Belmont Charter, a neighborhood K-8 school in Mantua, will open a high school in the fall 2017. The School Reform Commission (SRC) voted on Friday in support of the school’s application to create a 300-student Belmont Charter High School. Belmont has the choice of creating a new charter or amending the existing charter to create a K-12 school. The school can eventually enroll 500 across grades 9-12.

Currently, most Belmont graduates advance to the catchment area school, West Philadelphia High School. Admission to Belmont Charter High School would give preference to Belmont’s rising K-8 students, who would account for a projected 60 of the 125 grade level seats.

“Over the years, we have watched too many good students drop out or struggle immensely when they reach high school because they aren’t able to get the kinds of support they critically need,” Jennifer Faustman, Chief Executive Officer at Belmont Charter School, said in a statement in May. “Our community school model gives them positive out of school time and wraparound services which help them succeed. Too often once students graduate from Belmont, the reward for their success is being placed into a school that takes those resources away, and that’s not right.”  Continue Reading

By now you might have heard that the School Reform Commission (SRC) voted last night to close 23 schools around the city, including the neighborhood school Alexander Wilson Elementary and University City High School.

Schools closed also included the 100-year-old Germantown High School. Students from Germantown will be sent to Martin Luther King Jr. High School, a longtime rival.

Planning for the school closings will begin immediately and impacted students will start at their new school next fall. Opponents say the mass closures, which amount to about 12 percent of the city’s public schools, will destroy neighborhoods.

Here are some tweets from last night’s meeting.

Helen Gym, co-founder of Parents United for Public Education:

No matter today’s vote, history will remember people stood for a different vision of public ed that has yet to be realized. #phillyeducation

— Helen Gym (@ParentsUnitedPA) March 7, 2013

 

High school teacher Chris Angelini:

#phillyeducation is at a crossroads & closing schools may be necessary, but what occurred last night was a travesty. #urbaned — Chris Angelini (@MrTeachPhilly) March 8, 2013

Councilwoman Blondelle Reynolds Brown from the meeting gallery:

Generations have passed legacies of #phillyeducation Alma maters 2 children/ grandchildren. For many, this feels like a death in the family.

— Blondell R. Brown (@CouncilwomanBRB) March 8, 2013

 

Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Kristen Graham includes a photo of student protesters.

Some in audience shout “moratorium!” “not letting the SRC in to vote on that sorry situation.” #phillyeducation twitter.com/newskag/status…

— Kristen Graham (@newskag) March 7, 2013

But in a meeting beset by rancor (there were 19 arrests, including the national president of the American Federation of Teachers) there was at least one scrap of good news for some students in West Philly. The Paul Robeson High School for Human Services (4125 Ludlow) was one of four schools saved from closure last night. Students there were supposed to be transferred to Sayre High School (5800 Walnut St.), a lower performing school. Robeson showed marked improvement in recent years. In a report released a few days ago, the school ranked among the top 10 high schools in the city with a graduation rate of 90 percent for freshmen who began in 2008. Sayre has a graduation rate of 53 percent.

Philadelphia has seen a drop in public school students – from about 200,000 in 2000 to about 150,000 this year – due largely to the increase in the number of privately run charter schools. District officials have maintained that the closures are necessary to save money. Superintendent William Hite, who recommended the closures to the SRC, was active on Twitter after last night’s meeting as well:

A decision to close schools is always difficult but now we must come together to ensure all students are safe and successful. — Dr. William Hite (@SDPHite) March 8, 2013

 
The closures impact about 16,000 students and 1,000 teachers overall.

Students protest school closures last year (photo courtesy of the Unionresourcecenter.com)

Residents are invited to weigh in this Saturday on the School District of Philadelphia’s cost-cutting measures that will likely include dozens of school closures.

The School Reform Commission meeting on the District’s Facilities Master Plan at West Philadelphia High School (4901 Chestnut St.) will run from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Residents will hear about the District’s plan to shutter up to 60 schools over the next few years to close a budget gap that could balloon to more than $1 billion.

Enrollment in the District has dropped 21 percent since 2003, leaving classrooms at many schools far below capacity. Enrollment in charter schools increased dramatically during that time span, taking students out of District-run facilities. In a report released last month, the Boston Consulting Group estimated that the District could close 40 to 50 schools by next year and another 15 or 20 over the next five years. District officials estimate that the closures could save as much as $35 million a year. The SRC is expected to announce next month which schools could be closed next year.

Closure decisions will be based on the condition of the school, its current capacity and the academic performance of its students.

Proposed closures will likely have a profound impact on schools in West Philly. Last year Drew Elementary near 38th and Powelton closed and its students were spread among other West Philly schools. The grade configuration at Alexander Wilson School, which the District has deemed is under-enrolled, will change from K-6 to K-5. The closure and changes have placed more pressure on other schools, including the Henry C. Lea (4700 Locust St.), Alaine Locke (4550 Haverford Ave.) and Samuel Powel (301 N. 36th St.) Schools. Enrollment issues are also a prime concern at Penn Alexander School (4209 Spruce St.).

But Saturday’s meeting is about more than just school closures. The District is also looking for resident input on a host of issues that will arise when schools start closing. Those range from getting rid of middle schools and making K-8 the only option to changing the way students are assigned to elementary schools. To record resident input at past meetings, the SRC has distributed devices that attendees click in response to a variety of questions.

For example, one question is:

“On a scale of 1 to 9, how important is it for 3rd graders to be able to walk to school?

Meeting participants can respond by pushing the appropriate button on the device. Click here for the full list of questions. Benjamin Herold from The Notebook and WHYY’s NewsWorks has a great story on the meetings earlier this week here.

We will know a lot more about which schools will close or consolidate in West Philadelphia after today’s School Reform Commission (SRC) meeting, which for the first time, will be streamed live online.

The SRC is scheduled to release its tentative master plan to address the estimated 70,000 empty seats in the district. The plan includes a list of schools that will be closed, consolidated or have grade changes. The list will be the subject of a series of community meetings over the next several months.

A leaked preliminary report that recommended that the Alexander Wilson School (1300 S. 46th St.) be closed and students transferred to the Henry C. Lea School (4700 Locust St.) fueled speculation that fairly drastic changes were ahead for schools in our area. The District responded that the leaked report was merely a rough draft that was far from the final recommendations. There was even speculation that the much-debated catchment area for the Penn Alexander School (43rd and Locust) would be redrawn, though that seems unlikely. A much more clear picture of those changes should emerge from today’s meeting.

The SRC meeting begins at 3 p.m. today and the announcement on the proposed changes is scheduled for 5 p.m. For the first time the SRC meeting will be streamed live at the District’s website. The meeting will also be broadcast on its cable channel, which is available to Comcast (Channel 52) and FIOS (Channel 20) subscribers.

Another person with West Philly roots has been appointed to the School Reform Commission. Mayor Michael Nutter appointed novelist, arts advocate and professor Lorene Cary to the commission, which is charged with overseeing the city’s public school system.

Cary, 54, attended Henry C. Lea Elementary (4700 Locust St.), the University of Pennsylvania and is currently a creative writing instructor at Penn. Cary’s novel The Price of a Child, which tells the story of a slave who declares her freedom while traveling in Philadelphia in 1855 but whose child is still held in bondage in Virginia, was the first “One Book, One Philadelphia” selection in 2003.

“For me what is truly outstanding is that she has an incredible passion for the well-being of children,” Nutter said in a statement. “She cares very personally about parents and she’s very much focused on supporting teachers. She will be a tremendous asset to the School Reform Commission and the children of Philadelphia.”

Cary also started Art Sanctuary, an arts advocacy organization. She lives in East Falls with her husband Rev. Robert C. Smith, the rector of the Memorial Church of the Good Shepherd, and two daughters.

In many ways Cary is an atypical choice for the Commission, which has been made up mostly of lawyers, business people and bureaucrats since it began in 2001. Last month Nutter appointed West Philly resident Wendell Pritchett to the Commission.