Committee Hearing, April 5, 2006

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, April 5, 2006 10:25 a.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT ANNA C. VERNA COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILWOMAN BLONDELL REYNOLDS BROWN COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO BILLS 060001, 060002, 060003, 060004, 060006, 060007, 060008, 060014, 060089, 060090 RESOLUTIONS 060019, 060099, 060100, 060119, 060172 - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2

Good morning, everyone. This is the continued public hearing of the Committee of the Whole. Mr. Vallas, would you please approach the witness table. I am told that there were letters that were distributed this morning from your office.

Yes. I can summarize the material that we're circulating in response to the --

That would be fine.

Great. First of all, we're going to be providing Councilman Nutter -- and obviously we're going to make a copy available to the Committee, too -- with the transportation RFP, with directions on the transportation contracts that were awarded. We can't give any information on the bidders or the specific contract award until the School Reform Commission 3 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. has voted for it. We'd be violating disclosure laws on that. But we are going to provide him with everything else. We're also going to be providing a copy of the School Bus Operators Training Manual. We're also going to be circulating a copy of our drop-out testimony before Representative Roebuck's committee. The drop-out testimony explained the issue, talked about the collaborative, identified the problem and the scope of the problem, and then laid out the things that we were doing and that we were recommending. It is very comprehensive, and I think you'll find it -- while it's very comprehensive, it's not a thick presentation. It's one of our more economical presentations, but it's straight and to the point. So we'll circulate that and make that available to the Councilwoman who requested it and to the Committee as a whole.

If 4 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. you don't mind, Mr. Vallas, whatever responses that you're going to be sending in, would you send them to the Chair --

That's automatic.

-- and we'll make certain that they're distributed. Thank you.

Also, two more things, the behavioral supports and enhanced partnerships with the City. We're circulating copies of that. And the John Hopkins report on drop-outs. John Hopkins is going to make that report public on Saturday. We're going to distribute copies, but we're going to ask that those copies be embargoed until Saturday when they have their press conference. This is their report. It's an independent report that we've been a big part of, but it's still just as a courtesy to them. They said we could distribute it, but they do not want it to be made public until Saturday when they have 5 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. their event. We are also finalizing the breakdown that you asked for in that specific line. It's going to take us a just a little longer, but we'll get it to you before the end of the day.

The Chair recognizes Councilman Kenney.

Thank you, Madam President. First, I'd just like to comment or ask you a question on how come you were so wrong on that PIAA thing you did.

Well --

I mean, our kids can't compete today. Why can they?

No. I guess they can't. Let me point out, though, I mentioned yesterday, Councilman Kenney, that not only did we obviously do very well in two categories and the team that finished second actually could have easily competed at the small school 6 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. level, but they went up two levels because they felt their team was more competitive. But that same week, we sent nine Odyssey of the Mind academic decathlon teams to the state finals, and we're sending two of our teams to national competitions in chess. And, of course, there was just something in the paper today about the mock trial, about our successes with mock trials.

So I guess the rest of the state knows who we are now, right?

That's right. And there's talk --

Is that the reason why we lost the million, you 19 think? 20

You know, there's 21 an argument to be made for anonymity. 22 The Archdiocese, of course, has 23 talked about or there's been stories 24 about them contemplating joining the 25 PIAA, too, so we're excited about that. 7 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

On a serious note, I wonder if you could go through a little bit on the $25 million loss and what it means and what's in the works to try to restore it or to try to mitigate the loss and what could we do.

Well, I've been told by leadership in Harrisburg that the $25 million is going to be there and that they're going to work to make sure that it's there. That said and done, let me say that when I was recruited to Philadelphia and I met with representatives from the legislature and I also met with the Governor at the time, Governor Schweiker, no one ever said that a portion of that money was going to be permanent. So this is totally news to us. And Governor Schweiker as recently as two weeks ago had told me that that money was intended to be permanent. So the whole idea that that money was temporary is simply incorrect, 8 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. or at least if it was temporary, it was never communicated to us, certainly not communicated to me. Secondly, I made a commitment when we negotiated with the legislature on how that money would be used, that I would earmark that money for the private partnerships, and that's where the money is going. It's going to the private partnerships.

So do you think that this is an initial kind of posturing and maybe there's a good chance that leadership can kind of get that back in some form?

Yeah. You know, I think it's --

It's not time to panic yet?

I think it's posturing. I mean, people want to put other people on the spot. They want to say, Look, you're giving more money to Philadelphia. And, you know, they want 9 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. to do that to the Governor. They may want to do that to the Speaker, who has always been an advocate for Philadelphia. So I think that that's a part of it. I'll also tell you, a comment was made that, Well, Philadelphia gets 8 percent of the money and they have 13, 14 9 percent of the population. Well, that's 10 what funding formulas are about. They're 11 about earmarking money to the districts 12 that are most in need. I mean, that's 13 what funding formulas are supposed to 14 have elements of equity in them, and the 15 School District has the vast majority 16 of -- I mean, 85 percent of our kids are 17 eligible for the free and reduced school 18 lunch program. Rather than going in and cutting the funding for one district, why don't you raise the funding for all the districts, you see? I mean, districts outside Philadelphia do not benefit when Philadelphia is cut. Simply saying districts who are complaining that 10 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. they're underfunded, you're not going to solve their problem by cutting funding to another district. You solve their problem by doing real school funding reform and providing real and providing meaningful increases in funding. States across the nation are addressing this issue of school funding. Texas is doing it again. New York State is doing it. California is doing it. I mean, we need to do it here.

So at this point now, you believe that your lobbying efforts in Harrisburg are going in the right direction that we don't have to push the panic button and really don't need any type --

Yeah. I think it's early in the process, and I don't think we need to be panicking at this point. I think you have to let the legislature play things out, and sometimes the less said, the better.

If we can 11 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. help, please let us know.

Absolutely.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Councilman. Mr. Vallas, let me ask a question. In terms of after-school programs and expanded after school, we're continuing on with them. I mean, there's no threat that they're being cancelled?

No. Despite the apparent elimination of the federal earmarks, our after-school and summer school programs have been worked into our general budget. And in the past, we used part of the Specter money to fund after-school and summer school programs. We have reprogrammed existing dollars so we can sustain those programs. If we get the Specter earmarks restored, and the Senator is working very hard to restore that money -- he's been responsible for adding $7 billion to the 12 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. health education and human resources budget. If we are able to get additional money, I will use that money for our alternative schools and our transition schools; in other words, our drop-out prevention and drop-out intervention programs. So if that money is available. So the after-school, summer school program money is there. It's in the budget. It's going to remain in the budget regardless of what happens in Harrisburg with the million. And any 14 money that we get from the federal 15 government, if we get the federal 16 earmarks restored, we'll use that money 17 for drop-out prevention and drop-out 18 intervention. 19

Thank 20 you. 21 Councilman Kenney, are you 22 finished? 23

Yes. 24

Thank 25 you very much. 13 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Councilman Rizzo.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

You're welcome.

Good morning again, everyone.

Good morning.

Did I hear yesterday, Mr. Vallas, that -- and maybe your transportation person can come to the table, if necessary. Maybe you can answer the question. Did I hear you say we have 30,000 students that we transport?

Yeah. I think the number was 33,000.

Well, I say this in gest, but it seems some mornings and afternoons that we have a bus for each of the 33,000.

Yeah. We also bus for the parochial and private school kids and we bus for all the charter school 14 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. kids.

The point that I want to make today is that I know that this isn't a science, but it seems to me that something needs to be done, when I look up at a bus at the beginning or midway through their day when there's two or three students on a bus that has the capacity to haul 40 children or more. And I don't know about your own buses, but the ones that we -- if we're paying a vendor to provide a school bus that provides transportation for 40 people and we're putting ten students on the bus, something is wrong with that picture. When can we get to the point where we can size the vehicle -- especially with the cost of fuel, diesel fuel now, and these buses are all diesel. It's starting to skyrocket. I think we need to adjust and adjust quickly. We can't, in my opinion, transport a half a dozen, a dozen students in a vehicle that's probably getting six, seven miles 15 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. to a gallon of diesel fuel when it has the capacity of transporting 40. So I think one of the missions immediately should be that we start supplying vehicles to meet the need rather than one size fits all.

Right. Let me respond, because I've been wrestling with bussing issues for years. When it comes to the general population, you'll rarely find a bus with 35, 40 kids. If you do see a bus with three or four students on it or five or six students, you get that bus number, that driver's license, and you send it to us, and we'll tell you whether or not it's a special education bus or a general population bus. If you see a bus with a more limited number of students, a lot of times we have to bus for IEPs. In fact, we have to bus -- we bus some kids ten miles out of the City for an IEP. There are instances where we have to bus a 16 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. single individual. Now, hopefully they're not a large -- they're in a special ed bus. In some cases, they're in a taxi cab. But the IEPs drive a lot of our bussing, too. When we do our general bus route pick-ups, whether it's public school, parochial and private, there are a number of pick-up routes, and we do the routing so that we can maximize the number of kids on the bus so that we can, in effect, fill the buses so that we can control our costs. But we have to bus thousands of special education kids for their specific IEPs. And a lot of times we cannot mix the general population kids with the special education kids. You see what I mean? So some of those buses may be buses for special ed or special needs kids. But I'm going to ask -- I don't know if you have an additional comment, but I'll be more than happy to give you a 17 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. breakdown of buses and the number of kids who are routed on the bus.

Honestly, I don't need to nit-pick in that detail. All I'm saying --

Good point.

-- as a citizen, when I gested about having one bus for each student, at night you go to some major intersections -- what made me think of this, I was in the Northeast at the intersection five points where all those intersections come together. It's Rising Sun, Cottman. Without exaggeration, I just looked around the intersection. There were a dozen school buses, one at every intersection at that location. It just looked like there was just nothing but school buses. And I looked around and I didn't see one of them that was full. One location there were three in a line. It just seems to me that based on transportation costs today, that we 18 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. need to -- whether we can do it in-house or have to get a consultant involved in reworking. Three or four years ago at this hearing, SEPTA became receptive of working with the School District. I know there are certain restrictions that SEPTA cannot do, but they opened the door a crack to say, Come to us. Maybe they could also be a vendor of school bus services to the School District, because they have the equipment, that they are local, that maybe that could bring down your cost. SEPTA never said no. They said they needed to talk about it. And I asked the people at SEPTA, and they said that there was no conversation with them about potentially transporting some of your students. I understand that there was a time when they were prohibited from doing that. I don't know if anything changed. Maybe they're still not permitted to. 19 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. But, again, they didn't slam the door in my face on that one. They said, Hey, look, we could talk about it. So I don't know whether that would be a value to you to have SEPTA involved in this process.

We can certainly talk to SEPTA again, but let me point out because I don't want -- first of all, all your points are well taken, but I don't want to create any impressions that buses are driving around half full. If you are a general bus for our general bus services, we route specifically to maximize the number of kids on those buses. I know. We meet regularly on transportation, trying to identify additional transportation cost savings, and we've done most of the routing that needs to be done. I will tell you this: Up in the Northeast, that's where we store many of our buses, and a lot of buses after they've done their routes make their way 20 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. to the bus barn on the Shelcroft property in the Northeast. So if you're in Northeast Philadelphia an hour and a half after the school day ends, you're going to see a lot of buses with maybe a handful of kids, because they have multiple routes and they'll be dropping those children out on multiple routes. But that said and done, your point is well taken. We'll get back to you. We'll explore that again.

In all fairness, I think I started my conversation saying that, look, I could have caught it at the end of the run. I could have caught it in the middle. Not really an accurate observation, but all I know is that if we have some areas where we don't fill every seat. To your transportation person, my last question is, there's some media reports recently that seatbelts might be coming and other protective devices for school buses. Are we monitoring that 21 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. very closely? I know it's interesting to me why we still don't have protective restraints in school buses. Where are we with that and would we be permitted to install seatbelts in our buses today or do we have to wait for the legislation?

Right now we're restricted from installing because of the type of seat and fastening devices that need to be in the buses are not in the old buses. So when they pass the legislation -- and, like you said, they talk every year about this, and we attend the national conferences and we do pay close attention to that. When it happens, we'll be ready, and it will probably come in with legislation that new buses will have it and they probably won't do a retrofit just because of the structural devices needed to hold the seatbelts.

Could I ask you to consider this, because from what I 22 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. hear, it's very close to happening: If we buy any new buses, could we buy them so they could be retrofitted, could the anchorage be put in? In other words, could we have a vehicle that would be relatively inexpensive, because I hate to have a vehicle in our fleet that would maybe have a longevity of eight, ten years and we say, Oh, unfortunately, we bought it in 2006 or 7 and we didn't put the anchoring plates in that we need for belts. So even if we don't, I don't think it will be much of an upcharge to have a vehicle that could be retrofitted, or check on the possibility of us being able to put seatbelts in those vehicles even though the legislation doesn't require.

I wanted to mention, in the last three years, we have purchased -- we have about 600 buses. We have purchased 50 small buses now for the routes that you were talking about that only have nine, ten students. So we now 23 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. have 50 of the small buses. And federal law requires those buses to have seatbelts. So all of those 50 out of our 600 do have seatbelts. So the students are becoming used to seeing seatbelts and learning about how to use them.

Great. And, again, my observations are strictly based as a layman, with no knowledge of how it works other than -- and, again, I learned something today. I could be just witnessing that particular intersection as one that all the buses pass through. But it seems we have a tremendous amount of buses. Thank you.

Good point. Just to make a general point about transportation, we spend upwards to $95 million in transportation, and we only get -- we're only reimbursed on the average about one-third. So that scenario, as we look to bring more efficiencies, that scenario, we're 24 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. struggling to get more efficiencies. And I'll tell you, we transport for everybody, everybody. So, I mean, it is a huge financial burden. When you consider that, that's about four percent of the entire budget. So any savings in that area is savings that can go directly into the classroom.

One other area that I think that you could possibly reconsider is that for years, we've been talking about more of a relationship with our Fleet Management people, and we talked about that for many years, and from what I understand, our Fleet Management people have very little interaction with the School District. There were some thoughts that you probably could save a few bucks if our Fleet Management and your fleet people got together in areas of maintenance and areas of part purchases, that that could also drive down your cost. Because Fleet Management was very interested in joining 25 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. hands with you, but, again, I understand from Fleet Management that there was very little movement, if not some resistance, in doing that.

Okay. We'll follow up on that.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.

Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, everyone. Could we please go to of the document that you shared with us, walk through a couple of those items regarding additional savings and efficiencies. The first, with the new teaching hiring bonus being eliminated, please provide the why and what has been the impact.

It's going forward 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. and there's really no impact, in part because we have three applications for every single vacancy. So what we're doing with that six-month bonus is, we're -- there's a three-year bonus of about $3,500. We're actually going to be looking at establishing a single bonus that would cover the teachers in Year 3 and to give the teachers either an option of getting the bonus or actually having their Master's degree paid for. So, in effect, what was the point of giving someone a bonus after five months? I call it the "being there" bonus, particularly when we have more applicants than we have positions for. Rather, let's backload the third year bonus, because we want teachers to be here for two or three years, and then let's give the students the option of either taking the bonus or having their Master's degree subsidized. We're actually negotiating with an institution right now that would, in 27 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. effect, provide -- that would put teachers in an 18-month Master's degree program that would guarantee that they were highly qualified long term, and the cost of that program would not be much more than the cost of the individual bonus.

Okay.

So it's simply kind of a reprogramming and a reprioritizing.

Okay. Thank you for --

Oh, let me also point out, this doesn't affect the -- we still have the hard-to-fill bonuses. So all the schools -- teachers who locate in tough schools are teachers who locate in -- who are teachers who are filling hard-to-fill positions, those bonuses start immediately. Those bonuses impact them the first day on the job. So the only bonuses we're looking at consolidating are those that really went 28 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. for just the general teachers. So rather than do it in the fifth month, we want to make sure that the teachers are here for three years, and then we give them the option of taking the bonus or getting the School District to subsidize their Master's degree. But there's no impact on hard-to-fill positions or at-risk positions, at-risk schools.

Hard to fill are defined as a skill set, like math and science, purely?

That's right. Physics, math and science, ESL, things like that.

All right.

Of course, special ed.

To principals -- let me first say thank you for responding to my letter regarding what I saw as a need for African-American male principals in our schools. Speak to us about the process 29 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. for getting men of color in the pipeline so that you have more teachers who move to leadership as principals to be in our schools.

Sure. Let me make a general comment that this year for the first time, the majority of principals in our system were basically minority principals, and the overwhelming vast majority of our African-American principals or -- well, when I talk about minority, the majority of our principals right now are African-American principals. And the ratio of male to female principals is improving. In other words, we are getting more male principals in. The District has, I don't think, ever had that threshold. On the teaching side, about a third of the teachers in the school system are African-American teachers, and that number has held steady the past couple of years. Let me point out that we are 30 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. recruiting more African-American teachers, higher percentage, but over the last three years, we've had, through early retirements, people leaving the system, taking retirement, taking the early retirement program, we had a large number of teachers leave, and a good percentage of those teachers who left were basically African-American teachers. So I think last year -- What were our recruiting numbers for African-American teachers?

Good morning. Tomas Hanna, Office of Human Resources. Our recruitment of total teachers of color last year was, about 18 percent of the new teachers we brought in 19 were teachers of color. 20

21 Twenty-three percent? 22

Twenty-three 23 percent, that's correct. Which is a number upon which we must improve, and to that end, the District has put forth the 31 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Teacher Diversity Campaign, which we're actually wrapping up and plan to present to Mr. Vallas and to the SRC a series of recommendations that will sort of get us in a better place with regard to sourcing, to marketing the District, to ensuring that these populations that, call them underserved, we've got to do a better job of attracting. What we realize is that many of our future teachers of color are not in colleges of education. That's a challenge. And so we're looking at other opportunities, other sourcing opportunities, where might we find folks who are African-American, who are Latino, who are bilingual, who are Asian. It is a large population. Our District, as you're aware, is about 85 percent students of color, and our teaching population is about 40 percent. So we have to sort of deal with that.

So on 32 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. that, let me just put on the record at the time you deem appropriate, could you please forward some semblance of that report to the Chair --

Sure.

-- so that we could be better informed and hopefully reduce the questions around that? So, again, back to principals. What type of incentives, initiatives, recruitment strategies do you use to get men of color in the pipeline so that they move to leadership?

Well, what we do, let me -- before I answer that question, let me give you a statistic. I think about the most recent statistics I've looked at is, the colleges of education nationwide, I think about ten percent of the teachers that they graduate from the colleges of education are African-American teachers. So the struggle here is going to where the African-American teacher candidates 33 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. are. Even the local universities, if you look at the percentage of teachers that they're graduating from the local colleges, they're embarrassingly low. So we have got to recruit nationally. So one of the things we do when it comes to recruiting new teachers, one of the things that we do when it comes to recruiting new principals is, we simply don't recruit locally. We recruit nationally. We've also begun to subsidize -- we set up a program last year where we subsidized student teachers. We have a student teacher subsidy program. We take student teachers and, in effect, we provide them with a subsidy. We give them pay. But in return, they have to go through all the training that a first-year teacher goes through, 100 hours of professional development training. They also then do extra duties in the schools, and many of 34 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. them work in the after-school and summer school program. This has allowed us to triple the number of student teachers who work in our system in a given year. This has also allowed us to recruit a much broader pool of student teachers and increase the diversity of our student teacher pool. So we think this program alone will help us improve those numbers, because if you have 1,100 student teachers, 1,200 student teachers in your system during the course of the year -- it used to be 300, 350 -- and maybe 250, 300 are basically teachers of color, it gives you a lot of flexibility to recruit those individuals into permanent positions and improve your diversity numbers. Let me speak to principals. Fifty-two percent of our principals, they just gave me the statistics, are African-American. And I think in part it's because three years ago we set up a 35 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. program where we created a Teachers Academy. That Teachers Academy has now evolved into the School District's Leadership Academy, and we just recently received a $4.2 million grant from the Broad Foundation to support that academy. And what we're doing every year is, we are identifying 30 to 40 top principal candidates and we are, in effect, training them, putting them through a year-long training program to train them to be principals. And obviously when we recruit our principal candidates, we have much greater flexibility when it comes to recruiting and advancing our diversity goals, too. So if you would look at our graduating class from the Principals Academy over the last three years, over half of the graduates have been basically minority principal candidates. Most of those principal candidates find their way into principal vacancies in the School District. 36 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. So that has helped us, because, in effect, we're growing our own. We're identifying high-quality teachers, teacher leaders, assistant principals who have great track records, and we're putting them in an intensive training program to train them to be principals. We are certainly recruiting with diversity in mind, and as a result, we have a much broader and more diverse pool when it comes to selecting new leaders for our schools.

Okay. I am encouraged by that, but when we look at the discussion yesterday raised by Councilman Goode on the plight of African-American boys and when we know what research tells us about the need for role models for African-American boys, then the thinking might follow then that there needs to be an added aggressive reach for African-American men leaders so that you have them in the schools to be role models for these boys, because that 37 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. all contributes to their ultimate success or lack thereof. So I'm encouraged to hear about African-American -- the numbers, but my principal question again is, what added strategies are being considered to recruit African-American male principals?

One of the strategies that we're putting forth in the Teacher Diversity Campaign is identifying best practices around the country. You may be aware of the Call Me Mister Program out of South Carolina that --

What is it called?

It's called the Call Me Mister Program in South Carolina and it attracts African-American males into teaching, but with the focus of down the line looking at them as potential leaders in schools. And when you see the report, you'll see that it's based on some of those best practices in terms of 38 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. what we might be able to do in the District. That's one major issue that we're looking at. The second one is, when we look at recruiting teachers from outside the District, we have a program called the Philadelphia Teaching Fellows, and it's a contract with an organization called the New Teacher Project, and built into that contract in fact is a goal of 35 to 40 percent teachers of color being brought in. So we've built that into that contract and understanding that that is a major goal of the District. So those are two major issues. As you asked, we'll forward the report to you with regard to how that's looking. And the Teaching Fellows is an alternative certification program. So all of our alternative certification programs have that goal in mind. Beyond that, there are two other areas. One, we're looking at 39 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. enhancing our work with power professionals. Seventy-six percent of our power professionals are people of color, and we believe that a large number of them are highly qualified already, have an Associate's degree or 60 credits or more, and they're in our schools currently. They understand our District. They understand our City, understand our children. And so we want to build relationships with them. Understand that it's going to take a little while, but they're already with us and it's an area that we want to follow up on. Lastly, the Philadelphia High School Academies, Inc. has an Urban Education Academy and there are a number of these academies in our high schools. So it's not just looking at power professionals. It's also looking at our current high school population and instilling in them the love for teaching and an opportunity to go to college and to come back to Philadelphia and work 40 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. here. We're poised, as these young men and women come out of the programs and go into college, in essence, to offer a job guarantee. If you were a District student and you've gone through this program and you're certified, we're prepared to offer you a position.

Has there been an inventory amongst the African-American male teachers in the school system wherein you could find out which of those want to move to leadership principal positions? Has that kind of inventory taken place?

The inventory is less of an inventory and more us identifying top educators through our principals. And also, the Principals Training Academy is so well known and so popular, top-performing teachers will apply for admissions into the Principals Training Academy. So we have no shortage of 41 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. candidates who want to enter the Principal Academy. So we are literally able to be very selective, and we only select the highest quality candidates with the most potential. Also, the real good news here is, we get a diversity of applicants. So we've been able to enroll in the academy with an eye towards diversity. It's been much easier for us to make our administrators core much more diverse than it has been the rank and file 14 teachers, in part because it's a smaller group. But the bottom line here is, once again, just to point to the leadership statistics -- first of all, diversity of my management team is well known, but among the principals, 52 percent of the principals are African-American and I think over 60 percent of the principals who I have appointed since I've been here, since 2002, are African-American. So we've been experiencing a lot of success in recruiting minority 42 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. educators to positions of leadership in the School District's central office, regional office, at the same time also at the local school level. The greater challenge for us obviously is the rank and file teachers, but I think we've got the programs in place to do that. I think our numbers are going to improve, despite the fact that the colleges of education are not aggressive about recruiting potential teacher candidates for their colleges of education.

There have been some informal discussions about that. Has there been a sit-down with the Deans of the Department of Education in the local universities to respond to this phenomena?

Certainly. We've met with approximately 13 universities to talk about the whole issue with respect to teacher recruitment, and what we're saying to the 43 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. universities is that we really want and value a diverse teaching force, and we're asking them to provide opportunities to somewhat put the finger on the scale to provide some incentives to increase the numbers in the college of education. I think there are two issues. It's not so much around recruitment, but there's an issue around retention of folk, and our efforts have been two-pronged. Not only to recruit, because I think we've cast our net wide with national searches. This year for the first time in many years, we employed an executive search firm to identify quality leaders of color. We are beginning to recruit in places such as NABSE. National Association of Black School Educators is a frequent place we're looking. We've developed partnerships and we continue to develop partnerships with the historically black universities who have that formal alumni network that 44 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. we can certainly reach out to. But the other work is around once we attract folk to the City, how do we keep folk, and we've begun to put in systems. Mr. Vallas and I meet with a group of senior African-American leaders monthly to talk about support systems that we can provide administrators coming in, mentors and things of that nature. So the effort is two-pronged, recruitment as well as retention.

What has been the response, reaction, level of commitment from the college Deans in the local universities?

The world is pulling at them. I mean, the reality of it is that when you look at many universities -- and one that comes to mind is Spellman. When we talked with the folks in Spellman, they graduated 17 educators. Spellman is a very well known liberal arts school in Georgia. And probably what the Deans are telling us in 45 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. places like that, there are probably 200 to 300 school districts that are after those folks. 5 So certainly one of the things 6 we're going to begin, and I think 7 Mr. Hanna spoke to it, is the fact that 8 to grow your own really appears to be the 9 most effective strategy for people coming 10 to the City and staying in the City. I 11 think that's a vital piece. 12

So I need 13 to ask the question again. What has been 14 the reaction, the level of commitment 15 from the Deans of the college of 16 educations of the local universities? 17

Very positive. The state university system has talked about the fact that even constructing a dormitory in Philadelphia which would allow this to be a regional center. Specific conversations with Temple have been very, very positive. St. Joseph's has been very, very positive. So we're very encouraged. 46 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

So positive means what?

That they're willing to work and partner with us to provide, in the critical areas, folk of color by allowing and putting their finger on recruitment efforts for them bringing young people into the college.

Okay.

But I'll tell you this: There are wrestling issues that go far beyond the diversity issues. They're wrestling with accountability issues. They're wrestling with increasing pressure on the part of the United States Department of Education to now require tougher standards for the colleges and universities. I mean, believe me, they're being tugged in multiple directions, too. Plus, many universities have shaken up their own Departments of Education and have made leadership changes in their own Education Department. 47 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. So believe me when I say the best way -- we need to work on a grow-our-own strategy, but ultimately our most effective programs to recruit minority teachers are alternative certification, are programs like Teach America, are programs like the student teacher subsidy program, because that allows us to get a very large pool of teacher students, and the larger the pool, the more diverse that pool is going to be or the larger number of minority teachers you're going to have in that pool. I mean, those are the type of things ultimately that are going to -- and then recruiting nationwide. You know, one of the reasons we've been strengthening our relationship with the United Negro College Fund is so that we can be more effective about recruiting on the campuses of Howard University and other universities, you see? So those are the things 48 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. ultimately that are going to help us improve our numbers. One final point to make, too, is, the introduction of site selection into the School District's union contracts is also, I think, going to have a long-term positive effect on making our teaching core more diverse. Why? Because now teachers can be selected just not based on seniority. And if the majority of your principals are African-American; in other words, the majority of the individuals who are making decisions about teacher selection, and they can make selections based on talent, based on need, based on the need for a talented minority teacher, based on the need to have a male teacher in the school, they're not going to be blocked by rigid seniority rules. They're going to be able to make that decision based on what the best need for the school is. Last year, we recruited how many new teachers through site selection? 49 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

Through site selection, we brought in about 700 new teachers, and I will tell you that during the site selection process, 40 percent of the new teachers who were hired prior to August were in fact teachers of color.

How many were men, men of color?

That data I don't have currently. I can get that for you. That's a good point, though.

There's a big shortage of men.

In all areas, right.

We're talking about we have a shortage of white men, Latino men, African-American men. We're outnumbered.

Of all the arena, there's a shortage of African-American men. All right.

Some people would say that's good. 50 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

It would depend upon who you're talking to. A few years ago, you discussed this innovative out-of-the-box measure where you were recruiting former men in the Armed Services. What's the status, developments, update on that?

You mean besides the fact that many of their tours of duty have been extended? Believe it. I'm not exaggerating. I mean, there's been a lot of retirements that have been postponed or a lot of individuals -- they've referred to it as a back-door draft, where individuals have not been allowed to leave the Service because of the severe shortages. It's called Troops to Teachers, and we're not getting the numbers we'd like.

Is it because of this new reality over there?

That's right. That's right. We think that there's a lot of reasons for that. Part of the 51 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. reason is, tours of duty are being extended. It's not that people are re-upped. It's this back-door draft where people's tours of duty are being extended.

I was excited about that program. Let's move now to student trainees saving 4 million. What will be done to meet the need of the nurse, the psychologist, the bilingual ESOL and other professionals since you're moving -- you're filling them with student trainees; is that what this means?

Well, what we're doing is -- we have shortages in those areas that we've had difficulty filling, and so what we're doing is, we're expanding our apprenticeship program so that we can significantly increase the numbers and address our shortages. For example, counselors, we have a ratio of counselors one to 450, 52 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. one to 500. Incidentally, it used to be one to 1,000. So we would like to hire more counselors, but we don't have the money to hire more counselors. So what we've decided to do is, we've decided to recruit on the college campuses and the various related departments that provide individuals with the counseling training. Our goal this year is to recruit about 150 counselors, and the ability to do that ultimately is going to save us money, as opposed to if we went out and we hired 30 full-time counselors. So we're referring to efficiencies not so much that we're going to replace existing counselors with university counselors, but rather more that we're going to try to increase our numbers by expanding our university intern and apprenticeship programs, thus bringing efficiencies to those. So we're able to take the numbers up a notch, get the ratios down and not incur the cost that we would have 53 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. to incur if we were simply going out there and hiring additional professionals.

And the same, I would imagine, would apply for nurses.

We're doing it in all areas. For example, there's a lot of student nurses. The dental programs here have -- we've been talking to the various dental programs about getting dental services out to our schools. We have a relationship with the Philadelphia College of Optometry, and they work with our nurses to provide eye exams. Now, these are their students providing the eye exams. But we're just not doing vision screenings. We're now doing eye exams. I mean, one of the things that I did in Chicago in '97-'98, I decided to look at the students who had faced retention and to look at their vision problems. Because if I take off my glasses, I can't recognize anybody on 54 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. the floor here, and I didn't find out that I had this horrendous eyesight issue until I was like in 8th grade. So anyway, I decided that I would test all the 8th graders, and we discovered that percent of all the 8th 8 graders who had failed failed their eye 9 exams, not just failed their screening. 10 Thirty percent failed their screening. 11 Two-thirds of the 30 percent ultimately 12 failed their exam. 13 So we decided to embark upon 14 this campaign to give thousands of kids 15 eye exams. And I don't know. To date, 16 we've given probably 6,000, 7,000 kids 17 eye exams, and they actually buy them 18 glasses if they failed their eye exams. 19 We could never do this 20 in-house. We don't have the nurses and the in-house staff to do it. We could not hire the professional ophthalmologist to do it, so we've worked out relationships with the universities. Their students go in and they serve 55 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. their -- they do their medical apprenticeships. They get the experience. They get the training. We, in turn, get the discounted eye examinations. So we're trying to do this with psychologists, counselors, social workers, in addition to the student teachers.

Okay. Madam President, I have many more questions, and yesterday you had the ten-minute rule. So I just have one follow-up question on the eye piece and then I need to participate in this ten-minute round.

So this will be your last question.

Follow-up eye question. The Eagles initiative, is that system-wide?

The Philadelphia Eagle eye -- 56 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

Yes.

Well, it's system-wide in that they go from school to school, but they don't have the resources to address all of our needs.

So is it just elementary schools, then?

No. It's all schools. Brenda is coming. The eye initiative with the College of Optometry is costing us about a half a million. If we did this through the various ophthalmologist professionals, it would probably cost us upwards of $2, $3 million to have those types of exams done.

Good morning.

Good morning.

We actually screened about 170,000 students this past school year, and out of that number, 21,000, a little over 21,000, failed the 57 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. vision screening. And what the Eagle Eye Mobile does, it actually goes out and it follows up with the screening and it actually fits children for glasses.

It's an outstanding program.

Yeah. The College of Optometry also fits children for glasses, not one but two pair so that they have a back-up pair as well. We've served approximately 21,200 students this past year.

Through the glasses. Those are children that we're getting glasses for and who in the past would never get glasses. I was screened every other year when I was in school, but no one ever took me to the eye doctor, and it wasn't like I was neglected at home. I had two parents. I had grandparents who lived with us for about 20 years, and the Eisenharts upstairs who thought we were their kids, too. So we had all sorts of 58 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. parents, but nobody ever took -- no one ever asked the question that, Well, does he have vision problems, is he struggling academically because he has vision problems. So it wasn't until 8th grade that I got my glasses. And now I wear my glasses constantly. So 21,000 kids who would not have glasses have glasses today because not only obviously the Eye Mobile, but also the work of the Philadelphia College of Optometry.

So finally on this issue then, given the number of children that were diagnosed and need glasses, that becomes a one-time saving grace for them. What kind of follow-up is done with parents to help them get it, that young people need to be evaluated every two years, whatever the profession says?

We screen. We screen. We are required by law to screen all the time. So if you screen, you fail 59 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. your screening, we look to see if you have glasses. If you don't have glasses, boom, you're, in effect, provided with an eye exam and you're provided with glasses. So the screening is done all the time. It's just not once-in-a-lifetime screening. We're supposed to screen -- it's an annual screening that we do. So that's helping us. I'll tell you, there was a case two years ago where through the eye exam we discovered that a student had a brain tumor, and we were able to have that student treated and the student was able to recover. The student would have died had it not been for the eye examination. So there are just -- there's some great stories as a result of this effort. But we would never be able to do it if we weren't taking advantage of these university partnerships and if we didn't -- because, once again, I think 60 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. the university system in the Philadelphia metropolitan area is one of its greatest resources.

Indeed.

We didn't have a College of Optometry when we were in Chicago that we could just go to to do this type of partnership. We had to do it with all these individual providers. We had a contract out with groups like Mobile Vision to go in and to do eye exams in individual schools. So we're very fortunate that we have this initiative, and I think Brenda has done a superb job, which we're beginning to try to do the same thing with dentistry. We're making some progress and there's a lot of interest in that. And so now we have this mobile dental program that goes from school to school. They spend about two weeks in the school and they check all the kids' teeth. And so we're moving in that direction. 61 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

Very good. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Miller.

Thank you, Madam President. Good morning, Mr. Vallas and company. I just have a few questions. Mr. Vallas, I can't remember the category of schools. The only thing I can remember is a reconstructed school. But the schools that were low performing and caused the state takeover, what do you call those?

Well, restructured schools.

So I was wondering if any of those schools have progress to the point that the academic performance is progress to the point that maybe the category might change?

Yeah. When the 62 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. state takeover occurred and I arrived, we put some schools under the private managers, the universities incidentally, and then we had a group of schools that we put in the restructured categories. These were like School District-managed failing schools. Many of those; in fact, well over half of those schools that we put in our restructured school category, actually made AYP and they moved out of the restructured school category. Many of the schools taken over by the private managers have in fact made AYP and have moved out of that category of low performing or struggling schools. So all told, we've gone from 19 schools in 2002 making adequate yearly 20 progress, the No Child Left Behind 21 definition for improving schools, to 132 22 schools making adequate yearly progress, and the number of schools making adequate yearly progress two years or more has grown to 108. In fact, it more than 63 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. doubled just last year alone. So the answer to it all is, yes, there are many schools that are no 5 longer in that like lowest performing category and they've moved out.

That's really good to know. Do we have a list of who those schools are?

Absolutely. We could get you that list. We'll submit the list.

Okay. Great. Yesterday and in reviewing your testimony, one of the things you said, and you said something similar today, yesterday I had a question that said what is a highly qualified teacher. What certifies that a person is highly qualified or top performing? Is there a test? Are there evaluations? How do we know who is and who isn't?

There are so many 64 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. definitions.

Tomas Hanna, Office of Human Resources. Highly qualified is a moniker that's been labeled by the federal government under No Child Left Behind. That means a person who is either certified, has passed a test that demonstrates the candidate's proficiency in that subject matter. So they have to have a Bachelor's degree, be certified and have taken some sort of test that determines that they are highly qualified in their content area.

So they could be highly qualified coming in the door?

That is correct.

It has nothing to do with experience, classroom performance, test scores?

Typically full certification is akin to being highly qualified, correct. 65 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

Does that also include top performing? What's top performing? What's a top-performing teacher, which is a term that's been used here by the School District, specifically Mr. Vallas, top-performing teachers?

I think I used the term "highly qualified" synonymously with a top-qualified teacher, highly qualified teacher.

Okay. So now if a teacher comes in with all the certification and the college education and has passed a test and maybe they're not performing, I mean, what happens? How do you know that? Who monitors that?

We have a number of ways in which to monitor. Our biggest -- the way that I think we get at it best is around student effectiveness. We have put together a very strong instructional management system which allows us to take a look at youngsters every six weeks to see if youngsters are 66 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. developing at a pace. Then we put together a series of interventions and supports. Just as we have intervention and supports for students when they're not performing at a level in which they need, we have those same types of interventions for teachers, and they can range in having a mentor teacher or a new teacher coach working with them, to visitations, to even strategic coursework to allow the teacher to make the gains that are necessary for student effectiveness. And eventually certainly on some rare occasions sometimes we just are unable to make those interventions and sometimes we may ask the teacher to leave.

So I guess one day we'll read that we have so many students in Philadelphia schools really performing well. I think that's the goal that we all have. Based on the number of charter 67 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. students, how many Philadelphia public school students do we now have? It's about 225,000?

It varies from day to day, as you can imagine. We're in the neighborhood of 225 to 275, correct.

Okay. And I think that after-school programs really help, not so much the academic programs but also the extracurricular activities. I think it really helps children buy into and feel better about that individual school. So I was really glad -- I did see Germantown High's band out there practicing one day, and we were really shocked. I mean, we parked the car and sat there and watched for a long time, because we thought it was really good. Do you have music instruction in some of the schools other than the bands?

Most definitely. Throughout the region, certainly we don't 68 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. have as much as we'd like. One of the things we've done is began to take a regional perspective with respect to having programs in each region, which allows us to, where we don't have concrete programs in each school, to regionally get together. We have more bands now than we've ever had. We've increased our bands threefold in the last 48 months.

But, Councilwoman, to answer your question about specific music and art programs, yeah, there are music and art programs in the schools. To address the issue of lack of funding, what we've done -- before last year or entering into last year, there were about 40 schools without an art teacher and/or music teacher. So what we did was, we created a number of programs, a number of contract programs. One of those programs was called the Artist and Residency Program. In effect, what we did was, we contracted out with community-based 69 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. organizations, like Germantown School of Music and things like that, and universities. Once again, the university model. What we did was, we would be able to send artists and music teachers to schools, where they would spend about on the average two days a week in that school working on art and music programs. So it was an attempt to make sure that everybody was covered. So if the question is does every elementary school have a full-time, five-day-a-week art teacher and a full-time, five-day-a-week music teacher, the answer is no. But does every school have an art and music teacher at least part time working in that school during the school year? The answer is yes.

Good. And what about the instruments? I know that my daughter when she was in public school and joined -- and she had a music teacher that came a couple times a 70 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. week -- we had to purchase her instrument, which prevented a lot of children from being involved in the instruction.

In addition to the full-time and part-time music teachers in the schools, we have the itinerant teachers, who, incidentally, will spend at least a half a day to a day in every school teaching individual students musical instruments. These are the specialized music teachers. So we still have those. I think there's still about 70 of them who go from school to school. But when it comes to musical instruments, there's no problem there, because we used the sports facility authority money that has been allocated to us to issue what we call a school equity bond, and we've used a portion of that proceeds to purchase art, music and sports equipment. We've purchased, I think, upwards to $2 million in band and musical instruments just in the last 71 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. couple years alone. I can give you an exact number. So what we've told schools is, if you need musical instruments, we'll give them to you. So believe me when I say -- and that's a direct result of the leadership of the Council. Blondell Reynolds Brown, I believe, Councilwoman Brown, that was the initiative you pushed about getting the stadiums to earmark money to schools. We've used that money, obviously supported by the Council as a whole, we've used that proceeds to replenish our equipment. So I'd like to think from an equipment standpoint when it comes to instruments, when it comes to sports equipment, things like that, we're close to being on par with some of our suburban counterparts. We still have shortages in individual schools that may not have a full-time, five-day-a-week music and art teacher, but I think we're making strides 72 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. by having these part-time teachers in the schools.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you.

You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, Mr. Vallas, Ms. Olanipekun-Lewis and Mr. Thornton. First, thank you for the wealth of information that you provided, which I will read through, regarding yesterday's discussion about school buses. And for all of the District employees who spent, I'm sure, the better part of last night trying to put all those materials together, I extend my apologies to you and your families, and hopefully we can still remain friends. I'll get through 73 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. those materials, but I do appreciate the quick turnaround. I had some questions from yesterday and then, of course, some new ones from today. The first is, let me start in the binders that I know one person spent a lot of time putting together, so she'd be very upset if I didn't walk you through all tabs. 11 Tab 9 I believe is health 12 services, student health services. You 13 had already gone through the issue of the 14 vision screenings and the eyeglasses. I 15 commend you for that activity. What I'd like to know is, how many school nurses do we have?

Good morning. We have approximately 300 school nurses. We have a nurse shortage, so we also have a contract of services for our shortage. We service the parochial schools, as well as our public schools, and we staff the parochial schools at one to 1,500 students, and we 74 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. staff --

I'm sorry. That was parochial schools is one to 1,500?

Yes.

Public schools are?

Approximately one to 800 students.

And who provides school nurse services for the charter schools?

They provide their own.

They provide their own services.

Does each charter school have a nurse?

I doubt it. I don't know, but I would assume not.

Well, what's --

Point of information, Madam President. 75 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown for a point of information.

On the issue of charter schools and nurses, who makes the decisions?

Charter schools are public schools.

Right. So who makes the decisions on how a charter school spends its dollars that it receives?

The charter school.

Thank you.

All we can do is hold charter schools accountable for performance.

Academic performance?

Academically or financial performance or if there are issues involving life safety, but we cannot go in and tell charter schools 76 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. that they have to hire a music teacher, an art teacher, that they have to reduce class size. We can't tell them what programs to add. We can't tell them what curriculum to use. They're really independent, autonomous schools. We provide the number. We provide the money. We provide the transportation, but we cannot provide them with -- and we hold them accountable, and that's the limit to what we can do. And the state law is very, very specific; in fact, very restrictive, on our ability to interfere with charters.

Thank you, Councilman Nutter.

Well, okay. But having said all that, I mean, where does this school health program fit in with regard to the general dictates of what you have to have in the school? School health is not an essential service? 77 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

There are state mandates, school health-related mandates, that the state puts down that the charters have to implement; for example, the mandatory vision screening and things like that, the vaccinations, the various exams that are mandated. But we are not supposed to provide those services. The charters are given roughly the same funding allocation that our individual schools have, including the Title 1 and Chapter 1 and discretionary money, and it's really up to them to make a determination how they're going to meet those needs. So the state kind of lays out what their mandates are, like they lay out what our healthcare mandates are, and then it's up to them to implement the mandates. I can't go in, for example, and look at a charter and tell them that they have to do this and this and this on the healthcare side. Our oversight is really restricted to academics and 78 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. financial. Beyond that, the law is pretty clear about our -- and even that, we can't do -- we can only do academics on a year-to-year basis. I can only do financial on an every five-year basis. So our ability to go in and really monitor them and micromanage them is limited. They've got the mandates. The legislature's attitude is, they've got the mandates, they've got the money, now they've got to implement the mandates.

The public school code mandates a certified nurse, one nurse, for every 1,500 students. So they have to follow those guidelines.

Which means if they have 800 students, they may have a part-time nurse.

Let me ask this question: Just in the public school setting, one to 800. We have 300 nurses. Those are School District employees?

We have 278 School 79 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. District-employed nurses and then we had contracted services, but we also provide services for private and parochial schools.

On a contracted basis?

Both. We have both in there. We have public school nurses in there and we have contracted services.

So where does the 278 number come in versus the 300 that you gave me earlier?

The 278 are actually District-hired nurses. Then the balance are contracted services, because we have a shortage of nurses.

So you have people under contract? 21

Yes. 22

And those 300 people are covering -- is the number still 264? Do we still have 264 schools?

Well, public 80 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. school kids here, we have 175,000 public school children and we have -- there's close to 30,000 charter school children. And then I'm not sure how many parochial school children. There are about 264, 265 schools, give or take a few.

Public schools?

Yes, public schools.

So you're covering 264 public schools. How many parochial schools?

I don't want to -- a number comes to my head. I don't want to throw it out because it might be wrong.

So how many days a week does each school have a nurse in the building and for how long?

Some schools have full-time nurses. It's based also on the student population and the need of that population. If there are medically 81 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. fragile students assigned to a particular building or programs with medically fragile students, we may assign a nurse more frequently than others. But every school in the District has at least the part-time service of a nurse. And there's also a plan in place on the day that the nurse is not in the school, the nurse assigned to that school has a back-up plan in place. If she or he needs to get there immediately, they will get there, but there's a health service plan in each school that the building administrator and the health team has access to.

Well, is there ever an occasion where there's not a school nurse in the building?

There are occasions when there's no school nurse in the building. On that occasion, if a medical emergency occurs, there's a back-up plan, and the nurse in the neighboring area is sent for or the nurse 82 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. assigned to that school. What we try to do is assign a nurse to schools in the general vicinity so that he or she can get there immediately.

What's the nature of our relationship with the various nursing schools in Philadelphia and the surrounding counties similar to, I think -- of course, many of our schools have college teachers.

Nursing programs. And we --

College students who are finishing up their education and then they, I guess, either do internships or rotations. They get some --

We have student nurses in our schools now who are working with our nurses on a rotating basis, and we've also been in conversation with Community College with their nurse training program as well.

We've reached out 83 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. and we've been reaching out to really all the colleges of nursing; in fact, all of the universities that have medical colleges, whether it's the College of Dentistry, College of Nursing, et cetera, to in fact get student nurses, get dental students, get physicians who need to do their internships or apprenticeships in our schools. We've been, likewise, reaching out to the university hospitals, because a lot of times the hospitals will have physicians doing their residencies in those hospitals and try to get the individual School District itself, the individual schools, included in those residencies. So we're trying to do the same thing with the medical colleges, the nursing colleges, the dental colleges. We are trying to do the same thing with them that we're trying to do with the student teacher program; in other words, subsidize them to come in, work in our schools and, in effect, expand our ranks. 84 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. We're doing the same thing with musicians. You have a number of colleges and universities here with schools of music, to get the musicians in and to do their apprenticeships or to do their internships with us. So the relationship is improving. I'm not saying we have a relationship with everyone yet, but our goal this year is to dramatically expand the relationships so we can get -- we'd like to have a nurse in our schools. You do run into liability problems when you have -- a student nurse is not like a student teacher, although one would argue that you might have liability problems with a student teacher who is not competent. But you do have liability problems when you bring nurses in and physicians in. They always have to be operating under a supervising nurse. But in a big --

I understand that. I don't think we're 85 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. going to ask them to perform open heart surgery or something, but at least certainly at probably the junior, if not the senior, level. I mean --

They can do a lot of work. They can do a lot of small things.

They probably know enough that they're not going to hurt anybody.

Right. And they can provide the screenings.

And they'll also be smart enough not to go beyond their own level of competency.

Right.

So with all of these partnerships between the people on the payroll and the student support or college students, will you get to the point of being able to put together, for lack of a better term, a roster that allows you to have coverage at each school virtually every day? 86 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

That's our goal. That's our goal.

I got lots of goals.

When you look at a student nurse, you're looking at a person who needs to be supervised. So when you have that person, that person can provide screenings, can man certain health initiatives, but that person needs the back-up of a certified school nurse. So you may have a student nurse at a facility, but that person needs the supervision and the oversight of one of our nurses.

I think one goal that is possible that is not unrealistic is to at least have a full-time nurse or a student nurse on duty just, if for no 21 other reason, coordination purposes, because as Brenda pointed out, there are a lot of basic things that student nurses can do. If the type of intervention is of a more critical nature, you can always 87 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. then contact that fully certified nurse at that neighborhood school. But I think there's enough colleges and universities and medical institutions to at least put the School District in the position where maybe some day in the very near future, within the next couple years, we will have someone in that building five days a week, either a nurse or an apprentice nurse working in that building. I think that's well within the possibility. And in some of the bigger schools where we have a full-time nurse, having a nurse apprentice working under that full-time nurse.

Lastly on this, could you provide to the Chair a list of all of the charter schools and, to the best of your knowledge and information, whether or not a particular school has a nurse as a part of their school health plan. It is a little disturbing, 88 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. notwithstanding whatever the law is and whatever you're allowed to do or not do in accordance with the statute, it seems a little strange that we would allow schools to operate possibly with no plan and -- I mean, I guess at a minimum, as schools go through the charter process -- and I certainly don't mean to tell the SRC how to improve charters or not, but maybe that would just be one of the questions --

Good point. Very good point.

-- up front or upon renewal of the charter, Do you have a nurse, yes or no. 18

It's something we can -- we could add it to the rating, because we grade the charters.

If the answer is no, then tell me why, and how do you plan to provide that kind of service.

We can incorporate 89 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. that into the rating. When we approve charters, the charters are valued by an independent review board and we give them points for the quality of their charter. We can certainly -- and I don't know. It may be in there already. I don't think the nursing thing is. We can have a healthcare component and we can require certain minimal things. I think that's an excellent suggestion.

Thank you.

They're required to provide health services. That's part of the mandate.

What does that mean?

That would mean a nurse, but not necessarily on a full-time basis.

Okay. I think it would be helpful for us to know.

Absolutely.

I guess in the same area, we've talked in the past 90 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. and any number of members here have had concerns about issues of attrition. The District has taken many steps, from the great controversy about sodas to improvements in the food offerings. There have been stories in the paper, and I get infrequent reports about the food offerings from time to time at home. What I want to ask you about now is the issue of either exercise or physical education. How often do students have what any of us -- Mr. Vallas?

I'm looking for Margie Wiesner. Al, come on up.

Your folks are operating at a very high level. They know what they're doing. Even though you can't see them, they are moving around, trying to provide you all of the support services that you might need.

Well, you know, we like to get those answers right away. We 91 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. don't like to say, We'll get back to you tomorrow, because sometimes tomorrow never comes.

They're already anticipating.

Good morning, President Verna, Councilman Nutter. Albert Bichner, Deputy Chief Academic Officer.

He hasn't asked a question yet. Go ahead. We are anticipating the question.

That's a first. Maybe he was looking over my shoulder. He's got the questions already. That's that Al Bichner. For whatever it might be called, whether it's exercise, physical or PE, but commonly referred to as gym, how often do students have gym?

Councilman, health and physical education is a 1.5 credit requirement in the State of 92 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Pennsylvania. Currently at high school levels, students take health and physical education in 9th grade. It is then in other years offered as an elective.

And at the elementary school level, I think they're required to have it one day a week.

That is correct.

One day a week?

That's the state mandate.

Many of the schools are as many as three, depending on staffings there, but a minimum of one in all K-to-8's.

Is that throughout the entire school year?

That's throughout the entire school year, yes.

One day a week?

Minimum as many as three in some buildings. 93 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

Are there any circumstances or situations that you might be aware of that the students may have gym once a week for a certain number of months at a time and then no gym for a while and then it possibly comes back at a later point in time?

I've been made aware of two, and corrective action has been taken on both of those instances where what the particular principal was doing, for example, first market period was gym, it was twice a week. Second marking period, it was nothing. Third marking period was nothing. Come back with two days a week. At the end, the tally came out the same. However, we thought it was important to have that part of the youngster's weekly routine, and it's been corrected in the two instances that I've been made aware of.

Notwithstanding the state requirement, I think we're all aware of a rather 94 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. national phenomenon of childhood obesity. And I know they keep changing these things, but my recollection is, the most recent USDA chart, which I guess used to be a pyramid and might be some other shape by now, seemed to indicate that young people and teenagers should have 30 to 60 minutes of physical activity a day. How does our health and physical education program match up with what the experts are telling us kids should be getting?

It doesn't. I think most schools offer gym about one hour a week. It was interesting, in Illinois, a lot of school superintendents used to complain because PE was required every single day. In fact, PE was required in high school 9 through 12, and Illinois was one of, I think, three or four states that had that mandate. Most states have the one day a week or one period a week or in the high schools have the 9th through maybe the 10th grade 95 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. mandate. So we don't stack up. Now, that begs the question, What would it take for you to stack up? It would take us negotiating a longer school day, because the question is -- we now are spending two hours a day on reading at the primary grade level, 90 minutes on math and 45 minutes on science, and at the middle grade levels, it's an hour and a half reading -- 90 reading, 90 math, 45 minutes in science. And with our curriculum offerings at the high school level, imposing another four-year mandate obviously crowds out some of the other courses. So about the only way to address that issue would be to, in effect, lengthen the day so you could add more instructional time, and that really becomes a collective bargaining issue. What we've tried to do is, we've tried to address that issue through our after-school and extended-day 96 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. program, as we're doing on so many things. We've tried to put gifted and accelerated into all of our schools by doing gifted and accelerated extended day. We've tried to address the issue of English language immersion by doing after-school and extended-day English language immersion to help our ESL population. Most of our after-school programs have one hour of academics, strict academics, and then one hour of enrichment, and sometimes it's recreational, sometimes it's intellectually recreational, like the Odyssey of the Mind Program. So that is about the only way we can address this issue. That, and our Saturday programs. But trying to fit PE in every single day would force us to sacrifice some of our time devoted to the core curriculum mandates.

I understand that, and for the moment, I'm 97 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. certainly not suggesting, notwithstanding what the USDA recommends, that we should have gym every day, but I guess we're now in a situation where somewhere between none after 9th grade and every day, on the other extreme, and I guess I don't really understand if the student is performing at age and on grade, at the age of when students, I think, if I'm 11 remembering biology and physiology, 12 physiology in any way, shape or form -- I 13 mean, they're about to go through 14 probably the greatest physical, mental, physiological changes in their lives. Why we would only require gym or some physical education? Some activity that might help to calm some of the other stuff that's raging through various parts of their bodies just for 9th grade seems a little strange to me, even if it were just for once a week. How many young people are signing up for gym after 9th grade?

I can certainly 98 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. give you those numbers.

Okay. Forget about the state mandate.

You'll get no 6 argument from me, but my response is the same. At the elementary school level, you're restricted by -- your day goes to 3:15, 3:30, depending on the school --

3:19.

-- which is why we're doing extended day. We have extended-day sports and recreation, which is why we're expanding our athletic programs in our middle school, so that there are more extracurricular athletic activities for kids to be involved in. Just, for example, with middle schools alone, we've gone from 152 sport teams in the middle schools to 336 sport teams, and by next year, we'll be at 461. So we're expanding the number of extracurricular athletic activities in the schools. We're doing the same thing with high school athletics. We've gone 99 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. from 473 to 664. Next year, we'll be at 773. So we're trying to address that issue by, in effect, lengthening our day in the form of after-school and extended-day. But I'd love to have a stronger PE mandate, but financial constraints and contractual time constraints force us to provide those services in an extended-day format. So it's a case where I agree with you 100 percent, but the contract and obviously the financial restrictions and the unwillingness to trade off, to do the trade-offs which we would have to do, without any additional resources or, for that matter, without more radical changes to the contract, which would cost us obviously, precludes us from doing it. So we're going to continue to focus on our after-school, extended-day programs and our summer school programs as a way to provide more extracurricular athletic activities. 100 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

Has it always been an elective after 9th grade?

It's always been a mandate. It's always been an elective mandate at the state level.

In general, Councilman Nutter, even with experience in the suburban districts, it's very, very difficult with all the No Child Left Behind mandates and credits and demands on AYP to have electives. It has to be strongly encouraged. And, in general, most school districts run their health and physical education credits in the 9th grade year and, once again, are heavily dependent on electives, and, once again, you have to carve out scheduling time to provide meaningful electives and attractive electives for young people. So, for example, health and weight training, aerobic exercise are some of the electives that you can develop to attract young people to take meaningful courses. 101 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

Well, okay. I mean, it sounds like a bit of the age-old dilemma here of the difference between what's in the kid's interest versus what's in the adult's interest. And I thought for the most part we were trying to do things that were more in the kids' interest.

Let me respond by that's -- we are doing things that are in the kids' interest.

That's not a criticism of you or what you're trying to get done. I'm saying you got time, money, contracts. I mean, these are -- so I put all of those -- those are all the adult issues.

You're right.

That's about adults.

You're right. I agree with you on that.

It's about money. It's about time. It's about how 102 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. I'm going to spend what I do. And you and I have had discussions about the issue of is the tail wagging the dog. I thought this was a system that was set up to educate young people --

Yeah.

-- versus an employment system.

And a lot of the mandates are dictated for reasons other than what's in the best interest of the children. There are a lot of mandates that probably should be changed.

Okay. I'd like to have a fuller discussion. This was already in my notes. But has any independent evaluation been done of comparison over time between the performance of public schools versus charter schools?

Yeah. Every year when we issue our report, our accountability report, we look at the performance of the public schools, the 103 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. privately managed schools and the charter schools, and we actually do comparisons. In fact, the media always asks when we release our test scores and when we release -- and when the state releases its PSSA scores and its AYP schools, they always ask us to actually give them that specific comparison. So, yeah. We've done three-year comparisons on how the District traditional public schools stand up to the privately managed schools and the charter schools, and that is very detailed. There's no mandate. That's where we have a strong mandate over the charters.

This is a District analysis?

Absolutely. Well, it's actually -- on the PSSA, it's the state information. We lay it out for comparative purposes, but the state on the PSSA test scores, it's really their analysis. It's their information. 104 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. On the TerraNovas, we do our own in-house analysis. TerraNova actually puts it out, the TerraNova testing company. We display it in a way so that you can look at comparisons. One other thing is the ARC, which is the Accountability Review Council, independent council, created by the legislature to oversee the School District's performance to look at the School District results and to determine whether or not what the School District is putting out is legitimate. They've now done a two-year analysis of the School District. They are actually gearing up to do a comprehensive analysis of EMO schools and the charter schools, an analysis that they're going to complete in the coming year. So that will be the first, what I call, forensic analysis of how charters are doing vis-a-vis the public -- they'll go beyond the test scores. This is an examination of charter school and privately managed 105 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. school performance beyond the test scores. And then, finally, there have been some independent studies that have been done on the performance of these so-called EMOs by Research for Action and by the Rand Corporation, et cetera, where they've looked at the EMOs and they've looked at the EMO performance. Rand, I think, was actually financed by Edison. So you can make your determination as to whether or not that's an analysis you want to be making referral to, although Rand does have a very, very good reputation. But Research for Action has done their own analysis or they've done their own study into EMOs.

And do you agree with their analysis?

By and large, I do. I do. And if I can characterize their analysis -- well, even the analysis done by Rand, which is a more intensive, 106 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. deeper analysis, I think the EMOs have -- they have not performed as well as District schools as a whole, but their test scores have not been far below that of the District's. I'll also point out that the charters have done well in aggregate both on the PSSAs and the TerraNovas, and while the charters have not performed as well as District schools, there are many individual charters that have performed as well and, in some cases, better than District schools, while there's many charters that have performed far worse than District schools. I will tell you this, though: All the EMO schools, Councilman, and all the charter schools have outperformed the state in terms of the overall growth. So the growth among public schools, charter schools, privately managed schools, it's close. The public schools have performed the best in aggregate, the EMOs second, the charter schools first. But the 107 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. aggregate growth in test scores on PSSA and TerraNova in all three categories has been very, very solid, and in all three categories, we have outperformed the state. So, by and large, I'm generally satisfied with the progress that has been made on the part of most of the EMO-run schools. And I'm a supporter of charters, and there are clearly a large number of charters that are doing very well. There's a significant number of charters that are not doing so well either, and obviously that day of reckoning will come when the charters come before the School Reform Commission for renewal.

Okay. Madam Chair, what I'd like to do is, I have four questions, which I'd like to put on the record, to which I do not need an answer at this moment. But between our own record-keeping and the tremendous resources of Mr. Vallas and 108 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. his team, what I'd like to ask is if they could just get back to me, forward the answers back to the Chair. This will be very painful for you, Mr. Vallas, but I'm going to ask these questions, and if I could rely on Ms. Lewis next to you to restrain you, I do not want you to attempt to respond. Okay. The first is regarding the high school reform agenda. I'd like to get a better sense of what the plan is for our overall high school reform. In specifics, I'd like to get better information about issues of safety, the relevance of the current high school curriculum to what's going on in the workforce, where the job growth is or where we anticipate it to be. School culture issues, just how are students functioning in the school environment. You have plans for smaller high schools. I'd like to know how that's going, as well as promotion policies. Have there been any changes in promotion policy and 109 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. what are we doing with students who are reaching plus and are still in school. 4 Second, how is the high school 5 reform agenda in line with the Governor's 6 commission on college and career success 7 and, of course, the 720 project and the 8 like, college and career preparedness and 9 awareness opportunities for going to 10 college or being ready for the workforce. 11 The third question is around 12 the budget for high schools specifically. 13 How is your funding in concert with the 14 kinds of reforms that you're trying to 15 make, where do you have the dollars to do 16 what you need to do and where there are 17 shortfalls. 18 You have an Office of College and Career Awareness. I'd like to know specifically what their budget is, how many people, and what the impact is in relationship to the high school reform agenda. There's a section in this book tabbed 5, the extended learning 110 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. opportunities. I'd like to know what the costs or funding levels are for each of those items for this year and anything that you know you're expecting to get for the future, as well as your funding for the smaller high school initiative. Lastly, facilities and capital improvements. I've had a briefing with you about schools in my Councilmanic District, but I'm particularly interested in the science area. I'd like to know about the condition of laboratories. It is my understanding that some of the schools may not have fully functioning labs. I'd like to get an update on what's going on with those. And your evaluation of when you're able to implement fully the capital improvement program, what the status of our infrastructure will be. That's it. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

You're welcome. 111 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. I know that Councilman Rizzo has been anxiously awaiting his turn, but I do have, Councilman, just two questions I would like to ask. I haven't had my turn yet today. Mr. Vallas, on the budget detail, , the graph on employee benefits jumps from 30.4 percent in FY05 to 42.9 percent in FY06. Can you explain how this increase by 12.5 percent is -- how could that be in one year?

Wayne Harris, Budget Director. There's three things happening that drive that jump. The first one is that we, unlike the City of Philadelphia, we do not run our own pension plan. We're part of the Piecers Plan through the state. They tell us what the rate must be, and we pay in the employer's share directly to them. That jumps from 4.69 percent to 6.46 percent in one year, and that's a fairly significant jump. The other two things that are 112 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. driving the jump is that our salaries are basically growing at three percent. We have annual three percent raises, but our healthcare costs are jumping at 6 percent, because we have a 12 percent 7 Independence Blue Cross cap on our 8 contract. And as part of our contracts 9 with almost all of our unions, we have an 10 11 or an 11 and a half percent increase 11 for dental, optical and prescription. 12 So those are those costs. Plus, in FY05, we had sort of a slightly one-time benefit of suppression of the costs, because as part of the contract negotiations with the PFT, we received a six percent pre-payment discount with Independence Blue Cross that lowered our healthcare costs radically, and we also -- actually, they rolled back the cost of the healthcare when the contract was signed in late October or early November. So it's something of a combination of an artificially low number 113 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. in '05 and then a return to usual in '06.

But according to the information presented, it would appear that the largest increase is because of workers' comp.

Yes. That's another point. The workers' comp number is the result of a bond issue that we issued. We issued a $20 million bond issue in Fiscal Year '05. That is not for normal workers' comp costs, but it has to flow through our budget. That's what the accountants make us do. So $5.7 million was paid out --

They're settlements.

Right -- (continued) in '05 and 14.3 million will be paid out in '06 in order to settle with people who have been on workers' comp for a very long time. I believe we refer to them as aged accounts. And so what that does is, it lowers our ongoing workers' comp costs by more than two and 114 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. a half million dollars a year, which is significantly more than the cost of the bonds, which is why we did it, but it creates a slightly artificial look.

It's over $29 million estimated. I think if you look at .

No, but that $29 million is made up of two pieces. It's made up of a 14.3 million of extraordinary payouts from the bond and then the remainder, which would be in the neighborhood of 15.2 million, is the regular workers' comp that we're paying out to people who are on workers' compensation on a regular basis.

See, what we did was, we issued a bond to, in effect, get people to have settlements, to get people off our workmen's comp roll. We're doing about $14 million in payouts in settlements. The cost of the $14 million bond is -- I don't know. What is it, 2 million a year or something like that? 115 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

I think it's less.

It's less than that. The annual debt service of that bond is, I don't know, a million and a half, 2 million a year, but in return, we're knocking significant numbers of people off our workmen's comp rolls. I think the average annualized savings is about 5.5 million a year and growing. Overall, we've been able to reduce our workmen's comp expenditures actually by about, in terms of getting people off the rolls, by about $7 million. Our goal is to reduce our expenditures by about 10 million. In the meantime, though, at least during the initial years of this, we are paying off people -- we're paying off people, that's the wrong word to say. We are basically paying -- we're doing settlements. Some of these settlements are sometimes $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, sometimes more. But the bottom line here is -- and I can submit to the Chair or I can submit 116 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. to the Council President's office the analysis of our workmen's comp claim settlements, and I think you'll see that we're realizing significant savings. We're almost where we've projected, but this big jump in that line is due specifically to these settlements.

Thank you. Also, can you summarize the stadium agreement revenues you received, and why are the funds doubling in FY07? And I am looking at . Apparently in FY06, it was 1.1 million. In FY07, it would be 2.9 million.

Right. There are, I believe, three different stadiums that are involved in the agreement through -- it was obviously through City Council getting this for us, and I think that what happened is that the first one to come online was the Wachovia Center, and that's the 1.1 million. And the Lincoln Financial Field and the Citizens Bank 117 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Park agreements just kick in, and that's why the jump in the amount happened. So you go from having one stadium agreement to three.

Why would it be just this year? Hasn't Citizens Park been open for three years now?

It's the way the agreements were structured, is my understanding, that each one -- each of the agreements had a year specific in which we would receive the portion of the pilot payment to the School District. They did not all kick in on the same year, according to the way the agreements were structured.

Would that be an indefinite --

It is. It is. And it's indefinite because we did -- it's part of the agreement. And that's why we were able to successfully bond offer, because it is an indefinite 118 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. agreement. Last year, we issued a $30 million bond, for which the proceeds we used went to all of athletic supplies.

Athletic, music, our supersites, our gyms. It was the reference that I made to Councilwoman Brown's Council-wide initiative.

I was questioning the increase, because it's quite a bit of money. Councilman Rizzo, I thank you for giving me the opportunity.

You're the boss.

It's your turn.

Mr. Vallas, I'm not suggesting that this is your responsibility, but occasionally I talk to people, especially in the business community, that people come from high school and they don't have some of the basic skills. I'm not talking about the 119 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. arithmetic, the writing and all the other academics, but some of the basic stuff. Years ago, I understand there was a program, there was a relationship with a bank that bankers came into the school -- and I understand there may be something with Wachovia in this area -- where young people are disciplined and they get a checking account, they learn how to write a check, they learn how to do some of the things that prepare them for the work world. A few years ago, we discussed and had some banks interested in and gave it to the School District. And I ran into one of those people, and they said to me they never had heard a word back from the School District. Because they wanted to come in and even possibly open accounts for some of the students, match the deposits that they make into the accounts. I'm wondering if you could brief me or one of your staff tell me, do we have something that resembles what 120 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. I've just described in the School District, and, if not, couldn't we do something in the District to again prepare some of our graduates for the real world and the very basic thing? I know we're getting away from check-writing. We're doing a lot of things electronically, but even if it's electronics, if it's the computer programs that teach them how to manage money online or write a check. Because I know that there are many banking institutions in this region that would love to partner with you and be able to come to the various schools, especially when young people, maybe in their freshman year, by the time they graduate with a program, they'd have a few bucks in their pocket and the ability to manage that money. Maybe you can tell me, is there something going on? Does Wachovia have some relationship?

I remember meeting 121 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. with Wachovia on this initiative. Let me point out that the new high school graduation requirements not only require obviously meeting the state standards for graduation, but we also now require that students have a technology certification. It could be like Microsoft Office or the International Driver's License. We are also requiring what we call our version of a financial literacy certification, which means that when students graduate, they have to have gone through a financial literacy program. For example, the stock market game. All the 12th graders right now, in social studies, they go through the stock market game. And it's just not to teach the stock market, it's to teach financial literacy. Merrill Lynch has been pushing the stock market game nationally. It's generated a lot of publicity. So what we're trying to do with our high school kids is, when they graduate, we want them to have the 122 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. following things: We want them to have a state-recognized diploma, meaning all the state standards, hopefully quality AP courses, things like that, so when the university looks at the transcript, they go, Oh, yeah, that's college AP, that's not some local invented gift program. Number two, we want all the students to have a technology certification, preferably the International Driver's License, which is recognized everywhere, ICDL. Third, we want them to have a financial literacy certification; in other words, have been through a financial literacy program so they know about savings, investments, mortgages, things like that. There's a specific comprehensive curriculum for that. Fourth, we want them to have their driver's license, which is why we've dramatically expanded driver's ed. We haven't brought driver's ed to all the schools, but all the kids can participate 123 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. in a driver's ed program. We have Saturday driver's ed throughout the year at a growing number of sites. And, fifth, we want them if they're years old to be registered to 7 vote, which is why we have our voter 8 registration campaign, where the 9 objective is to register every 10 18-year-old. 11 Those are the five things. 12 Does that mean every single student this 13 year is going to have all five things? 14 No. Does this mean every single incoming 15 freshman and sophomore by the time they 16 graduate in three years and in two years 17 will have that? The answer is yes. 18 Because we began to impose these mandates -- we've imposed these mandates over the last two years for the incoming freshmen. So we're doing the very things we're talking about. I'm particularly obsessed with the financial literacy thing, because I think the financial -- our children don't 124 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. know how to save. They have no sense of basic finances. So you're right on target. It is a critical thing. I remember when I met with the Wachovia people, I actually hooked them up with, prior to Al's arrival, with Craig Williams, and I encouraged Craig to include them with the Merrill Lynch stock market program. And there's actually two other programs we're working at in the schools. So we're looking at doing that. At the middle grade level, we're looking at doing something at the middle grades level. There are some models out there for middle grade instruction. It's kind of a take-off of the whole micro society model. So we're not there yet, but we'd like to do something similar to middle grades.

I assure you that the banking community in this City would love to support a program that would at the -- the educational 125 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. professionals are the ones that would have to decide. At what point, like you just said, the middle school -- which we're not going to have soon, right?

Savings accounts, 6th, 7th and 8th grade.

Exactly. Can you imagine an institution -- and one of the interesting things, why they have such appeal, one of the things that people don't change a lot in their lifetime is their banking relationship. So if they get them young and they match some of the deposits that they make, those young people will have a loyalty to that institution. And, again, the statistics show -- and, I mean, I look at myself. I haven't changed my bank since I think my first account, I was 13, and I still have it. So I would love to --

Absolutely.

-- revisit 126 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. this issue.

We will.

Talk to the Bank of America, talk to again Wachovia, because I believe -- I'm trying to think of the gentleman's name with Wachovia that does this.

Don Scott.

Don Scott, with the business relationship with the City. So I'd like to get that back on track, because I think it would be good for our local banks and also for a young person. Because I was just talking about this yesterday, and believe it or not, I went back and I found my passbook that I still have. I never tossed it as a young person when I first opened it, and then they went away. The other issue -- and I'll get with whoever you think is the appropriate person on getting that.

We'll follow through on the banking issue. There's a 127 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. program out of New York that I just read about in the New York Times -- or New York Post the other day where these banks will open accounts for children as small as $5, $10, and then the parents actually give them the first $10, they give them a couple dollars a month. There's some very good models out there. So we'll move beyond the financial literacy thing and we'll approach the banks again, and I'll give you a status report. And we certainly can do more with the financial institutions in town.

Terrific. The last thing that I would like to -- and I stick to my ten minutes. Could you bring us current on GAMP? I know that recently I've gotten some communications that there were some budget -- and since this is what we're here about, the budget. Is everything back on track with GAMP?

What happened at 128 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. GAMP, because the Council President asked me the very same question yesterday --

Oh, I'm sorry.

No, no. Very quickly, the answer to GAMP is, we went out to bid on GAMP and the bid came in about $6 million, $7 million higher than had been projected. We've made a slight adjustment in that bid that I don't think really undermines the project, but there was one provider -- it was the case of the steel. You had to be a certified steel erector to, in effect -- this was not a mandate. This was in the RFP. You had to be a certified steel erector as part of the RFP compliance. Well, apparently we discovered there's only one like certified steel erector, I don't know, in the metropolitan area or in the state. So he figured, I've got a monopoly, I'm going to charge the District whatever the heck I want to charge the District. 129 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. We went back and we changed that, and believe me, it's not in any way jeopardizing the quality of the project, and we removed that certified steel erector provision. And that, in itself, will save us how much? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Roughly a million is the estimate.

So there were little items like that where we went in and we modified the bid somewhat. I don't believe that the -- we're not going to change the substance of the project. And when are we supposed to get the bids back? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We're supposed to advertise in May.

Well, I'll read the transcript. I apologize. Rarely I duck out of here, but I must have ducked out yesterday when that question was asked. So I apologize for 130 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. having --

We are getting some -- because there's so much construction going on in the City, it's kind of a sellers' market now, and so we are experiencing some cases where the bids are coming in higher than we had projected. If they come in too high, we'll go out and we'll rebid. We think GAMP was too high. We think some of the responses were not serious responses. We know we're probably going to still pay more, but we're not going to undermine the substance of the addition.

So GAMP, in a nutshell, GAMP is on track?

Well, if we are able to break ground on GAMP before the end of the summer, we will have GAMP -- it will take how many years construction? Two years? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: It will take roughly 20 months for construction.

So we're talking 131 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. about '08, September of '08.

That's terrific. And in the event I don't have an opportunity to discuss issues with you, the one really from yesterday that I really want to stay on track with is the fact that -- I thought about this all night. The City trying to charge you the market value for the buildings, the land for where you want to build schools, I think is not an appropriate thing, and I'd like us to stay on that. And whatever we can do -- I'm sure I can speak for my colleagues, Council, myself -- to help resolve this issue, because I think it puts a burden on you that's unnecessary.

We'll give you the details.

Would you keep us posted on that?

We'll give you the details on all those outstanding issues. We'll submit it to you. We'll submit it 132 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. to the Council President for distribution.

Great. I appreciate that. Thank you, Madam President. Eight minutes and ten seconds.

We're timing you. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Blackwell.

Thank you, Madam President. I'm aware and support all our transitional programs. Would you repeat to me what you said about -- because truancy is not a simple issue anymore. I guess it's tied to the attendance model. How do you determine it? And certainly truancy and drop-out rates, I was just reading through a student notebook from '05 where they talked about students who are not in school and who haven't formally dropped out. But how do we deal with the 133 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. term "truancy" in schools today? I'm sure it's tied to public school, and how do we deal with that outreach?

I've been neglectful on this. We were supposed to have a breakdown of what the process is for determining -- my truancy person isn't here. She should have been here. I'll give you --

You can get back to the Chair and then we can --

Let me get back to you on that. Again, someone isn't declared truant unless they have, I believe, been absent from school for something like six consecutive days, or it's six days unexcused, then they become truant. But let me give you the sequence. In fact, I'll try to get you the sequence before the close of questioning today, and then we can certainly read it into the record.

And 134 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. truancy versus drop-out rates, how we know when it starts.

Absolutely. We'll get you those numbers.

And whether or not we have truant officers.

Okay. Because that question was asked, I think, twice yesterday, and I should have had an answer on that.

That's all right. As the President says, if we have them and if we do, how many and how they're distributed.

We do. Just for my team, we need to, number one, get the steps by which -- in other words, when is a parent called at home, when is the home visited and when is someone declared a truant and when do we go to Family Court. And then we'll also get you the statistics, because someone else asked us about the percentage increase or decrease in the truancy rate. We'll get you the 135 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. attendance over the last three or four years and we'll get you truancy rates. I'll try to get them to you before the afternoon.

Thank you. And that ties into the whole issue of community court. We know we have community court, and I don't know your relationship to that, if you all participate in that or if it's just the court process, and just where all that stuff starts and stops when it comes to attendance.

We deal with Family Court, and Family Court has a roving court that holds truancy hearings in the individual community, and I believe we're still subsidizing that.

Correct.

So we work obviously very closely with Family Court. We actually have an office over in Family Court so that we could coordinate our efforts. And then, of course, we have 136 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. this roving court that goes into the communities and holds truancy hearings, and I think --

That's probably community court. They had a meeting on a Friday, but they invited me to it. I know Judge Panepinto. Panepinto used to be involved. I know Judge Dougherty and Dumas are involved in a lot of these youth issues. So maybe you can direct us.

Absolutely. We can get you the details on that.

Thank you.

We do subsidize that.

Thank you.

Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.

Thank you, 137 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. Madam President. A couple remaining items. If you do not have it today, please forward to the Chair the progress that's been made with regards to the provision of art and music teachers and what's outstanding, particularly in the elementary school level.

Sure.

Again, looking at research where it says if you capture their attention early in those areas, it just helps in so many other ways later on down the line. Secondly, a number of questions were posed to the Streets Commissioner regarding the proposed allocation from Congressman Fattah for installation of school traffic lights, and from what I understand, because those dollars are not in hand, either the School District or the Streets Department cannot proceed with the installation of lights with the next schools that are on the list. 138 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

We'll try to give you an update on that, too.

Please. And --

We provided a million dollars in capital dollars for those traffic lights, I believe, last year. So we at least put some money. And they're done. Can we give her a status report now on the traffic lights?

Please.

Or do you need to get the information?

You can forward it.

We'll forward it to you.

And then, finally, we are scheduled to have another hearing on Wireless Philadelphia and EarthLink come April 20th.

Great.

So we 139 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. don't want to miss the opportunity for the School District to provide to the Chair specifics about how --

The classroom modernization.

Exactly. So if you could provide the details, that helps us going forward.

Absolutely. We'll be prepared, if you'd like, we'll be prepared to make a very brief presentation on the classroom modernization and show you a physical model of what the classroom will look like.

Okay.

We'll get that to you ahead of time, and then you can decide whether or not you want us just to submit it to the group or make a formal presentation on April 20th. We have April 20th? Okay. Pat Renzulli, our Director of Technology. 140 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

Finally, we know that the School District has been a leader with regards to MBE/WBE participation. My question is, what are the call-back provisions for prime contractors of professional firms who don't get it and don't honor up to the agreements they make with the subs?

I'm going to ask Kim Sangster from Contracts and Procurement. I will tell you this: Just very quickly, if they don't honor those provisions, they're barred from future business. So that can be a disqualification for future business, not to mention the fact that we're just not going to allow them to complete the project without pressing them to respond. So it's a zero tolerance policy. It's the same thing with -- as you know, we're very aggressive about hiring firms, and we have a Small Contractors Program. Likewise, if 141 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. someone comes in and they're not paying prevailing wage, they can be barred from getting future work, too. But if you indulge us a few minutes, I'll ask Kim to give you an update.

Thank you.

Kimberly Sangster, Procurement Services.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Councilwoman. In terms of the MBE program at the School District of Philadelphia, we consistently over the past three years have had over percent participation in 18 our contracts. 19 In terms of contract 20 compliance, that is one of our highest priorities right now, and we have implemented various tools to assist us in contract compliance. We have asked our contractors to report on a monthly basis the levels of participation and dollar 142 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. values that have been awarded to the contractors. We also have implemented a mechanism for us to evaluate by contacting our contractors on a regular basis to see if the performance levels of those contracts have been satisfactory. We do have sanctions in our policies and procedures in the event that contractors don't comply. We can de-bar the vendors from participating further in contracts. We can also withhold payment from those vendors until they comply with the contract provisions, as they have made commitments to the District. We can also issue warning letters to them. So we have different tools that we've been using so far, but with any effort, there are some challenges that we've encountered with some of our contractors. So we have to use an extra effort on occasion to get our contractors to comply and understand the responsibilities that they have for our 143 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. program. In terms of our construction program, that's going very well. We're over 30 percent participation right now with our contracts. Part of that was a result of the Small Contractors Program that was initiated this past summer in conjunction with the Finance Office, Design and Construction, Risk Management and Procurement, where we were able to award 55 contracts to various small minority and women-owned businesses in the tune of over $3 million for maintenance and repair of our schools. That project was on time and under budget and really is serving as a model for continued progress in terms of participation of our small and minority and women-owned contractors in the City of Philadelphia.

Thank you very much for your testimony. That also serves as a model that is possible for other City agencies sometimes, where we 144 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. get a different kind of feedback on the results. So I thank you for your testimony. Mr. Vallas, I thank you and your team of professionals for all that you're doing on behalf of our City's children. Thank you, Madam President.

You're welcome. Thank you. Any other questions? (No response.)

Seeing none, the Committee will stand in recess until 1:45, at which time we will have public testimony. And, Mr. Vallas, if you are personally unable to be here, I would ask that someone from your office be here so that questions could be answered.

We will be well staffed. We will have a number of people here.

Thank 145 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. you so much. See you then. (Short recess.)

Good afternoon, everyone. The Committee of the Whole is now reconvened. Our first witness will be Shelly Yanoff. Good afternoon. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.

Good afternoon. I'm Shelly Yanoff and I am Executive Director of the region's major child advocacy organization, Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth, and I've been testifying on behalf of the region's children to you and to the leadership of the School District for a very long time.

Yes, indeed.

I am pleased to note the many improvements that the School District has discussed with you earlier. For the fourth year in a row, 146 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. the budget, if the state does what it should do, is balanced and student test scores are showing improvements. For the first time in decades, there is actually a capital program that promises to replace some buildings that should have been replaced long ago and to fix up others that have been crying out to be repaired. For the first time in years, we have few vacancies and many more certified and qualified faculty members throughout the District. We celebrate these and other advances. Beginning at the beginning, our schools have more effective early childhood programs and are embarking on important connections with parents of young children. The District has been providing after-school and summer school supports for many students and has established, in collaboration with the City, a variety of behavioral health programs for young as well as middle and high school students who need them. We 147 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. are pleased to learn of the promise of new climate managers and teacher coachers in high schools and believe they can help create improved learning environments and new possibilities for students. We commend the expanded educational options for young people at risk of dropping out, but here, as elsewhere in the budget, we need to do much more. There's a waiting list for these programs, and the City's future depends on our being better able to respond to the needs of thousands of these young people. We urge the City and the School District to share your resources and work together on this critical issue. We applaud many of the new programs, starting real partnerships between colleges and high schools, creating international baccalaureate and other spectacular high schools, breaking up the large high schools that were unsuccessful and developing smaller ones 148 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. in their places, conducting home visits to parents and offering interventions when students start to fall behind. But there are ongoing needs that are not new, like lowering the counselor-to-student ratio, like providing more art and music and drama, like increasing the number and quality of substitute teachers, like smaller class size. We need to do these things as well. If Philadelphia is truly to be "the next great city," we have to do much more and much more quickly about many of our schools. We should not be taking away programs from schools that are working. Rather, we should be supporting them and expanding what has worked for them, whether it's an extra teacher, an extra counselor or a school newspaper. We should be moving even more quickly to do something for those schools that by most measures are not working at all. There are several steps that Council can take to strengthen the 149 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. collaboration and the City's future. The children at Willard School should not have to wait while grown-ups who would never send their children to a school in that condition continue to debate. We urge City Council to pass a resolution or to otherwise use your strength to see that the land for Willard is turned over to the School District at no cost so long as the work is begun immediately. Too many children have waited too long. The School Administration and the City have undertaken many joint initiatives, but we believe the City must now assist more. These are, after all, our children, and the success and failure of our schools impact significantly on the future of the City. We recently finished surveying most of the neighborhood high school principals, asking about the schools' needs and strengths. These are the schools that have been left behind. Many 150 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. are struggling mightily under difficult conditions.

Many of the facilities are severely wanting, with inadequate ventilation, poorly equipped libraries, questionable water supplies, leaking roofs. Many of the students have mental and behavioral health needs. Some are grieving with lives that have been scarred by violence. Their behaviors often reflect the turmoil in their lives. We avoid dealing with these behaviors at serious costs to our schools, the students and our society. The City must support more behavioral health programs in schools. In the middle of almost every one of these schools with great poverty and with pupils with deep familial problems, there is some magic happening. There is a choir or an exceptional after-school program or someone on the staff that talks to and is listened to by many kids. We urge the City to help this magic grow -- should I stop? 151 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

Just a minute, please. (Pause.)

I'm sorry. Please continue.

In the middle of almost every one of these troubled schools with great poverty and with pupils with deep familial problems, there is some magic happening. There is a choir or an exceptional after-school program or someone on the staff that talks to and is listened to by many kids. We urge the City to help this magic grow, to support some extra people in those schools, to support more counselors, more social workers, more behavioral health programs. We have a core curriculum. We need to help schools provide more core support. The City has done this with some programs. We need to do it more. In a City that is a cultural center, we have little art and music in many of our schools. In a City with a 152 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. growing immigrant population, we need more bilingual books, as well as adequately equipped other resources. In a City that is about to be wireless, we have school buildings that cannot handle technology and do not have enough computers. In one school, for example, we found that kids were learning tax preparation skills, but the computers were too old or out of date to use the required program. In a City that has built a great downtown, this city of neighborhoods needs more support from you, particularly for neighborhood schools. They are where the workforce of the future will or will not be developed. It makes sense for you to invest in them. In the last several years, the City has offered a host of property tax incentives and tax abatements to stimulate more real estate development. While eventually the schools will be able to secure some additional revenue from 153 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. this added development, eventually is a long time coming for these kids. Our schools and our children need much more help from the City and the State, and they need it now. We ask Council to hold the schools totally harmless from any present or future tax abatement or incentive consideration and to seek ways to have the schools secure lost support from those that are in place. In testimony earlier, one Councilman asked, What would it take to provide all of our young children with a good early childhood program? At another time, another Councilperson has asked, What would it take to provide a good arts program in all our schools? We have wondered, What would it take to be able to have enough counselors and social workers, teachers, parent support and behavioral health programs for all our kids to assist them, to help them stay in school and learn enough to grow up ready to be who we need them to 154 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. be? We can make our schools safe places where teaching and learning take place, where our kids and staff have the technology to become a part of and leaders in this new information age, where our people and our buildings get the supports and resources they need to make sure that each and every school in every region of the City makes AYP and each of its students graduates tomorrow's leaders and citizens, but only if the City actually does provide more support. Thank you. I also have, I think --

Drop-Out Crisis?

-- the report on the Drop-Out Crisis.

It looks very interesting. Thank you very much. Are there any questions from members of the Committee? 155 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. (No response.)

Seeing none, again, I thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Councilman Clarke. Your light is not on.

I'm sorry, Madam President. Hi. How are you doing?

Good.

This is not necessarily a question. It's a statement. I just want to commend you and your organization for continuing to do the wonderful work for our young people. One of the issues that I know you were working with us on was violence, school violence, and I just want to say that we had a very fruitful conversation with Mr. Vallas and his team about possibly merging some of our activities on video surveillance around some of our schools. He expressed some real support for the potential of being able to do 156 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. that in a way that ensured the perimeters of the school would, at a minimum, be secure as it related to some of the violence that has been taking place. He also indicated that a substantial amount of the school violence is really on the exterior of the school, and there's been a reduction, reasonable reduction, on the interior. So as we move forward through this process of working on our surveillance systems -- and I know you've expressed an interest on that and then also the gun issue. And by the way, you'll be hearing something very interesting on the gun issue in about another week. We look forward to having you a part of that process as we move towards implementation of that particular program.

Thank you, Councilman Clarke, and thank you for all you're doing in terms of the gun piece, and we certainly want to work with you on 157 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. it. I do want to underscore that there have been -- and I think you all got a copy of it. There have been some programs that the City has supported that work inside the schools to provide behavioral health programs. Those are good programs, but there are not near enough of them. We are at a point where we can really reduce violence if we can treat these kids, not lock them up, not another -- in all due respect, we can't arrest our way out of this problem.

I agree.

These kids need more support and more help. You all have some control that you can exercise in terms of the City budget to get more mental health programs in schools. It's really important. It would make a big difference. There are fewer grown-ups in schools that can help talk down kids than we used to have. We need them back. 158 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. So I hope with your leadership we can really understand that the things that happen inside the schools are the City's purview as well.

I agree. I think the preventive measures are probably the most important aspects of what we try to do as we reduce violence, and we mentor our children in a way that will cause them to be the most productive citizens in our City. So I agree with you that it's more important on the front end as opposed to the back end to make the appropriate resources available.

Yes. Thank you. I just do want to, take another minute since there aren't many people, to note that even in -- I mentioned it earlier in the testimony. I don't know if you heard it, but even in some of the schools that you really struggle with, that when you read about them it's almost always bad news, there are fabulous things happening in those corners. What can we do to make 159 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. sure that all kids have an opportunity for music and art, that all kids can go and win a debating team, that we can really all kind of figure out what makes sense for kids, what makes it likable. It's not -- what makes school exciting and interesting is not all passing the test. That's important. But there's a whole lot of other ways to get to educating kids, and we strip it down and get rid of them at our peril.

I agree.

So thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam President.

The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo. Just a moment, please.

I'm sorry.

There might only be a few of us, but... The issue that you mentioned 160 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. about the price of the land that --

Willard School.

Especially the excess land, I agree with you totally, that either even close to or market value is not a good thing, not a good policy. It's not good public policy. And what I plan to do is -- I'm going to think it over a bit before I actually commit, but maybe do a resolution from Council to the Administration asking them to reconsider that position, because I think it puts a burden, a financial burden, that's unnecessary. Because, in my opinion, the students, parents in most cases pay -- in most all cases I think they pay taxes, and it seems like it's inappropriate to charge the dollar amounts that I've been hearing lately for some of the land that new schools especially are being built on. So I appreciate you reminding me again of that, and that I'm going to 161 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. consider a resolution and hopefully get a majority of my colleagues' support on that.

Thank you. I think that this Administration and the City and the School District has done a lot together, but right now they're acting as if they should be at arm's length. And that's a good term for lawyers, but it's not for those that are responsible for kids.

Thank you again.

So thank you again.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

You're welcome. Thank you, Ms. Yanoff. MR. McPHERSON: The next witness is Anthony Ottobre.

It's been a long time. How have you been? 162 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC.

I've been better.

Good.

My name is Anthony Ottobre. President Verna, Councilmen Clarke and Rizzo, you may remember me as President of Local 1201 from the School District. I was President for years. 10 Today I'm not here in any 11 capacity with the union. I'm here as a 12 somewhat angry taxpayer over things that 13 have been going on at the School 14 District. And what I'm going to speak on 15 I'm going to say is mostly fact until someone proves me different, and I would hope that Council, maybe the newspapers or the television would do some investigating in some of these items. And my charge to Council is very simply maybe two statements. Did you know that these things were happening or don't you care? And I mean that very seriously. Did you know that Marge Adler, 163 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. who was former Personnel Director, I believe works in Florida now, was receiving paychecks months after she left there, a regular paycheck, pension contributions? Did you know that Charles Saragian, former Director of Facilities, who was terminated, took lawsuit, he was terminated with never being written up, no arguments or anything, but he settled for six months' salary?

What was his name?

Charles Saragian. To give you an idea of how Facilities is managed, Local 1201 has won some arbitrations that are pretty costly. They won one with -- it was called the Trap Gang, individuals who were hired to replace the steam traps, $125,000. That money is going to go to three individuals. They won one with the Rhoads fire a couple of years ago where the 164 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. District hired a contractor, I think, for three or four days' work. They paid a million and a half dollars. The union filed an arbitration. They received a $500,000 award. When we negotiated salary changes with the School District and there was implementation afterwards, there was violations there. The union won a million dollar settlement. There was another arbitration with locksmiths. The union won $99,000. Now, these are items of mismanagement that money could be spent elsewhere. There are other arbitrations, but not as significant. Waste Management, when they first had the program, I oversaw the operation of it, and during Christmas week, the District basically shuts down. So if they're closed for a week, there's a trash pick-up, say, on Friday and I cancelled the service for the rest of the week. When the bill came in, they 165 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. charged for every day. I refused to sign the bill for a period of three or four months. I was finally ordered, threatened to prove payment. How can you pay for service you're not getting? I would assume that practice is still going on. On the issue of privatization, the School District recently privatized, I believe, up to high schools, they 12 may have awarded 16, at a cost of $12 13 million. 14 I had done a study for then 15 Governor Ridge at the request of a 16 consultant for the School District on 17 time to task, which was every task that 18 the cleaning personnel do and a time to 19 it. It took me about almost four months. 20 The report showed at that time that the 21 man hours -- the workload exceeded the 22 man hours. And I didn't have all of the accurate information because there was little schoolhouses that wasn't -- they didn't have accurate footage on that. 166 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. The District privatized under the pretense -- I don't know if its monetary issue or they just wanted to privatize to try something different. My understanding is that the union did submit a proposal, I think, on one school and the union's proposal was cheaper than what the District would have paid. The District chose not to honor that. They contracted out. When you get hired at the School District as an employee, you have to go through a criminal check. I don't know if this company has the same criteria. I do know that on three different occasions --

What company are you referring to?

I believe it's Sadesco it's called. I'm not sure.

I beg your pardon?

Sadesco. I don't know the proper spelling. 167 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. At Ben Franklin High, two of their employees were observed smoking marijuana. It was reported to their supervisor. The supervisor came over the building, reassigned them to William Penn the next evening. There's an individual who works at William Penn High who has to leave early, that he has to go to a halfway house. There's another individual working at either West Philadelphia or Overbrook, wears as ankle bracelet. He's under house arrest. Now, if we're hiring these type of people and the people that the District hires has to go through different criteria, there's something wrong there. The District entered into an agreement with Elliot Lewis to manage their new building, two and a half million dollars.

What 168 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. building is this?

440. I believe the District entered into an agreement with some consultants in architect and design for $30 million for three years, and they may be done about six months. We're just starting to see maybe some of the projects they were hired for. I would like to know how many consultants that we do have and what are their functions. It's my understanding that the building engineers, they are allocated money to buy supplies and stuff. They allocate each building engineer, I believe, $500 for the year. That's not going to cover the cost of light bulbs. If they buy mercury vapor lights for the boiler room, they're $50 each. That division has been cut back so dramatically over the past two or three years. I believe this year they may have cut every vacancy they had. So you have a shortage in engineering positions. 169 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. And last year, there were some comments made, I believe, by Councilman Nutter questioning the District's intent with building engineers. The District's position is that they currently under the law do not need licensed personnel. I believe if you were to look at the ordinance, it currently reads boilers in excess of pounds and 30 horsepower. 11 Someone changed that today. It used to 12 read 15 pounds or 30 horsepower. 13 Now, as Councilpeople, do you 14 want them buildings to be monitored by 15 non-licensed personnel, with an average age of 70 years old, the buildings? And last year, there were comments made, I believe Councilman Mariano asked my good friend Jimmy Lewis who works for the District about the need for licenses, and Mr. Lewis responded they are just like your home heater. Now, if anybody in their right mind believes that a school boiler runs like your own boiler in a school, there's 170 4/5/06 - WHOLE - BILL 060001, ETC. something wrong. Maybe in principle, that they give heat. The District has no preventive maintenance program due to the shortage of personnel. So we spend money over there that you don't have to spend if you had a proper maintenance program. A couple of other items. There were comments made yesterday, I believe, by the Chief Financial Officer as to the cost that they wrote off in this year's budget of 5 million of the sale price of 21st Street. I believe last year Michael Harris, who was the then Chief Financial Officer, stated that they wrote off the whole 28 million for three buildings that they sold. So how can you write off 28 million last year and then charge off 5 million this year? These are pointed questions I think somebody has to answer.