Yes. The Sayre project will be going out to bid this September.
How about Martha Washington? 106 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262
Let me ask you a question on a different subject, parent support hotline. Do you know what hours that functions, the hotline?
Claudia Averette. The hours are from 9:00 to 5:00, five days a week.
Say that again. 107 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262
Five days a week, 9:00 to 5:00. And it has an answering service, so we're able to follow up on any calls. But, again, if it's like a bullying call or if a parent doesn't know a process, we still have the 299-SAFE hotline that they can call.
Thank you very much. Also, as you know, we want to deal with the -- I guess we've got to wait on the West Philly deal with the land, because you know we're interested in plotting and a plan for the field house that currently exists. So I guess we've got to wait a little bit longer to see when that's a little tighter. Councilwoman Brown?
Thank you. A quick budget question and then I want to do some follow-up regarding teachers. On of your testimony, mid paragraph, you state, and I quote, "All of these curriculum materials will be funded through an annual appropriation from the 108 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 Philadelphia Parking Authority" and you credit the leadership there at the Authority and members of the General Assembly for that fund. However, on of the summary, you mention "no Parking Authority funding is included." Can you reconcile that for me?
Yeah. What we're doing is, we're counting 4 million from the Authority. What we're not including is what additional money the Parking Authority may generate. And let me point out that -- so that's number one. Number two, the Parking Authority money is not in the operating budget. You see what I mean? So it's a separate fund. And what we're doing is, the 4 million that's been allocated will help us finance the costs or reimburse those textbook companies over the next four to five years. Rather than it coming out of the operating fund, it's going to come out of the special fund, because we want it to earmark the money that they allocated to us for a specific purpose, and 109 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 that purpose is to pay the companies for the purchase price of the textbooks. Now, what the companies are going to do is just not charge us the million all at 6 once. They're going to charge us about 4 7 million a year, 5 million a year over the next 8 four years. So we'll be able to pay them in 9 time and we won't have to take money out of 10 the classroom or it won't affect our operating 11 budget. 12
Okay. 13 That answers my follow-up question. Are you 14 where you want to be with regards to adequate 15 books for our students or is there still room 16 for improvement? 17
Well, there's room 18 for improvement, but by really next year, we 19 will have completed all of our curriculum 20 reforms with the corresponding textbook purchases. And what will happen will be, we will have made that investment, that now all we'll have to do is to sustain that investment in the out years. So literally, by this time next 110 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 year, we will have purchased close to $45 million in new textbooks and instructional materials. Once we've made that initial investment, then we've got to sustain. So by next year, we will have completed the bulk of our work and then it's just a matter of making sure that when textbooks are lost, they're replaced or when they're out of date, they're replaced. So if we have a good textbook policy which appropriates money for replacement, adequate money for replacement every year, and we keep that replacement money off budget -- because, again, if the Parking Authority money ends up becoming a permanent allocation, once all the new textbooks are purchased, we will then earmark the bulk of that money for placement in a separate fund, so never again will you have the School District in a budget crunch cutting its textbook budget. Once we've made this considerable investment, all we've got to do is sustain it. Another example, musical instruments. We're going to purchase a 111 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 million dollars in musical instruments next year on top of the $400,000 purchase to enrich all of our elementary schools so that we can replace all the musical instruments lost to the School District the last years. 7 After this year, all we're going to 8 have to do is have a small replacement budget 9 for those musical instruments. We've restored 10 the investments previously lost. Then it's 11 important to segregate money off budget so 12 that we can sustain that investment in the out 13 years. 14 So it's the same thing with 15 textbooks, musical instruments. What we're 16 doing is, we're restoring and then it's a 17 matter of sustaining. 18
That 19 partially takes care of my arts question. 20 Back to teachers. I need you to give me an update on -- the Education Lost Center filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights regarding minority students having less access to qualified teachers and how that ties into the reforms and initiatives you have underway 112 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 with regards to matching up high poverty schools with experienced teachers. I need you to comment on that. I'm trying to beat this clock. The second --
Very quickly, that really was a signal to the teachers union on the issue of site selection. Because their focus was on teacher seniority and site selection. So that really was designed to -- I mean, what they're trying to do is, they're trying to send a statement that the contract needs to be changed so that seniority doesn't dictate where teachers go. Let me point out, though, that Judge Smith recently modified her Order with respect to the -- I don't want to call it a consent decree, but she modified her Order with respect to guidelines she had given the District to basically institute reforms designed to provide greater educational equality throughout the system. So Judge Smith actually has directed 113 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 both us and the plaintiffs to reach a memorandum of understanding so we're no longer really operating under this Court Order mandating that we do certain things. And in her statement, she cited the District's reform initiatives, the District's equity in excellence initiatives as being the reasons why she felt that her role had reached the point where it was now time to enter into a memorandum of understanding moving forward and she would not need to direct what the District should do via her Court Order.
Substantial progress on that issue. I'll come back next round. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Vallas, three quick questions. Any decisions yet on the G and Hunting Park site? Can we get an update on that?
I'm sorry? 114 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262
Yeah. That's scheduled. When are we scheduled to break ground on G and Hunting Park? Before December? SPEAKER: Expect to go out to bid September.
Is a design done yet? SPEAKER: It is not completed, no. It is in design phase.
Good. Thank you. Second question, I remember -- Councilwoman Krajewski was talking about this, but I have Frankford High School, which, all in all, works very well, because the principal is a real decent guy, but the problem there is, there used to be cops in there all the time. There was a Philly cop assigned to there. Did they stop doing that or we still do that? And when we do that, how do we 115 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 reimburse the Police Department?
No. We're precluded from having Philadelphia police officers in the schools. I could have Dexter Green give you the staffing numbers in terms of School District police officers, but the bottom line is, we don't have Philly cops. I will say this --
I think 15 you did have a cop assigned there while I was 16 Councilman. 17
I think the cops 18 were assigned in at least all of the high 19 schools. 20 But let me point out that 37 of the 50 largest urban districts have police officers, uniform police officers in their schools. We have also made a request or we're in the process of making a formal request that we be allowed to participate in a federally 116 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 funded program that subsidizes uniform on-duty police officers in schools for three years. It's funded through the United States, I think, the cop's office. Where is the cop's office? I'll let you speak to this. Why don't you speak to the cop's office.
The grant that Mr. Vallas is talking about is a grant from the cop's office in Washington. And what they do is subsidize the salary and benefits for full-time police officers working in the School District. They call them school resource offices, is what they call them. They subsidize them for three years and either the School District or the Police Department would pick up the fourth year.
Our thinking here on that initiative is, it's federally funded for three years. We would make a request for 30 officers. We would then have teams of -- 15 teams of two, and then we could deploy those teams to schools where we've been having problems in those areas. For example, 117 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 Overbrook has done a wonderful job. The leadership of the Overbrook school, it's done a spectacular job. But in the area around the school, there has been a couple gun incidents, someone shooting at a student, and so there's been some gun incidents in that area. We've had the same problem -- well, the same thing at a school like Peirce. So what we would be able to do is, we would be able to deploy, say, teams of two police officers to a school that was obviously in a problem area or that was being plagued with a lot of illicit activity so you would have the police officers -- a form of community policing at the entrance of that school during admission and dismissal time.
Because I see a fine job that you all do up at CEP and Edison where the CEP students and the Edison students sort of intersect at different times, and it's scary there if you don't realize what's going on, but CEP handles it, Edison handles it, and there's some Philly cops there, but there's mostly your people and they 118 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 do a good job. Now, on this, this is my last question. I saw this thing on Fox 29 last week, and I'm sure you did, about the CEP girls traveling downtown and on the El.
Yes. They were fighting with the charter school kids with belts and all. They get prosecuted just like they were in school?
Yeah. Well, let me point out that CEP is just not a school that serves students from Philadelphia who have been expelled from their neighborhood high schools. They take private school kids --
Mr. Vallas, let me say, I'm not one of those that are down on CEP. I think CEP does a good job. No matter where you put CEP, there's going to be the students --
Those kids will be 119 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 arrested and they'll be prosecuted. The problem you run into with CEP is, if you've expelled the student to CEP and that student obviously violates CEP's Zero Tolerance policy, where do you expel them to? Where does CEP send its students? But the bottom line is, yeah, they can be subject to arrest and prosecution, obviously. What we do is, if charter schools are having problems with students, even if those students do not come from one of our running administrative schools, we will send support teams out there. Veronica Joyner School had some problems about a year ago with some of the kids from Ben Franklin, and we were able to provide her with some support. She notified us about her problems with CEP, and Dexter has gone out there not only to meet with SEPTA and the police, but also to try to help her basically protect her students. So we've been -- even though CEP is a privately run school, we still take 120 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 responsibility, particularly when CEP students are doing something that impact our public school students or our charter school students.
And I'm sure you know this and everyone here has watched CEP. The problem with CEP students is probably not when they're in school. I'm sure the experts will tell you, and I'm far from it, is getting to school, changing classes, and I know they eliminate most of that, and getting them out of school, that's the problem.
What we're trying to do with our alternative schools program next year is to expand the number of alternative schools so we're decentralizing where the alternative school population is. When you have that many students concentrating in a single building, that creates problems. So as you know, we'll be opening up Miller, which will be a CEP-run school; Boone, which has been taken over by Camelot; Delaware Valley High School has just opened up. There 121 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 are a number of other schools in the pipeline that will be open and will be accepting kids. So we can kind of spread the kids out. What we're also doing with CEP is, we've talked to CEP about setting up some sort of a transportation system so that the students aren't just leaving CEP and then getting on mass transit or then taking SEPTA. We would provide bussing for the students to and from CEP. So we're talking about the possibility of coming up with some sort of bussing solution to help them address some of their problems.
Thank you, Madam Chair. First, Mr. Vallas, real quick. I meant to mention this to you in my opening comments. Over the weekend, we read about the 122 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 great success and performance of the students at Overbrook High School, and there was some recognition for their statewide championship here in Council. I think I was out of town at the time, but I know my colleague, Councilman Ramos, had introduced a resolution. I want to congratulate you and the District. These kinds of performances help to reinforce many of the great things that go on in school that many people who like to talk about public education somehow either miss or overlook or have no awareness of. So congratulations to you and the District for Overbrook High School's success. Mr. Harris, I want to finish and then move on to some other questions. Why don't we try to do it a little quicker. Total revenue at 1.8 billion?
Total obligations at 1.8 also with what appears to be a $7 million deficiency?
Tell me 123 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 very quickly about the 33 and the 19.
The other financing sources net are basically proceeds from the use of Swaption proceeds that we have -- and advanced refundings that we have undertaken this year. The net that you see, the reduction of the reflects basically -- I'm sorry. 10 The other financing uses net would be the 11 comporance (ph) of day care subsidy that we're 12 taking back out of this, leaving us with a 13 fund balance of 131,729. 14
The 20 is a change 17 in reserve. Basically what we're doing is, 18 we're recognizing up top in the non-local tax 19 revenue $25 million from the sale of the buildings. The SRC has requested that this be spread out over five years through the course of the plan, so we're putting 20 of the 25 in reserve, so we're backing that out. And that is generating the $13 million initial deficit that we are working to correct over the next 124 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 couple years.
Did I see in another document that you're spreading out the over four years and taking a positive? 6
Right. 9 Don't go to 39 yet. 10 So on the one hand, you're showing 11 for FY05 a $13 million deficit. On the other 12 hand, you're showing a fund balance positive 13 of $118 million; is that correct? 14
Right. That takes 15 into account the proceeds from the deficit 16 financing that is still -- the fund balance 17 that you see is the proceeds from the deficit 18 financing. And as we work through that, that 19 will obviously come down over the years. What 20 we're trying to do is maintain that as long as possible.
So what's 125 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 the amount that is unspent from the deficit financing from a couple years ago?
And when we go to , what do you anticipate it to be in FY05?
FY05, this year we anticipate using approximately 44 of that and we'll begin the next fiscal year with 131.
That's correct. I don't mean to walk you through the math. I apologize.
That's okay. 126 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262
Our anticipation, though, is that we will not use that deficit financing in the FY05 budget. We expect that -- we are making every effort to attempt to have a balanced budget this year so that we can maintain that 131.7 into the beginning of FY06 and work from there.
And so through FY08, you're showing, which I'm assuming you then start to use, the deficit financing proceeds again for six, seven and eight?
And you then expect to have a fund balance at the end of '08 of $10.2 million positive and in FY09 you're anticipating, without any further intervention, having a negative fund balance of $46 million?
That is our current projection, but, again, with many years and many still unrealized opportunities we believe over the coming weeks and years, our goal is obviously to make that -- erase 127 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 that.
Also, if I can add, we have identified in our projection a number of revenue expenditures we should set, but we have not factored it into the budget yet, in part because they haven't been finalized and one or two or maybe even all of them could become reality. But we feel confident that we're going to be able to make another $13 million adjustment in our bottom line, either from an expenditure reduction or revenue adjustment side. And, of course, if we do that this year and you multiply $13 million over the next four years in terms of base adjustments, what it means is that we would not hit that cliff until 2009 as opposed to 2008. So making that final $13 million adjustment, which we're very confident we're going to be able to do within the next couple of weeks, will defer that cliff, so to speak, until really the end of the year of fiscal year '09 as opposed to fiscal year '08.
Madam 128 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 Chair, I need to make a desperate appeal to the Chair that none of my time gets charged based on the lengthy response from our quite eloquent CEO. I was right on the verge of actually being able to ask another question and he just took my time away.
It's a new strategy picked up from the Administration. I'll come back.
Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Mr. Vallas and Mr. Harris.
Good afternoon, actually. I have a couple of questions, but I 129 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 do want to follow up on some of the questions that my colleagues asked regarding school safety. I think when I read your -- I don't know whether it was in your testimony or whether it's in this little black book that the vice principal of a school is the safety director. That's true?
Right now, no. 11 The goal next year is to have someone designated as being responsible for safety and security and having full responsibility for that. It could be an assistant principal, it could be a Dean of students. It really depends on what the school has available.
Okay. And I want to make some comments on CEP. I attended CEP in March for a program during Women's History Month and I found that audience, who was all females, to be extremely attentive, they participated, they asked lots of questions, and I was quite impressed with the behavior of those students at CEP. I was at another middle school in my 130 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 district a couple weeks ago during an anti-violence assembly in the auditorium and the audience was quite different. So we were really impressed when we left CEP. When I went to Houston, Texas prior to CEP coming here to Philadelphia, there was a delegation of people that went at various times to Houston to look at the CEP program there. One of the things that I thought was important, and I'm glad to hear you say this morning, that you're considering providing transportation for those students to and from school, because that was a large part of what we thought was really good. So I was glad to hear that. And the crisis intervention teams, is that the PanA and -- just who are they?
PanA is included. Well, first of all, we have in-house crisis personnel, but we also contract out with community-based organizations like Pan, the Interfaith participates. I think there is close to about a dozen community groups that provide us with crisis intervention help in 131 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 the individual regions. So it's not limited to Pan. But Pan plays a larger role than most community-based organizations in assisting us in crisis intervention.
I'd like to know who those community-based groups are and what --
Because you know there's a couple schools in my district that really have some safety issues going on here, and other than Pan, I don't know that anybody else has actually interacted with us and our group to deal with some of the issues that we're dealing with there. I do know that the principals and I know there's a lot of parents that are going to the school, one particular school, every day trying to volunteer. So I just want to get more 132 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 information about the District safety initiatives so we can figure out how we can use them to help us when we're dealing with the issues of violence. And in our area, in my area in particular, in the Northwest, it seems like the gangs are starting to resurface, whereas for a while the gangs weren't really a big problem here in Philadelphia. But we keep hearing more and more that this gang or that gang is fighting each other. So that's been a worry for us. So I'd just like to get more information, but I do want to also talk to you about the curriculum as it relates to computer instruction. Can you tell us what they're actually teaching children? When I first came to Council, I used to ask questions about, Around how many computers are actually in a classroom or in a school, does every school have computers. And I know that many schools do have computers, but what is the goal, what is the competency goal and the instruction designed around computer instructions for students at the elementary? 133 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 And the reason I ask that is because I know a lot of young people that just don't know how to use a computer other than to go into the Internet to pull information out, and I think it's important that they know a little bit more than that.
Well, let me make -- very quickly, and I apologize if my answers are a little longer, but sometimes the questions are pretty comprehensive. Our game plan is to incorporate computer training into all of our instructional techniques, particularly at the middle grade and the high school level. In fact, our goal with the incoming freshmen next year is, we want our freshmen when they reach their senior year not only to have a high school diploma, but also to have a computer certification; for example, like a Microsoft Office certification and to have a financial literacy certification. So the objective here is, you get your high school diploma, your computer certification and your financial literacy 134 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 certification. If we accomplish those things, the kids will go on -- will have made a lot of progress. But I'm going to ask Pat to talk specifically in terms of our investment and technology resources into the elementary schools, because if you don't have computers and if you're not wired for the Internet, you can't do too much computer training.
I'll try to answer quickly since I know we're out of time on this question. Specifically, to answer your question about what are children learning, as we've done in developing a core curriculum for both literacy and math, we have developed a core curriculum for technology. This is new for the District. We have developed a curriculum that actually starts at pre-K, goes through 8. We are piloting it this spring and we'll roll out that technology to all of our schools starting in September. We have technology academies in each 135 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 one of our high schools, and as Mr. Vallas said, we are developing a curriculum for the early years of high school. We're looking at a program called the International Computer Driver's License, which is a program that has a full set of skills expectations for our students in the early years. With regard to computers, it varies depending upon the school. We had a very decentralized management of our computer base, so that you had some schools that were more active in installing computers than others. Our average right now is about seven children to one computer. We're looking through the capital program to reduce that ratio so that we have an adequate infrastructure of computers that's equitably distributed among all of our schools, and every one of our classrooms is wired for the Internet. We are expanding our technology infrastructure to actually increase speed. We have our children using the Internet so much that we're actually out of bandwidth. So 136 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 we're expanding that.
That's really good and the District has come a long way, but the children are actually learning actual programs? Because that's really what's needed. Because I've talked to a lot of young people that just really didn't know much about the operation of a computer other than how to research and look something up. Okay. Thank you. I know my time is up.
It's interesting what Councilwoman Miller said about computers. Is there a program where -- it's great that they have access to a computer at school, but once they leave that environment, there's no computer in many cases. 137 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 Is there anything going on that we could eventually hope that our young people that -- they become supportive of computers at school but then when they get home, they're out of business.
We as a school district have found that we cannot afford to buy brand new computers to the extent that we'd like to just even within the school. We have begun a program where we are placing refurbished computers both in our schools and beginning to start placing them in our homes to overcome the digital divide. What a refurbished computer allows us to do is take computers that are in reasonably good shape from our various community partners, large organizations, universities, corporations in the Philadelphia area. We have a consortium of not-for-profit organizations, there are four of them that will take these computers, fix them up, install software licensing on them, and we the School District can purchase them at the not-for-profit's cost, which is approximately 138 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 $150, a considerable savings for a very good device as compared to what it would cost us to buy a brand new computer. We have been able to attract almost 3,000 computers since we began this program last August. We focused first on giving them to our teachers, because we found very many teachers didn't have computers, and if the teachers can't use the computers, it's unlikely that they'll engage the children in doing that as well. But we have a lot of technology that we're placing in the classroom, both for the children but to relieve the administrative burden of the teachers. We've got online report cards. We've got online IEPs. And our secondary effort then is, once we've given them to the teachers, is to start sending them home with our students that are in our high school technology programs to help mom and dad learn to use a computer.
Well, I'd suggest somebody talk to this City Administration, because I understand that 139 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 we're just throwing computers away.
No. I have worked very closely with Diana Neff and her office, and actually, we're working with DHS who is giving us the first round of their computers, which is about 800. We're very excited.
That's a relatively new relationship, because I was told by someone that knows that it was a shame to see what was happening to some of the old computers that were in this government. Thank you. Thank you for that, Madam Chair.
Do you 140 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 know whether the schools managed by Edison -- when Edison was here prior to your coming and we were having Council hearings, they said that one of the things that they do is to give each one of their students a computer. Do you know if Edison group is actually doing that?
No, they haven't, and part of the reason for that, at least as they explained it, is, they did not receive all the money that they had anticipated receiving which would have enabled them to have done that. I'm not making excuses for them, because that arrangement kind of pre-dated me in terms of those negotiations. But while they're bringing technology into the classroom and they're incorporating it into the classroom, I think in an effective way, the Edison children do not have one computer per student. Their ratios is probably similar to ours, about one computer for every seven students.
Actually, they said they were giving them to them to take home. 141 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262
Yes. I want to talk to you about the alternative schools. What kind of curriculum is used in the alternative schools for children who are problem students?
I'm going to ask Gwen Morris to come up. She runs our alternative schools and she can answer.
Also, how long does this child stay in an alternative school? If they show any progress in behavior or whatever the problem is, do they go back or can they go back to the regular neighborhood school?
Well, very quickly, all the students who attend the alternative schools are required to take our 142 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 tests and required to be taught to our standard, so just because they're put in alternative schools, it doesn't mean we don't pay attention to what those schools are doing academically, number one. Number two, the length that students spend in alternative schools depends on the offense. So, for example, if somebody is sent to an alternative school for physically assaulting someone or threatening to kill someone, obviously they're probably going to be in the alternative school forever. On the other hand, if someone is sent to an alternative school for selling drugs or for violating a lesser offense under the Zero Tolerance policy, they may only spend a semester in an alternative school. But go ahead, Gwen.
Good morning. My name is Gwen Morris. All of our alternative school providers must align their instructional program with the School District standards. So they deliver the same curriculum. They 143 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 also administer all of the standardized tests, PSSA, TerraNova. What they do often is supplement that curriculum with individualized computer-assisted instruction. So not only do they have the regular curriculum delivered, but to remediate that youngster's deficits, they will add a computer-assisted program to that youngster's academic program. When youngsters go into alternative schools, depending on the level of the violation, the state law requires if you bring a weapon, you are assigned to an alternative school for no less than one year. But there are quarterly reviews. The students receive report cards and we review those youngsters that are to be restored to the District every quarter to determine if that youngster has met both academic, behavioral and attendance goals, because quite often youngsters may not maintain good attendance if they're assigned to an alternative school.
What supportive services, other than the academic 144 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 curriculum, what other supportive services are in the alternative schools to provide some behavioral or mental health or those kinds of services?
Quite often our alternative schools -- and I'll talk about the privatized ones first -- the student-adult ratio is extremely reduced. So there's typically multiple adult classrooms where there is a behavior support staff assigned to each classroom. In addition, at one of our alternative schools, there is a school-based behavioral health clinic where not only can students but also students' families access services through that clinic, and that was through a collaboration with CBH and with DHS. So there is a behavioral health component. At the Boone School, there was a family center that has a very, very strong social service behavioral health component that we're going to make certain continues even after that building is taken over by another provider. 145 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 So the behavioral health component of their program is addressed and there's support staff that's designed to support those particular parties.
Also, in the coming year with the expansion of the alternative school's network, we're really trying to have schools tailored for specific students, schools that are focused on the more behaviorally disruptive students, where schools that focus on the less behaviorally disruptive students, special programs for disruptive primary grade students. So as we expand the network of alternative schools -- and CEP is a fine model and CEP is going to be taking a second building, which is Miller. But as we bring in more providers like Abraxas and Camelot and others, we'll be able to tailor our alternative school programs to meet the specific needs of that individual student based on that student's behavior and behavioral support needs.
Okay. 146 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 Thank you very much. I have another question. As it relates to the health and welfare of our children, does the School District of Philadelphia have a comprehensive educational program curriculum that focuses on preventive measures; i.e., sexually transmitted disease testing, counseling, HIV/AIDS testing and counseling?
The answer to that is yes. As part of our science curriculum -- as part of our approach to standardize the science curriculum, our family health curriculum is also undergoing a reassessment and a review so that we can upgrade the quality of that curriculum. Also, let me point out that we've also begun, in partnership with the City's Department of Public Health, a testing program, voluntary testing program, to identify students who have chlamydia, gonorrhea, sexually transmitted diseases. And we actually tested 30,000 students last year, and all of those who were identified as positive were actually treated. And that 147 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 program is just not testing. It is accompanied by intensive educational outreach. So when we go out there to test, it's accompanied by a more intensive educational program on the dangers of and preventive measures to avoid sexually transmitted diseases.
Can I follow up? Do you contract with organizations that provide services, and who are some of the organizations that you contract with?
Is Brenda Taylor here? Yes. The answer to that is yes. And Brenda Taylor, who is our Director of Specialized Education Services, can answer that question in terms of the type of organizations that we're working with.
I guess I was asking who is working with the students in terms of education on AIDS, HIV, sexually transmitted diseases and things of that 148 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 nature?
We have organizations that work with us. However, we have a department, our Department of Health Services, Health and Phys Ed Services. Part of the curriculum is, they do AIDS prevention and sexually transmitted disease prevention curriculum within the health and PE programs.
Do you contract with the Health Department or any outside organizations?
But do you have any groups from like Bashe or any of the other --
We work with them. We meet with them on a regular basis. We have committees and groups that really support the effort.
149 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Flipping the coin on teacher quality, if you will. In fall 2000, I had hearings on school uniforms and so I'm curious to know -- I know that the School District wanted to transition into enforcement. So give us an update on where you are with regards to uniforms for children. And then anecdotally I hear from teachers how horrible some of the teachers in our schools dress, how what a poor example that is, and it was affirmed for me this past February when I spoke at the program for the teaching that the PFT has. And I've raised the question about school attire and learned that the PFT does not have a dress code. If we want children to do the right thing, we need to lead by example. So give us your perspective on that and what may need to be done.
Well, first, as you know, the School District does have a 150 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 uniform policy, and the enforcement has not been as aggressive as it should be. Next year, obviously, we're going to be stepping up efforts to enforce the uniform policy, just not in terms of color coordination, but also in terms of size. Because it's great to have a color-coordinated uniform, but if --
-- if it's three sizes too small or three sizes too big, that creates a problem. So as part of our campaign -- and we're going to begin our campaign to raise public awareness and parental awareness and community awareness about the discipline challenges that we face in the schools up a notch. We're actually going to begin the campaign in June. So June, July and August is going to be time spent to focus on the lesser offenses that can sometimes lead to more serious offenses.
Sure. 151 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262
Call it the Broken Glass Theory. If you get the graffiti off the walls and you clean up the broken glass, if you get at the petty crime, the more serious offenses won't come. And a big focus is going to be on proper uniforms, the proper wearing of uniforms, the proper attire. Concerning teachers, we have put on the agenda in our negotiations a request that every school have a policy governing teacher dress. So that the Building Committee in every school is going to be required to come up with a policy, a dress code policy, for the employees in that individual school. So whereas right now there is no 17 policy, all the schools would be required to, in fact, have a policy so we can address the issue of the attire among our professionals.
And I would be remiss not to add, in speaking with those teachers that attended that forum, I was enlightened to remember that gym teachers have to wear what they wear and kindergarten teachers have to dress in such a way where 152 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 they can get on the floor. But in that range, there has to be some consideration for appropriate dress.
I saw an 8th grade teacher the other day, Madam Councilwoman, that I thought was the PE teacher because of the sweats and everything. It was the 8th grade teacher. So the bottom line is, clearly the dress code can improve, and, obviously, that's one of the topics of our current negotiations.
Okay. One final series of questions around the equity piece. There is the teacher equity campaign. I just would like for you to comment on a couple of things. Providing extra incentives, what kinds of things is the School District talking about with regards to providing incentives to help teachers want to remain, experienced teachers, to remain in our high poverty schools?
Right now the School District does have a series of bonuses 153 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 and some incentives to have teachers locate in the more hard-pressed schools. Although the latter incentive is more limited, although the bonus there is available for anyone who obviously -- I think after year three or year four the bonus kicks in. But let me point out that our approach in this new contract negotiations is going to really be focused on providing professional development incentives. So teachers in the system, particularly new teachers and existing teachers, can be provided with heavy professional development subsidies to help encourage retention. Because a lot of teachers who enter the system, the biggest challenge that they face in those initial years, because they're required to take additional courses to achieve full certification, is the cost of paying for college so that they can reach those professional development objectives. So a lot of the focus of our efforts is going to be focused on this area of providing more comprehensive professional 154 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 development subsidies. What that will do is, that will help the teacher from a career standpoint, give them the incentives to stay in the school, because professional development will be subsidized. For us, it will make for a better-equipped, better-prepared teacher.
Hi. Tomas Hanna, Office of Recruitment and Retention. One of the areas we're looking at is how do you attract that teacher who is certified, who potentially has been in a -- let's call the school Baldi 7th grade teacher. How do you attract a teacher to Gillespie, to a hard-to-staff middle school? We do have bonuses on the front end. We have bonuses after about three years. You can collect a bonus, a retention bonus, of $3,000 in your 37th month. What we have yet to do is put together a bonus that would bring that teacher from this school to the school that most needs them. There are bonuses for hard-to-staff positions. So, for example, in special 155 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 education, a teacher who would come in has an opportunity for that bonus. I think one of the challenges that we have is sort of publicizing that a little better. Because there are a number of bonuses in place, but that teacher quality bonus is one we need to look at and maybe restructure the types of bonus we have in place to fund this other potential.
I see. Well, we heard the bell. So I'll get you on the next round. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Vallas, before I ask this question on the capital improvements, could you tell me whom I should be expecting a call from on the Carver School issue?
Yes. Tim Schweitzer will call you, along with Karen Burke, and we'll send out -- no final decision 156 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 has been made, because we have to -- we promised the community we would go back to them and consider their requests that Carver remain at that same site. So I don't want to suggest that the dye was cast. If we build on that site, we can build now as opposed to later, and I do apologize for my --
Tim Schweitzer and Karen Burke or Chris Harris from operations, very quickly, will get to you to talk to you about the options.
All right. In the book that was circulated yesterday on the participation plan on capital improvements, I'm trying to get some clarity on it. In one sentence you reference participation goals of 20 percent MBE and WBE all inclusive, but then you talk about the capital improvement plan has released RFPs with the combined goals of 27 percent and the projected actual combined participation will 157 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 be 32 percent. Give me some clarity on the numbers.
I'm going to ask Karen Burke to come up, who is our Director of Operations, who can actually give you specific numbers on not only what the goals are, but what we've achieved so far.
And if the time runs out as the response proceeds, a follow-up on that, can you break down the participation, the MBE versus WBE and DBE? Because it sometimes can be misleading when you combine them.
Yes, we can, Councilman. I'll be happy to get those numbers back to you. On that figure that's there, by project your MBE/WBE objective or goal out there can vary by project depending on local area dynamics out there. The 20 percent represents sort of in the aggregate -- 158 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262
Well, what it is is that there are certain, if you will, tasks out there or portions of a project that would have more oomph for MBE/WBE development in the project. So when you see the percent, our 10 projects aren't all 20 percent. Sometimes the 11 projects can go to 30 percent, 35 percent. 12 They took an aggregate in the first round of 13 the capital program and said, Okay, the 14 objective was 20 percent. But we've always 15 come in well above that, and I think we owe it 16 to some really good staff and our purchasing 17 department and Kim Sangster that has worked 18 with vendors. And so our vendors find a 19 willingness to come in at a much higher 20 percentage, and that's the difference, Councilman.
Let me ask you a question, because when you said it's the 159 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 local aspect of the participation and you talked about certain, as you use it, oomph, does this mean that in areas where traditionally the ability to get minority participation on a particular job site or particular trade, that you will accept the history of that inability to get minorities because you say that --
No. Kim can address that, of how they do that. And we know time is of the essence to stay with the five minutes, so Kim will answer that one.
Hello. I'm Kim Sangster. I'm the Chief Procurement Officer for the School District. We have a relationship with the City of Philadelphia through their MBEC program for all contracts over $100,000. What we do is, we send the specifications to the City, and that includes construction projects where they will on a case-by-case basis determine what the appropriate M/WBE participation will be. So with each project --
MBEC 160 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 determines that?
Yes, they do. So it will vary from project -- yes, they do.
And that will set the minimum, let me point out. And so far in most cases, we've always exceeded the minimum. For example, the CMs, the construction manager of contracts, which could total as much as $25 million and the MBE/WBE response to that was in the, what was it, the mid 30's, Kim?
Yes. For the construction projects, the participation amounts have been higher than some of our other types of contracts, but they determine on a case-by-case basis what the statistical market of minority and women-owned businesses will show for that particular contract.
And that governs, I want to stress, that governs the minimum of what we award, and so far we've been exceeding numbers and expectations and we will probably continue to do that. We also don't double count. 161 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262
I just want to get a question in. Is the percent 4 participation goal set by MBEC or is that done 5 by the School District? 6
No. That was 7 done internally by the School District as a 8 review of our past performance on M/WBE 9 participation and an analysis of the different 10 types of contracts we have, which include 11 construction, supplies and equipment and 12 professional services. 13
I have to point 17 out, if I can, Mr. Chairman, only because 18 obviously the question deserves a longer 19 answer. 20 Because MBEC kind of sets the floor for these projects individually, the actual aggregate amounts are exceeding 20 percent. For example, what we've been doing on a construction site is like in the low to mid 30's, and we anticipate that number will 162 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 continue. I will tell you, though, we're moving from a district that had like three percent MBE/WBE to -- well, since the start of our programs, I think we're well above the 7 percent in terms of new contracts being 8 awarded. So we're kind of working our way out 9 of a very deep ditch. 10
If you can 11 get me a breakdown on the MBE/WBE versus DBE, 12 that will be extremely helpful. 13
Also, we can 14 provide the Council with a monthly report that 15 I receive on MBE/WBE progress. Sandra Dungee 16 Glenn requests this as part to our monitoring 17 plan, and we'll be more than happy to submit 18 that to you. 19 It lays out what we're awarding by 20 subject area and the MBE/WBE breakdown. I'll make sure Kim submits that, obviously, to you, Councilman Clarke, and to the Chair.
You're welcome. We have been involved, Mr. Vallas, in some meetings with regard to crime in schools and we're happy to continue with that, with Victim Witness Services, DA. So we have a tight system on what we do. Right now sometimes I think we send a zillion people and sometimes we send less, but we're happy to work in that regard. It's one of my areas of interest. Councilman Goode?
Good afternoon, Mr. Vallas. Can you update me on the status of the African-American studies curriculum within the School District?
Yes. 164 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 And I'm going to ask -- if you can come up.
Good afternoon. Mary Lou Fischer, Director of Curriculum representing Cecilia Cannon, the officer for curriculum instruction and professional development. The African-American studies lead position has been filled by Dana King, and right now we are preparing a course in African and African-American studies for all students in the District, standardized for grades K through 5 for next year. That will be a module, if you will, or a unit of study that will go out throughout the school year. There also is development for the high school, and the high school office might better address that. But for the elementary school, we are also including the African and African-American historical and cultural perspectives in all of our social studies and science curriculum throughout the entire curriculum, not something that's added on.
I'll also point 165 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 out that the language arts curriculum is a multi-cultural curriculum. So in establishing the standards and in developing the curriculum instructional models, the emphasis was on multi-culturalism. So in addition to the development of specific courses, not only K through 5, but middle grades and in the high schools, we are integrating Afrocentric studies, as well as other aspects of multi-cultural curriculums into our language arts, into our literature. If you go beyond and you look at the textbooks that we're purchasing, the textbooks that we're purchasing are probably the most multi-cultural textbook selection of any school district in this country. We've actually taken the bold step to actually begin to contract out with minority textbook publishers and providers, so that to give them basically a piece of the pot or a share of the action, so to speak. In fact, just last year our selection of our 8th grade literature textbook received some criticism -- and, incidentally, 166 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 this was a literature textbook of all Afro-American authors -- because of some of the contents of a couple of the stories. So the bottom line is, I think we've gone further I believe than any other school district in the country to not only develop specific courses on Afrocentric studies, on Afro-American history, but also to develop -- to integrate into our curriculum and instructional models and into our curriculum and instructional materials true multi-culturalism in terms of the content.
So you expect that curriculum to be standardized within the next school year?
Well, the language arts curriculum has been standardized. And if you look at the textbook supplements, even, for example, the Hundred Books and the Great Books, we mandated that both the Hundred Books Challenge and the Great Books be multi-cultural. So that the Hundred Books Challenge and the books that they were recommending that the students read and the 167 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 Great Books include multi-culturalism. So the bottom line is, the language arts curriculum has already, in effect, achieved the goals that we set out for. We are developing the independent courses, though, and those are going to be implemented next year, particularly in our high schools. With regards to the social studies curriculum, the social studies curriculum is indeed multi-cultural, not only teaching African-American history but teaching African history as part of world history. That will be introduced into the middle grades next year and into the high schools next year through 11th grade and then from K to 5 the following year. But our task force is multi-cultural and there's been a lot of slugfests as we've been hammering out the standards and things like that, but I'll compare -- I'll give you samples of what we've put out in language arts and social studies, and I think -- we're not satisfying everybody, but I'll tell you, I'll 168 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262 compare the quality of our curriculum with everybody.
Have you given any thought to how you might utilize the African-American Museum to either complement or enrich that curriculum?
Yes. We've actually met with the Museum on a couple of occasions to talk about how we can more effectively coordinate some our efforts. So the answer is yes.
I believe prior to you coming, I don't know if it was when you first came or right before you came, the School District was experiencing a financial crisis. They terminated their financial relationship with the Museum, but the School District actually at one point used to subsidize the membership for public school students to attend the Museum on a regular basis. Do you expect to have any formal relationship with the Museum in terms of getting access for public school students? 169 Whole - 5/11/04 - Bills 040259, 040260, 040262