardian; recent property tax bill; voter registration ID; recent letter from government agency with parent/legal guardian’s name; recent pay stub, bank statement or credit card bill; change of address notice; deed; mortgage settlement sheet; wage and tax statements.
• Proof of child’s age, including: birth certificate (original or notarized copy); child’s valid passport; baptismal certificate; prior school records; notarized statement from parent.
• Immunization document that shows proof of vaccinations for diptheria, tetanus, poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella, Hepatitis B and varicella (chicken pox). Valid proof includes child’s immunization record, written statement from former school district or medical office that required immunizations were administered; verbal assurances from former school district or medical office that required immunizations were completed with records to follow.

Transfer requests will not be accepted until later in the fall.

The first day of school is Sept. 9.

Penn Alexander School parents and education advocates will hold a phone bank in the school’s cafeteria next Tuesday (June 11) to push for school funding as the school district’s “doomsday budget” took a step closer to reality last night with an e-mail from Superintendent William Hite to thousands of school employees notifying them of possible layoffs.

The phone bank, which is open to all parents (from any school) and community members, will be set up to call voters in key Pennsylvania districts. The goal is “to motivate voters to contact state representatives requesting increased, stable funding to all Pennsylvania public schools,” according to an announcement. The phone bank will run from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Babysitting will be provided.

A representative of Education Voters of PA will be on hand to give an overview of state education funding issues and conduct a mini workshop on how to make an effective call. They will also provide a list of voters to call. If you can’t stay for the phone bank, feel free to take a list of voters to make calls during the following days.

Be sure to bring your cell phone to the phone bank.

As parents step up pressure on legislators, Hite had the somber duty of informing a few thousand school employees of impending layoffs (see the text of his email below from The Notebook). The School Reform Commission (SRC) approved the “doomsday budget” last week that has no funds to pay for staff other than a head principal and classroom teachers at most schools. Art and music teachers would be laid off, as would librarians, counselors, school aides and other support staff.

The formal layoff notices reportedly begin to be mailed out today.

Some jobs could be spared if money can be returned to the budget. Mayor Michael Nutter proposed an increase in alcohol and cigarette taxes that could restore some funds to the school budget, but those have not yet been approved. The state legislature and Philadelphia’s City Council have yet to grant requests for additional funding.

Nutter and Hite were in Harrisburg earlier this week to make the case for the $120 million the District is requesting from the state.

“So one of the things we hear is that year after year after year the district comes asking for money,” Nutter said in a statement. “Well you’re right, because year after year after year the District doesn’t get what it has asked for, and when you shortchange someone, they have to come back year after year after year.”

Nutter told legislators that the $304 million the District is asking for ($60 million from the city, $120 million from the state and and $134 million in labor concessions) would bring it into alignment with a balanced five-year plan.

“This is the moment to solve this crisis so we’re not back here year after year after year,” he said.

Here is the text of Hite’s e-mail to school employees (from The Notebook):

Should Philadelphia have an elected school board? Should the school district’s governing body be appointed locally? Here’s a chance to have your voice heard.

These issues will be discussed when parents, students, educators and community members meet at a public forum on education governance on Tuesday, Oct. 11 in Center City.

Entitled “Governing the School District of Philadelphia: Do We Have the Right Model?,” the forum is open to the public and will be moderated by recently retired Daily News columnist Elmer Smith. Panelists will include Maurice Jones, a parent from the Henry C. Lea School (47th and Locust streets), who has helped spearhead improvements at the school over the last several months. The West Philly Coalition for Neighborhood Schools is a co-sponsor of the event.

The forum will run from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at The United Way Building (1709 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Lobby 2). The first part will include a panel discussion and Q and A and the second part, which begins at 7 p.m., includes breakout groups to identify community concerns and priorities. Refreshments will be served during the breakouts.

You can get free tickets by going here.

Parents, teachers and school administrators gathered at West Philadelphia High School (4700 Walnut St.) last night to discuss that school’s transition to a “promise academy,” a sometimes controversial school district label that includes several measures designed to improve struggling schools. For many parents it means just another change.

These changes include firing the teaching faculty and rehiring a maximum of 50 percent of those teachers back is part of the district’s Renaissance school program. That means that West, which has seen a lot of change in recent years, including three principals in less than year, will start the next academic year with its fourth principal and a largely new faculty. West will be “traditional”promise academy, meaning extra instruction time, including Saturdays, governance by a School Advisory Council and a host of other changes. The Philadelphia Public School Notebook has a nice breakdown of the different Renaissance school designations here.

Many parents and teachers, though, are growing tired with constant changes at their schools.

Here is a Fox29 story about the meeting:

And here is a fact sheet on the Renaissance schools program:

Fact Sheet Renaissance

The entrance to West Philadelphia High School.

The success of the Penn Alexander school (4209 Spruce St.) sometimes overshadows what happens at other schools in the neighborhood. The fact is that many of these schools, while having individual successes, are struggling overall. The students are bright, the teachers are usually qualified and engaged, but the schools are not living up to their potential.

One problem is the lack of parental involvement in schools. Research has consistently shown that parental involvement is a key factor in a students success as well as a school success. Another factor, activists argue, is the school system itself.

The Enterprise Center hosted a screening of a school reform documentary called “A Community Concern,” which chronicles grassroots neighborhood reform efforts in the Bronx, Oakland and Boston. The documentary makes it clear thast school reform is rarely just a top-down process – that there has to be movement from below, among parents, community leaders, teachers and students to make real change. After the screening, several community members involved in school reform in West Philly discussed their efforts. These include parents from West Philadelphia High School (4700 Walnut St.), Henry C. Lea Elementary (4700 Locust St.) and Alain Locke Elementary School (4550 Haverford Ave.).

The same grassroots organizing that changed schools in Oakland, Boston and New York is alive in West Philadelphia as well with groups such as the West Philly Coalition of Neighborhood Schools.

The following excerpts from the discussion will provide an important primer on the efforts in local schools and a window into the issues that need to be addressed.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3 (it says “part 2,” but it’s part 3):

We’re not sure whether to laugh or cry after this ABC6 story about parents braving frigid temps to get their kids into Penn Alexander’s kindergarten, which is capped at 50 students. We’re happy that such a school exists (full disclosure: we have a child there) and that parents care so much about their child’s education, but we’re sad that they are so scared of the alternatives that they feel they have to sleep outside on the coldest night of the year to get in.

This kind of stand-in-line, first-come-first-serve enrollment system obviously isn’t sustainable. Penn Alexander, which prides itself on small classes, is filling up quick in the lower grades as parents move to the neighborhood (some before they even have children) looking for the Holy Grail of a nice urban neighborhood and a good public school.