Committee Hearing, February 8, 2006

The school student isn't doing very well anyway. We take him out of the classroom for, let's say, for a week. He misses a week of lessons. 264 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 When he comes back, where is he? He gets far behind. But, more important, more relevant to the subject we discuss today, he goes out on the street and he meets other people in his circumstances, a lot of time to waste. Hence, we have created the environment for violence among our young people. I hope that in Philadelphia we will do something about that. I will continue. With this interest in education, with my colleagues at the DuPont Company I did participate in the founding of the Black DuPont Employees Association, and over a period of years, we participated with the 18 University of Delaware, having an annual 19 career conference where we bring in 20 students. And over that period, more than 6,000 students have passed through. Here in Philadelphia during the decade of the '90s, we participated with Dr. Trevor Sewell, a Jamaican at Temple University, and we had annual career 265 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 conferences. And I think we just got tired. And considering the problems that we have now, we are thinking about renewing some of these activities. As a matter of fact, when Mayor Wilson Goode was in office, we had discussions with him and we had Dr. Constance Clayton, the Superintendent, and what we had --

Excuse me, Dr. Meade. You said those are copies of your testimony?

Yes.

Thank you.

We discussed the matter having the Teacher Exchange Program. This did not materialize, but we plan to reintroduce it, and we think that much good will come from it. Very briefly, who are the principal players in this dilemma? Go through it quickly. First, the fetus. I start with the unborn fetus for two 266 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 reasons. First, it is too easy for us adults to pass on the blame for misconduct on the children. The fact is, our children enter the world as innocent beings. Behavior, especially in the early years, is taught by the parents. Second point, we hear too often of mothers threatening the well-being of the unborn by the use of narcotics and other illegal drugs. So we have a message for the parents: You have the most important influence on the student's life. Your casual remarks become truths to your youngsters and profoundly affect their behavior. A special concern to us are the conflicts among black youth from different backgrounds, from the Caribbean, from America and from the Caribbean. Mr. Straughter and the Council lady has been working on this. I believe it largely results from the negative messages that these young kids receive from the parents during their 267 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 early years. Black people must respect each other regardless of our origin, and we must ensure that this attitude is developed in our children. Immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean, while we hold our countries of origin in high regard, we must move quickly to become citizens of the United States and teach our children the positive aspects of life in the new environment. This is essential in ensuring successful integration into the new communities. It is a mark of intelligence and maturity among adults that they respect each other despite differences in ethnicity, birth place or other such criteria. Third point I'll touch on, community interests. Religious and secular organizations, as well as individuals, can play important supportive roles in the development of youth. Certainly not as important as a parent's, but they can be both very 268 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 important. These can range from improving parenting skills to direct assistance to our young people. Now for the education establishment. Let me qualify, very quickly. There are large numbers of caring, outstanding individuals in that group. They deserve our sincere gratitude and our highest praise. We should seek out these individuals and build alliances with them in the interest of our troubled youth. Much can be accomplished. Now I separate the individuals from the institution. Often institution -- and I have been a part of it for a long time in Chester County, some ten years. Regrettably, the same cannot be said of the formal institution. My personal experience over many years working within and outside the system leaves me with little optimism for meaningful interaction with the education establishment. And I refer you to pages 269 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 from Ms. Miller's book. So what do we do? What are the remedial actions? First, today's hearing is an outstanding start. Again, I compliment the Councilwomen for this excellent opportunity to start working on the problem. Second, preparation of a factual report. There are a lot of rumors there who is doing what, and we're not quite sure. I would hope out of this hearing and other studies we would put together in one document essential information that we need if we are going to solve the problem. Third, there has been several references to this, my friend, Mr. Straughter and others, mobilizing the community resources in a coordinated fashion. I know you know there are many people out there who have been and are now setting up a little program, a little program. We don't talk to each other. But I'm saying under the guidance of our 270 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 distinguished Council ladies, to have a plan so we all know what everybody is doing.

Item 1, we get volunteers to help the students with their academic exercises and to do some counseling. Second, volunteers who will advise the parents how to cope with their responsibility. I think our problem is that we have kids now who are having kids, and these parents, they don't have a clue. We need to teach them how to become better parents. Third, religious leaders and others to develop strategies to address conflicts between different African groups, African in the large sense, Caribbean, black Philadelphians and people from the African continent. And certainly my leader, Mr. Straughter, is doing an excellent job at that. We need to continue this effort. Finally, and somewhat tongue and cheek, but I'm serious about it, some 271 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 fundamental changes in our system, and I mention two points. It will probably require legislation at the higher level. Let me give you one example. First, making our education institution more accountable for educating problem children. And I've talked about that before. For example, the matter of suspension, throwing kids out of the school. But a second point -- it has two parts. In making the second point, I'm going to stress the truth a little, but just a little bit. We find a case of a mother who murders her kids, and she says, I'm crazy. And I said, Oh, you're crazy? So okay. We'll let you out of jail. It's all right. On the other hand, we have a mother, a dedicated mother, she's on her way to work trying to get her kids off to work. Her little girl is a smart-aleck. She slaps her, puts her on the bus. At 5 272 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 o'clock, you know where that mother is? She's in jail, a felon. You whipped your kids. It might request some legislative change to correct these insanities. My mother whipped me. It made me good. These are some of the changes. In conclusion, Madam Chair, I thank you for the opportunity to address your distinguished panel. My colleagues and I are prepared to do all that we can to support your noble efforts.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Dr. Meade. (Applause.)

Thank you, Stan Straughter. Thank you for your patience all day. Is Mark Gaillard, Deputy Secretary, Clerk of Quarter Sessions here? (No response.) 273 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205

Then we'll have George Mosee and we'll have Jackie Barnett. After that, we'll have Drexel. After that, community. Thank you very much. Thank you for going and coming back.

Good afternoon. I'm George Mosee. I'm the Deputy District Attorney in charge of the Juvenile Division of the Philadelphia DA's office. It's my pleasure to be here today on behalf of the District Attorney. She regrets that she was unable to attend. I am the Deputy for the division that's responsible for all of the prosecutions of young people under the age of 18 in the City and County of Philadelphia. I'm happy to say that my responsibilities extend far beyond what happens in the courtroom. We're also involved in and engaged extensively in developing and actually implementing programs that help to prevent young 274 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 people from escalating to the next level of criminal conduct. I was asked to come here today to say a few things about the juvenile justice system, which many of us, if we're not in the system, don't know much about. I think the first fundamental premise that I'd like to establish is that the juvenile justice system is actually designed in such a way that young people who do become a part of the system aren't left stigmatized for the rest of their lives. Our young people aren't convicted of a crime. If they're adjudicated delinquent, they're actually found guilty of a delinquent act and not a crime. " The system is actually a three-tiered system wherein a criminal trial with an adult, the prosecutor would actually have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person accused did whatever it was. We would have that 275 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 same burden in a delinquent case. However, after the determination of guilt, the decision as to whether or not to adjudicate delinquent is left open. A judge who heard the facts, after having found the young person guilty, would then have to determine whether or not they were in need of treatment, supervision and rehabilitation. And if one of those factors was determined to be the case, then there could be an adjudication of delinquency. After that happens, we don't move to a sentencing, but we would move to a disposition. In that disposition, the judge would be given all the information that he or she would require in order to make the right decision with regard to that young person's life. Now, the decision itself would be based upon what we call the BARJ principles. And BARJ stands for Balance and Restorative Justice. The judge would 276 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. " Not just restitution, but an apology might be forthcoming. Whatever can be done in this context to return the victim of crime in that community to the position that it was in before the crime was committed is supposed to be pursued by the Court. I need to say that that is a new development with regard to the philosophy of juvenile justice, because before 1996, the philosophy was primarily the best interest of the child. And even though that sounds good and it's certainly something that we still pursue, the fact of the matter is that if we exclusively pursued only the best interest of the child, then we wouldn't be holding that child accountable and, in 277 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 effect, we wouldn't be doing everything in our power to rehabilitate that child. In 1996, the law also changed with regard to certain enumerated offenses, and those offenses and the result of committing one of those offenses is very important in this context since we're talking about crimes of violence. If a young person or 11 older commits a robbery, an involuntary 12 deviate sexual intercourse, a rape, 13 carjacking, an aggravated assault and 14 uses a deadly weapon, then that young 15 person's case doesn't come to 1801 with me. That case is pursued initially and automatically in the adult system. Those cases are referred to as Direct File 19 Cases, and those cases, unfortunately, are increasing.

If a young person is adjudicated delinquent for one of those offenses, and although they didn't use a deadly weapon but they reoffend and commit one of those offenses again, then 278 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 that case automatically goes into the adult system if they're years old. 4 There are also young people who 5 are chronic offenders, and if they've had 6 an opportunity to actually benefit from 7 the juvenile justice system but they 8 reoffend, then my office may proactively 9 pursue what's called certification, which 10 will, again, send the young person, 11 although they're under the age of 18, 12 which is the age at which you become an 13 adult for purposes of the criminal 14 justice system, that young person will be 15 tried and ultimately sentenced, if convicted, in the adult system. One of the interesting things that I've come to recognize about the juvenile justice system and the young people who are a part of it is that they don't understand the system. And today one of the things that I want to offer this panel is a pretty simple proposition, but one that I think is extremely important, and, that is, that 279 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 young people need to be educated about the consequences of delinquent and criminal conduct. We cooperate extensively with the Philadelphia School District, and as a result of that, I've been involved in the development of a program called RETI-WRAP. That stands for the Reentry Transition Initiative, Welcome Return Assessment Process. RETI-WRAP is designed to do what one of the words implies, to welcome young people back to the City of Philadelphia after they've spent time in placement. And I have to tell you, in my opinion, that young people are not placed unless they commit a serious offense or they're chronic offenders. So we're talking about young people who have been placed because they're experienced in what happens in the system. But the fact of the matter is, even though they're a part of the system and they're supposed to be the most 280 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 experienced with regard to the system, they don't understand the system. And if they don't understand, then we're not taking full advantage of what I believe the law is primarily designed to do. We spent a lot of time talking about sentences and whether they're appropriate, but the fact of the matter is that the law is supposed to deter criminal and delinquent conduct. We can't hope to achieve that purpose if nobody knows what the consequences are. In light of the fact that at RETI-WRAP I've been able to address each and every young person who comes back to Philadelphia, I go there every ten days and we talk about the consequences, and I inquire of them whether or not they understand what will happen if A, B, C and D happens, and invariably very few, if any, know what the consequences will be. Well, it dawned on me that if young people who have been in placement who are part of the system don't know, then 281 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 certainly the young people who have not been exposed to the system don't know. As a result of that, we developed another program that actually flowed from my experiences at RETI-WRAP, and that program is the Juvenile Justice/Criminal Justice Curriculum, which is designed to let young people know before they ever come in contact with the system what will happen if they engage in drug activity, not just from a seller's perspective, but from a user's perspective. We let them know what the consequences of violent conduct are, not just from the perpetrator's perspective, but from the victim's perspective and the victim's family's perspective. We let them know the distinctions between juvenile justice and criminal justice. We try to obviate some of the misrepresentations that run rampant in our community. Many are referred to as urban myths, but what they actually do is, they put young people in a position 282 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES.

051205 to be easily manipulated by so-called old heads. When a young person doesn't understand or know that the mere fact that they're involved in a crime that may involve the use of a gun actually puts the gun in their hand by virtue of the concept of conspiracy. When we give young people that information, at the very least, they're armed with the information that they need in order to make the right decisions about their life and the actions that they take on the street. That program is being implemented in every sixth, seventh and eighth grade class in the City of Philadelphia, and we hope that by 2007, it will be fully implemented. Before I leave, I just wanted to again express my appreciation to this panel and to this committee. The District Attorney's office is fully engaged, as I said, in prevention as well as prosecution, but I make no attempt to 283 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 say that that's all we do, is prevention. Sometimes we do have to be punitive, but if we can make people know that these are going to be the consequences, then I hope that being punitive will serve to deter people from committing offenses in the first place, and that, in effect, is what's going to help to make our schools and our community much safer.

Thank you, and thank you for coming back. While Ms. Barnett comes forward, do you remember -- I neglected to ask you, but I was trying not to ask questions so we wouldn't hold everybody all day. Do you remember the age? Is it maybe 11 or younger that schools call parents? It's okay, because it's really a question for Paul Vallas. The age when kids are cuffed? They're not cuffed generally below a certain age. Is it 11? Is it 7? They call their parents before they lock them up. Do you know?

Well, actually, in 284 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 order to be eligible for treatment as a delinquent, you have to be years old, 4 between the ages of 10 and 17. Once you 5 turn 18, you're an adult. If you're 6 under the age of 10, then any crime you 7 commit or what would otherwise be 8 characterized as a crime or delinquent 9 act would be treated by way of a 10 dependent petition.

Thank you. Thank you very much, and thank you for coming back today. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you so much for being so patient all day. This is Jacqueline Barnett, Secretary of Education for the Mayor. SECRETARY BARNETT: I am delighted to be here. I would say this is sort of my first opportunity to be in what sometimes has been considered a hot seat, but also hopefully a very informative seat. I'm hoping that you have copies 285 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 of my testimony, as I submitted them earlier in the morning with a couple of attachments.

Yes. SECRETARY BARNETT: So anyway, my name is Jacqueline Barnett. I'm Secretary of Education for the City of Philadelphia. I want to thank you, Council Chairwoman Blackwell, for allowing me to participate, for encouraging my thoughts. As a relatively young member and newly appointed to the Cabinet, I appreciate your enlisting my thoughts. So given that, I am planning to share with you some of the things that I have observed in the schools as it relates to violence and share with you my thoughts based on both my field experience and the breadth of research that I typically pour over daily, along with the education that informs my thoughts. Let me start by saying that it 286 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 is uncanny to me that we are, as a city and throughout this world, experiencing chronic levels of violence. More striking to me is that three women, who risked their lives and livelihood for peace and non-violence, leave in the wake of their heavenly ascent a dream yet deferred. To that end, I'd like to recognize and pay tribute to the late Coretta Scott King, to C. Delores Tucker and Rosa Parks, for whom with none of us here would have a place to sit, stand or speak without their presence, and so we yield to the vast work of their service. I sit before you as one of the many men and women gathered here in these Chambers that represent the community. I was purposely wanting to go last because I wanted to hear and see the testimonies of all who had come before me. I think having that human element and that human understanding is most important. So I am here to sort of hope that I might be one of the persons that would fill that chasm 287 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 that was left behind as a result of their service, because essentially what they represented was that we hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal and independent; that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Please allow me now to direct my thoughts to the subject of violence around three areas of our concern, and, that is, our children, our children and our families, our schools and our community. Many of my suggestions aim to address the reasons why many of our young people are choosing to hurt themselves and others. At a Safe and Sound retreat last year, I met a Harvard professor who told me what the effects of poverty were, and his research proved that the effects of poverty have everything to do with isolation. And we've heard that over and 288 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 over and over again in many different iterations, that we work in silos. We're not working collectively. And so poverty has most to do with isolation. How do we weave people who might not otherwise have access to resources back into the mainstream of life. I believe it's true and that violence is endemic of those children who are isolated as a result of poverty. Poverty most often can isolate you to the same block, to the same neighborhood, to the same interaction with the same people and develop a same pattern of routine. It is my hope that those of us adults exposed to a plethora of educational and economic opportunities would continue to strain to provide similar access and breadth of thought to all children. Early in my tenure, I spent the first few months; that is, the latter parts of last year, talking to students and parents, policymakers, administrators and educators. I looked to be informed 289 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 by many of you gathered here today or that were here earlier today about the current state of educating and caring for our City's youth. Despite ongoing funding and governing issues, it became clear to me that Bill Gates' pronouncement at the National Governor's Association had merit. He stated that children needed the new three R's; that is, relevance, relationships and rigor.

For example, recently on the City-wide shadow-ship day, the Managing Director and I spoke to a group of ninth-graders, and when I asked them what they wanted us adults to know about their school experience, three of the 18 students raised their hands. The first 19 child raised his hand and said, Teachers 20 and adults talk too much. Essentially he was saying that we need to listen to what children have to say. As a trained therapist, I am inclined to believe that if we asked people what they want, they will tell us, 290 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 but we have to be open to hear or create an environment where it's safe for their answers to surface. A second young boy raised his hand and said that teachers come to school angry, with an attitude, and they just shut down. Now, my mother was a teacher for four decades and I applaud the heroic efforts of every educator in our City and across this nation. However, we're all human, and often times it becomes difficult to separate who we are at home maybe with who we are in our workplace. But we are asking and our children are telling us that they recognize and they read if an educator does not care about them or if they're burnt out or they're not really interested in the profession, and that has a profound effect on them and inhibits their ability to take in the information we need them to hear. It's funny because in urban vernacular when I talk to the kids, they 291 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 say, you know, I'm not feeling you. And when they're not feeling you, they are not hearing or relating or taking in what we want them to do. So, lastly, a student said that she wanted a laptop. Her comment demonstrates what the gentleman before said about globalization. If in fact it's true that the world is flat, we have to begin to train and have our children interact on a basis that's global. The Mayor is highly fond of technology. Often all of us here that work in government walk around with Blackberries talking to each other from one corridor to the next, from one meeting to the next, because we relate and we connect. And our young people, whether or not we like it or not, are using technology to connect in a way that sometimes we're not all that jazzed about, but they are using it nonetheless. So they are interested in having rigor in their lives. Because 292 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 when you go on to a website, when you go on to Google, you are exposed to a vast amount of information in which you have to navigate through, and that requires analytical skills, and they're saying that they want it. I remain convinced that our children are up to the challenge and ready to use this technology. For example, in Arizona as it relates to violence, students text-messaged each other to say that a fight was going to break out. The text message said, If you have friends at said school, tell them to be safe on Friday, a gun fight might break out and turn into a big problem after school, and some people may die. They're texting each other. Even though we say we don't want the phones in school, these fights often times happen after school. They go right to their book bag, right to their locker and connect with each other. How can we begin to think about 293 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 connecting with them through the mediums and the technology that they're currently using? Children as young as have cell 5 phones these days, and it's their way of 6 sort of communicating. 7 Further, there's this growing 8 concept that if we are not connected and 9 remain in our silos, that it will become 10 destructive. We can see that on a micro level and we can also see that on a macro level. To this end, I have ten ideas that I would suggest that we consider to thwart the current wave of violence among our youth. First, explore technological applications to inform adults and empower students to become proactive about snuffing out the violence.

We must counter the snitch culture with their means of communication and their language. In talking with school police, they assure me that the safe hotline designed for kids is utilized by parents. 294 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Unfortunately, a lot of our children do not trust the adults that are around them. More often, they trust each other. " We, as adults, have to take back our relationship with these kids. They are children. They are our children. Unfortunately, this is a culture in which we're having to counter and we may have to use their language in order to counter it. The second idea would be to urbanize conflict resolution throughout the District. By that I mean, we all know about conflict resolution and we talk about coming together to share your problems, but what would happen if we created at every high school, particularly those ones that were 295 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 persistently most dangerous, this room or a place where kids and young people could go to become resolved. So if we called them We Are Resolved, which is an acronym for WAR. We all know in political campaigns there are such things as WAR rooms. We are currently in a war even in the United States. These kids feel like they are at a war for their life. Can we create an environment or opportunity for them to be able to vet their differences in a safe way? If we're going to teach them conflict resolution skills, let's give them an opportunity at school to actually use them, where there are people around them that care about them and that can help monitor that action. Certainly you'd want to have professionals there to ensure that a peaceful resolve or peaceful outcome was the aim. But they need those outlets. Teachers tell me often that they can't even teach a lesson because there's so much conflict going on 296 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 in the classrooms, that if they don't talk about it or give the kids an opportunity to share that, their lesson plans are for naught. The third thought is that we would -- it sounds sort of simple. I don't know how this works, but previous to being appointed by the Mayor, I worked in Washington and commuted from Capitol Hill. And it sounds sort of like a silly thing, but whenever I meet with kids and we are in a room, I meet with them in Cabinet fashion. We arrange the chairs so that it's in a circle. There's this whole idea in the teaching profession of teaching to the front of the class. I suggest that teaching to the front of the class is not going to work, because the kids that are always a problem are going to sit in the back of the class. And when they sit in the back of the class, they're going to infect a whole third of that back part of the class. 297 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 What happens if there is no 3 back of the class? What happens if everybody's voice is invited to be heard? There is a circular way, the way that we as adults begin to present and talk? And essentially it says to a young person, Your voice matters, I care about what it is that you have to say, I don't have to lean down the aisle to make sure that you're paying attention, you are included by just virtue of the way that we have you seated in these patterns. The next one is sort of a simple one, and it's teachers call home. There's a lot of talk today about when students are absent, how many days do they have to miss, what happens to them when they miss classes. Is it possible that our teachers might after first and second period when they notice and go through their roll book that the child did not show up, that they might take ten minutes on the front end of their class and just call home and say, Hey, listen, 298 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 I didn't see Johnny here today, I'm curious to know, is everything okay? It demonstrates a respect for parents. It let's the child know that you're checking on them and you care about them.

The disconnect between parents and the school is often fostered by parents who feel like they only get a call when it's a fundraiser and when their kid is in trouble. I've never met a parent that doesn't want to know if their child is not on point and not doing what it is that they need to do. They might not be able to give them all of the inputs because of their own personal situations, but they always appreciate a call from a teacher that says, I care about your child, before the problem has become out of hand. The next one is to empower educators with the support from undergraduates and retired professionals. My parents were old-schooled and that we referenced senior people in our lives and 299 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 we honored children in our lives. What would happen if one day a week we had a senior person from the community -- it could be a retired person, it could be a retired teacher, it could be a retired business person. What would happen if they partnered -- and they don't have to be a teacher. It doesn't necessarily mean they had to have been a teacher. What would happen if they partnered or padded a teacher, say, on a Friday and a sophomore in college from one of our local areas came to help this teacher in any way that the teacher saw fit to give that lesson on that Friday? It might give the teacher that refresh button that he or she needs every week at the end of the week. It might allow that teacher to create sort of cluster learning segments. It might tell that young person that here's a person who is three or four years older than you are that's made a decision to go to college. It also gives them the relevance of a person who has 300 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 been out there and understands the impact of an education. A few more here. And I don't know, this one may be contentious, but this idea of the fights and the violence occurring as a result of relationships, relationships between young boys and young girls, children essentially, that have gone awry. These fights often times happen girls with girls because this is the new girlfriend and they used to be the old girlfriend. This is the boy who doesn't like the boy who is getting all the attention because he is on the basketball team. What would happen if we diffused these relationship issues that children are becoming involved in, and what I would consider probably much too early, and sort of created a cluster where we had the girls around and took the leader of that group to help teach that particular segment or that particular cluster? And then on the 301 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 other side, we had boys who are clustered around each other, and took even the most challenging boy to become the leader of that cluster, somehow pulling out this relational difficulty that often times so consumes the paper-passing or the text messaging or the disruption that often times breaks out in the back of the class. This next one is sort of interesting, certainly the recent beating of this student. What's clear to me is that there are some school boundaries for police and there are some street boundaries for police, and I understand that certainly a person needs to know where their job begins and where their job ends, but from what I have heard -- and this is a bit anecdotal -- is that there can be children having a dispute outside of the school, and if there are police in the school, they are not allowed necessarily to intervene. They may be able to report, in which they do, 302 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 and I know that we are utilizing the Comstat, but what would happen if we had a shared boundary around the school? Because what happens is, the kids know where the boundary for the school police stops and the street police begins, and they go right to that place to cause problems. What happens if we have shared boundaries? And I have two more, and this next one would be after-school programs.

The Mayor is terribly convinced with creating after-school opportunities. Recently, the District has made mention that they will have to cut certain activities particularly as it relates to after school. We heard earlier about hyperactivity deficit disorder. Often times children need an outlet, and if we are starving resources to provide them with activities and sport outings during school time, we certainly need to make up that time after school, and this is a way in which the School District and the City 303 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 of Philadelphia can continue to work together. I think that we could also beef up our marketing of these programs and shape them in such a way that it really relates to the kids and it meets what the kids are interested in doing. So, for example, the young men often tell me that it's either basketball or soccer, but they would love to have some other opportunities. What would happen if they had a rap class or what would happen if they had a glee club or a gospel club? These here again, how do we listen to children and allow them to inform what it is that we can do to keep them safe? And the final one -- and I, after that, will close -- really culminates I think all of the things that have been said here today. In Brooklyn, they had a lot of problems similar to that of Philadelphia, and what they decided to do is to combine the resources, to combine the resources from 304 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the courts, social services, community organizations, the School District, and empower the community, and what they created was a multi-jurisdictional community-based service called Red Hook. I encourage this Committee to strongly look at the viability of a Red Hook in our community, one that houses a youth court, as the gentleman said before, that empowers them about the impact of the justice system where they become judge and jury modeled after our peer team courts, but that it is based in their community. If there's anything that we can say about our Mayor, it's that he is a neighborhood Mayor. There is a wall often times that separates or feels like there's a separation between what's happening in the community and what happens at, say, 1801 or what happens downtown. What would happen if we looked at creating a multi-jurisdictional opportunity to have wrap-around services, 305 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 building on what we're doing with AVRP and YVRP so that they had resources and things such as domestic violence counseling, support groups, family services, free legal referrals, adult education, GED mentoring? There was a family court there and a criminal court, all under one roof with one judge presiding. In Brooklyn, the results were that 75 percent of the defendants complied with their sanctions. They were 29 percent lower with regard to reoffenders. The gentleman before me talked about restorative justice. We don't want to just bring the children or bring families into the court system and then dispatch them or displace them and they really not been reformed. We want to make sure that they become live and viable and healthy citizens. There's one other one that I missed and I think it deserves some 306 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 attention, and, that is, to require students to engage in computer-based reading during in-school suspensions. Currently, we're dispatching our kids to the streets. Well, we could say we dispatch them to the home, but often times these are the same children that are out causing problems. Some comments have been made to me that the reason why we don't have in-school suspension is because it requires more manpower and that how would we give them the same curriculum. You have a child that comes in at the ninth grade level, one at the tenth grade level. What happens, as Judge Dougherty says or Judge Lori Dumas says, if we just help them to read.

We have spent millions of dollars on a reading program at the District that potentially these students could participate in. To dispatch them to the streets, which is where we know that they are going, as opposed to 307 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 keeping them in-house and making sure that they have the educational advancements such as reading, just the basics, is really in our best interest. With that, it is true that there are children that are suffering with mental issues, having deficit disorders and displacing destructive behavior, but I'm convinced that they're trying to get our attention. How do they garner our attention? And they're garnering it with destructive behavior. While we certainly need to capture and restore the young people who wreak havoc in classrooms and on streets, we must also examine the causes for these symptoms and attempt to provide constructive alternatives with their sensibilities in mind. To be sure, it is both necessary and tiring work. Yet, as Commissioner Johnson has stated, we cannot arrest our way out of these problems. It is my hope that these 308 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 thoughts on violence in our schools and in our community are taken in this vain and that we will work together to hold our children to a level of accountability as if they were our own. Can we change the homes of these children? I'm not sure. But in the meantime, let us do everything that we can to mobilize and coordinate our resources and efforts to foster more safe havens, more safe relationships to these diamonds yet unearthed. Let us dig the trenches necessary to shoulder up with them to see them through to an alternative way of life. And with that, I close. I also know that there was a resolution given in the name of Terrell Pough, and I actually had written an op-ed that I will present to the media, but if you would allow me two minutes or a minute to read that, or I can just present it to you after this forum, which I will do.

Thank 309 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 you very much. We would appreciate it if you would present it for the record. SECRETARY BARNETT: I sure will.

Thank you very much for your testimony, Madam Secretary of Education for the Mayor. Drexel, Dr. Lucinda Post, School of Education; Brian Keech, Vice-President of Government and Community Relations. Are you still here? Thank you. I'm sorry it's taking so long, everyone. Let me ask if Pat Harner, Physicians for Social Responsibility, are you here? Okay. You'll be next. Julia Chin I know left. Alice Wright, United Block Captains left. Ms. Jennifer Carroll, Big Brothers and Big Sisters. In that order, and then we'll get -- Earthquake, did you leave? Did you give up on me? Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. 310 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Welcome and thank you for your patience, and we welcome your testimony. Nobody can say we haven't had a focused discussion on the issue. We worked hard to make sure we hit it from all areas, and we certainly thank you for your patience and for being here. Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony. Thank you.

My name is Brian Keech. I'm Vice-President for Government and Community Relations at Drexel University, and I'm joined by Dr. Lucinda Post, faculty member at Drexel University and Director of the Drexel Center for the Prevention of School Violence. I'd like to start by thanking you, Councilwoman, and your colleagues on City Council for hosting such an important public hearing. Dr. Post is going to present public testimony on the issue directly about school violence and her efforts to 311 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 prevent school violence, but I would like to open with a few remarks concerning this issue and Drexel University's efforts in and around West Philadelphia, Center City and East Falls, which is where we have our campuses located.

Thank you. We're waiting for a health center out in West Philly.

In fact, I have to talk to John. I have a question about one of the proposed health centers in Mantua later today. I won't go through all of them, but certainly those that have appeared before us today have mentioned so many important activities and efforts on behalf of the School District of Philadelphia, the parents, teachers, administrators, students, and we have some of those same issues. We, as an institution of higher learning, certainly cannot fix all of societal problems related to this and other issues, but 312 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 believe we are doing our part. I'll give you some examples that we believe should be continued, and some of those are involved with the YMCA program, the YMCA Achievers Program, in which we have students affiliated with the School District of Philadelphia and the YMCA that attend Drexel University's weekend programs that are educational in nature to study math and science that provides an opportunity for them outside of the School District and not during the week, on weekends, and it does a number of things like other programs. It keeps their minds active and it keeps them off of the street at periods of time in which they may be engaged in other activities, and we all are here knowing what those activities are. But funding for these programs is limited, and as you know, each year it gets harder and harder to secure funding at both the city, the state and the federal level. And many of these, 313 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 although educational, issues have serious healthcare ramifications as well. The cost of healthcare and health-related violence is very high, and the more that we can engage in programs that limit violence in any way is extremely important. One other program that I want to mention is something called Squash Marts. Squash Marts is a program that happens after school at Drexel University in our squash courts, engages students in several activities. One is squash and an introduction to the sport itself, a racquet sport on our campus and our Penn's campus, as well as, again, educational programs in math and science after they play squash. And these are tutoring programs that are sponsored by our faculty and our students. This is 3:00 to 5:00, 3:00 to 5:30 Monday through Friday and again on Saturday mornings. And the other important fact about these programs, outside of what 314 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 they deliver to the students that are enrolled in them, is again it pulls them off the streets. They're engaged in with people who can serve as their mentors in much more than just learning about squash and math, but serve as role models in other areas of their life to answer questions related to alcohol and drugs, relationships, things that have been talked about today. Before I turn it over to Dr. Post, I want to mention one more area that was brought to our attention by the 16th Police District. When the schools ring their bells at the end of the day, the students all leave at the same time. Hundreds, if not thousands, of students are unleashed upon the general public and sometimes in business corridors along Lancaster Avenue where the high schools are, the elementary schools. And those of us who have been around massive numbers of people at the same time, it lends itself 315 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 to trouble. And one of the things that the Philadelphia Police Department has been trying to do is address this issue of staggering that time at which students can be released, so that in stages, periods of 30 minutes or what-have-you, a lesser number of students are released into the general public and can find their way home before the next set of students comes out into these areas where others have already gathered and trouble may have already started. So that's one area that -- and there's many other creative ideas that have been brought forth today, computers and technology, which Drexel is known for.

In fact, we donated 30 computers to the McMichael School in Mantua, a Philadelphia public elementary school K through 8, that had no computer facilities for its teachers. And that's Phase of a program that we're going to implement a computer lab for these individuals. They are students that are 316 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 going to be feeding into the School of the Future on Girard Avenue across from the Zoo upon graduation in eighth grade, and yet they don't have computers in the school now to learn from. So the issues that have been brought before you earlier today regarding solutions and technological engagement and others we would certainly encourage and will do our part to continue to support your efforts. And I'll let Dr. Post, who is I like to say our expert in the prevention of school violence, provide her testimony.

Thank you, Brian. Dr. Post.

So good to see you. I'm so happy to be here and to contribute what little I can to this. But it's been great to hear everybody today and their wonderful activities, what they're doing and what they're thinking. The Drexel Center has been at 317 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Drexel since 2002, and we are a center that is supported by Drexel University under the umbrella of the School of Education. We've advanced an initiative to study issues around violence in school and developed experimental after-school program models that arose out of our findings. The Drexel Center provides pilot after-school program plans and funds to schools, along with professional development for teachers and parents. We seek to develop a proven multi-system approach that effectively deals with the many facets of violence in the schools. I wrote these cards down, but I'm not going to read all of this. I gave you copies. I just wanted to comment on a few things that I heard today. I have a couple people with me today from the Center. We've grown a little bit, so we're able to do a little 318 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 more. We have Maria Delgado and we have Jannae Flamer, who both are wonderful. Maria used to work with homeless shelters in Philadelphia, and that's how I got to know her. She ran a children's shelter. And Jannae Flamer is our communications specialist, and she runs the Beacon over at Gillespie Middle School. But Drexel has been a great support to us. And although we do have some problems, because universities are not built and accustomed to building the kinds of relationships with the communities, that needs to happen as we're moving into the 21st century. I mean, I stand here and I listen to the other universities talk about better lighting and more security and what they were or are planning to do to build relationships with communities, and I hear Brian and all the good stuff that's going on up at Drexel and, yes, it's true, thousands of children come out of University City High School every day, 319 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 but if we have a relationship with them and they know that we're there for them, I don't think we'll have these kinds of problems. I also wanted to mention -- and I do think we are, by the way, beginning to do some good things, and I just hope it continues to grow amongst the universities. But I heard someone today mention -- I don't know honestly how, Councilwoman, you can sit there and listen as you do and not make comment. Some of the things that I've heard today has caused me great concern, one of which was the large number of children that are diagnosed with ADD. And, of course, we all know that of all the Ritalin that's prescribed in the world, 90 percent is given to youth in the United States. In fact, they make fun of us in other countries and they say we don't educate, we medicate. We know that the kids that do receive Ritalin or are diagnosed with ADD are over in urban areas, are 320 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 predominantly black youth and male. And so I have some problems with some of the things that I've heard today, but I do believe that everybody that was present does want to work on these problems, and I think a good place to start is in a form like this where we can begin to communicate with each other about what our thoughts and experiences have been. I just wanted to mention one more thing that's very close to my heart, and that's about parents, because our program has a very strong parent component. We actually have three prongs to the programs we've put in schools, and we're in seven different schools right now. One of them is creative curriculum, one is creative safety, and the other one is parent engagement, authentic parent engagement. And we have training modules for the parents. Now, I heard some individuals today make mention that the problems that 321 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES.

051205 we see with the escalating violence might be a direct result of what's happening in the homes or the lack of concern on the part of the parents, and I just want to state that it's been my experience, and I'm sure yours, that I've never met, although I'm sure there are some, a parent who does not want the best in the world for their child, and I've never met a parent who wasn't willing to make that happen in whatever way he or she could. And so when we keep turning to saying that while it's in the home and it's the parent, I have to wonder what our motivations are. When I talk to parents and ask them what the difficulties are, what they say to me is that there are three things wrong with the schools or with the educational system in Philadelphia, and this is how we determined what we were going to do with our school-based programs. What they said to us is, number one, the curriculums that are in 322 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the school or the methodology for teaching. And I heard someone from the Health Department make mention of this same fact, that the curriculum and the methodology for teaching does not always best serve our children. And parents have said that to me in just that way, that they don't see the practical application, that it's not hands-on, that it's not experiential, that it's not a constructivist approach, it's not what these kids want to know, need to know or are interested in knowing. And often times these children lose interest and drop out. And these are the children who are dropping out that we're seeing on the streets with the guns. So we need to address the issue of why these kids are not doing well in these schools, why they're not going, why they're not achieving and why they're dropping out, because these young kids that are now in fourth and fifth grade that are not going to school, that's the 323 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 next generation that we're going to see in the prisons. So the parents do care about curriculum. The parents care that they're not welcomed in these schools. They do not feel welcome. When you go into the front of a building, there's a desk there and a guard, and in a lot of these schools, you're not allowed past that front desk. And if you are, you're escorted to the office, and you have very limited access or knowledge or information about what's going on in that school, and that's very scary to parents. I know I would not allow my child to be in a school where I could not get in there and see what's happening in the lunchroom or in the hallway. So that's very scary, and that's what parents said to me. And the third thing was that they don't feel that their children are safe. And, again, I think that has to do with them not being allowed access into 324 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 these buildings in the way that they should. And, yes, we do understand that the School District has made some concessions and is opening up the schools for these after-school programs, but it's not enough, because there are too many limitations on the providers and the administrators that are running these programs. They're not allowed to be open during vacation. They're not allowed to be open with security guards, which we were initially promised. The maintenance is horrible. So I think we have a long way to go, and I do hope that we get there. I do see problems escalating, and I think that that in some instances might be helpful, because we're now all at the table talking. And I know you continue to fight the fight every day, but now you've got the attention of some people who may not have paid attention before. So I want to thank you for this opportunity, and we'd love to help in 325 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 whatever way we can.

Thank you. Before we bring Big Brothers/Big Sisters, I know Malik Aziz has to go to a station. We invite him. We invite Brother Wali, Anthony Murphy. And while they're coming, let me say, we understand the struggles. The reason that ADD was even discussed was because we asked them. We specifically asked Dr. Lawrence Robinson, who responded to a hearing on that subject back in 1992 and in 1993. We have file 15 drawers on the subject. We've had mothers -- we had a mother who was receiving assistance and they threatened to take her children if she didn't allow them to give them behavior-altering drugs. We have grandparents who come to us every day who say, I don't want my children taking the behavior-altering drugs, and the school system says there's nothing for me. So we've been involved in this 326 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 issue. It's been my issue when people thought it wasn't an issue. And this company Chadd, C-H-A-D-D, that makes multi millions of dollars on giving people drugs and on the system that allows people to get more money -- if you're on SSI, you get a lot more money than if you receive public assistance and you have a child or two. So we're aware of them, but we can't get everybody in. It's already late, and we didn't want to respond on every issue. We had a young lady. Some of you may know her, Ms. Hannen. We met her in -- her time was Tonya. Excuse me. 18 We met her in 1973, Lucien and Dave 19 Richardson did, and she was a runaway. Her father remarried. It is common today, but it wasn't as common in 1973. She didn't get along with her stepmother. She ran away, and she was victimized in the Youth Study Center. By that I mean she was molested and all that 327 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 goes with it. Now, Lucien and Dave had the Director, Eugene Montone, removed, but it didn't help her. She became a victim. She died last July. She's been part of my extended family. Many of you have seen her in my hallway. Sometimes she was male; sometimes she was female. She had all kinds of lumps on her arms from all the drugs. Her teeth rotted and fell out. She had a child in a crack house every year. But thanks be unto God, when she finally died, the Department of OESS, Office of Emergency Shelter and Services, had a new program that allowed her to get her own place. They paid all her bills. And she was found in a fetal position lying in a bed. She died in her own place instead of going through trash cans and eating no 22 matter what, we said. You know how that goes. You buy her new sneakers and then you see her on the street with none because she sold them. And all that goes 328 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 with it. And I guess she was about 48. We met her when she was 14. So there's so much we can say, and I said that in response to parents. Some parents are so afraid of schools and so victimized, as you said, they're afraid to go in. Some parents don't want to ask -- some parents are young parents and young grandparents who felt victimized by the same school their children go and they don't want to go in. They don't feel welcome. I've been threatened going into a school in past years. So there's much we have to do and much we just won't say today because there's no time. We want to be able to get the testimony from everybody here so that we can present a full report on where we think we should go from here. The last time we had school violence hearings in '92, we had them, we held them. In '93, we held them. So we're consistent. We're on the case. I 329 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 was Chair of Education then. I fought to get it back again. I chair the things that matter most to me, education. Many of you know, in my first life I was a ninth grade school teacher. And the other committee I chair is the Committee on Housing, Neighborhood Development and the Homeless, and we will hold hearings tomorrow at 1:00 on housing reorganization that I disagree with that the Administration is proposing.

And then I'm Finance Chair, and finance is obvious. If something happened to the Mayor and the President of Council today, your Finance Chair is the Mayor. The other thing I am is Majority Leader of Council. So I'm doing all the stuff I want to do. I'm grateful. I love my community. I love my City. And we are always on the battlefield, but we're on the battlefield for people in need. Not to get too spiritual, but when Jesus walked the earth, he said he 330 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 came for people who needed him. He didn't come -- the doctors and lawyers and people like me, they don't need us, but it is those who are at the bottom rung of the ladder who can't find their way from day to day who need somebody to give them hope. The purpose of these hearings is to let the community know all of you are doing wonderful things to uplift our community. We have many great ideas. There are things we want to do. There are programs pre and post. There are programs for dropouts. You're 17? We got a school for you. If you dropped out, drop back in. So there are many, many programs. There are programs for children before school. There's food in school. There are programs after school. We're here, and we want out of all of this to bring hope to the Philadelphia community to know don't think you're isolated, don't think no one cares, 331 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 because we're here, we love you and, God willing, we're not going any place. Okay? All right. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Post. Thank you, Brian. )

Malik, Anthony, Brother Wali, Mark Horrell. These are all our -- and I promise you we'll get you, Big Brothers/Big Sisters. I hope you all will forgive me about the time. I've been in politics for 30 years, but God gives me passion and, thank God, he gives me the courage of my convictions. I fear no one but him. I fight. It works for me and against me. People don't like politicians they can't control. Nobody controls me. I love my community. I love you. I'm going to fight for it as long as God gives me energy and breath, and we're going to go from there. I like it when we get along, but we don't have to, because we're going to fight. Thank you. 332 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205

Good afternoon, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon.

Brother Malik said he would come after us because he has a group with him. Of course, for the record, my name is Anthony Murphy and I'm the Executive Director of Town Watch Integrated Services. Town Watch Integrated Services is involved extensively in addressing neighborhood crime and violence, as well as neighborhood engagement. I'm also extensively inside of our school system. Since today's discussion is about school violence, I'd like to kind of bridge the gap a minute to say that school violence is inherently involved in neighborhood violence. There would be much less school violence if there was much less neighborhood violence. These problems in our community are, therefore, 333 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 problems that manifest themselves in our school. The problems that exist in our households also manifest themselves in our schools as well as in our neighborhoods, but I'd also like to be clear that many of our households do not have these problems because many of our children are not involved in any activity of violence. We have a percentage, that's true, and, therefore, we are addressing it today. As you look at violence in the City of Philadelphia and we begin to compare the numbers, we should also look at the fact that of those 380 18 homicides were committed by young people 19 between the ages of 10 and 17, and also 20 21 of those victims was in the same age 21 bracket. The reason that is significant is because we have to begin to ask how can guns be so accessible to young people of that age and how is it that they 334 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 resolve themselves to act out in this way in the conversation or an argument with the act of violence. We should also note that many of the violence and the homicides in the last year were between people who were knowledgeable of each other, be it personal or in some type of associate situation. In reading your resolution 12 concerning Terrell Pough, even the young men that took his life were men that knew him and attended the same school that he attended. Yes, Terrell was an example of a young man turning his life around, but also we need to look inside of our schools and see that there are many young people whose lives are on the right path and, therefore, they are forging ahead. An example of that, of course, would be the young people who spoke at the very beginning of this hearing with the petition to end crime and violence in their neighborhoods and they had already 335 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 obtained 200-and-so signatures. I think as responsible adults, those who are committed to end violence, it is our job to take that petition forward and move that petition to 200,000 signatures in support of our children. Also, Town Watch Integrated Services, in working along with the School District, we provide safe corridor training and also recruit volunteers to go inside of our schools. The reason that it's significant is because the atmosphere of safety is one which must be created by you adults. It cannot be created by the children in and of themselves. Although they must participate in that, it is our responsibility. They are our children. They are our harvest, so to speak. It is them that we must provide the type of nurturing and the direction to in order for them to grow. We also respond to the incidence of violence that relate to our 336 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 young people. We provide home visits to those homes of the victims, as well to the homes of the perpetrators, in an effort to try to make sure that their parents are involved and also to make sure that their parents are aware. When we conduct conflict resolution sessions, we bring the parents into the school or we take the incident into the neighborhood, to the recreation centers or any place we can in order to begin the type of dialogue that involves our young people and their adults. Because without parents, without responsible adults, this activity of violence will not change.

The other thing we must begin to look at, as the Commissioner would like to say, we cannot arrest our way out of this problem, and many of the people that have spoken here today have talked about many of the things that are necessary to try to garnish a movement to change the attitude of our youth. And 337 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 truly, it is an attitude. It is an attitude that must be changed. Violence, I don't believe, is a genetic disease. I believe it is a learned behavior. So that means we must begin to address violence holistically, violence not just with guns but violence that relates to knives, violence that relates to suicide and violence that relates to drug overdose and the violence that you see inflicted upon young people just by the parent who screams and yells and calls them negative names. It starts in the high chair. We don't need it to end in the electric chair. So as we begin to move forward, things that we're doing in conjunction to address this is a holistic approach to addressing violence. On another note, we are preparing to train over 100 parents next week to participate in nine area schools as providing assistance at the welcome desk and also to be in and out in the 338 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 hallways and on the grounds of the school system. It is extremely important that we engage our community and engage them in such a way that we not only tell them what we are willing to do, but ask them what they are willing to do and provide them the assistance and the resources for them to do it. We must begin to put that responsibility back on the parents. It is truly the notion that a village will raise the children, and in our case, it's going to be a city that raises our children to a point to where violence becomes non-existent because it won't be the first choice of acting out. We also must recognize that violence exists because of criminal enterprise. That criminal enterprise also impacts on our young people, and, therefore, they are using that criminal enterprise to try to address what they consider some of their needs as opposed to looking to their parents and looking to us to help them find a different way 339 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 to go. We must begin to have the type of dialogue with young people, not just those who want to see success, from people who have made mistakes, but we must begin to continue to show them the example of those who did not. Going to prison is not an arm badge to say that I know. Being a man, whether you went to prison or not, is what makes you say, I know, or a woman. We also need to recognize that violence has increased amongst females, and we seem not to talk about that so much. The violence amongst females is just as deliberate and as dangerous as those that exist with men. It's just that they are not in the homicide rate now. But if we don't stem that tide, they will become in the homicide rate. So in working with the school system's Office of School Climate and Safety and I'd like to say also working along with fellow organizations like 340 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Mothers in Charge, PAAN, Philadelphia Anti-Violence Network, as well as Men in Charge and YOCAP, which is a youth organization that's designed to help youth develop commercials, also working along with Jackie Barnett, the Secretary of Education, and many other officials in the Managing Director's office of City government, and, of course, ma'am, I'm always responding to your call and to your lead. As we move forward in addressing this, I'm sure we will take a holistic approach, and one thing we must do is that we must begin to teach children a value, and, that is, a value of life, as opposed to the value of no 19 life. We must teach them love as opposed to allowing them to continue to exist in a vacuum without love. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you very much. The question was asked why. It's hard to believe that there's 341 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 some of us who don't know why and what poverty creates and all that that implies, and not being able to have the things you want, the sneakers and the coats and no jobs. All of those issues, it's hard to believe that we still ask why instead of what can we do to change the situation. I'm working on job training. We have a program with Penn where we're working on minority inclusion or we're not letting Penn projects go through. So we work it. But it's hard to imagine that there's some of us who don't understand that -- we know the why's. The issues are inclusion. That's what it's about. The issues are everybody in the society having a right and having the ability to have a right to life and to its fullest. That still doesn't happen, not even in 2006. Hard to believe that. Who would have thought we would live our lives and still be fighting the same issues. 342 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205

That's true.

That's why they're talking about Thorogood Marshall becoming a Saint some place or something. He talked to desegregation in schools back then. And now what do we deal with now? Look at our schools in our neighborhoods. When I was a teacher, they didn't have books and materials. Do they have them now? Well, Paul Vallas has bought them, but we still spend our lives struggling for the same issues that we were born into and we thought would be different now. We're still struggling.

We're still struggling.

Brother Wali.

Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to say thank you, Councilwoman, for allowing my agency to participate in this, and I'd like to thank all the real soldiers that are 343 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 sitting behind me that are the people that I see, our agency sees and yourself, on them cold nights on them dark streets doing what we do. We're at the end of this hearing today and they are still here. They stayed around from 9:00 this morning to now because they have something to do and say, because they do the work. I'd like to use the approach on school safety on three approaches. What we do is, our agency, is, we try to get the parent -- the parent participation is the key factor in ending violence in the school. With parents volunteering in their children's school and getting to know the students their children associate with gives them influence over a group of children so they can shape their thoughts and their mind. The application of that is, we need to know our children's associations. Children feel safe when they see another parent come pick their child 344 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 up or they see a parent participating in the halls. They can go to that child as opposed to going to the administration, going to the staff. They feel more comfortable because they are parents and they feel that that's my friend, she's my friend. So we need to get parents more access to the public schools, like they say, to walk in, to sneak in and see a child. Because I remember as a young man acting up in school, you had to be conscious, because your parent could just snap anywhere, come in the lunchroom, come in the gym, see you acting up. You're in trouble. But being that they have some isolation problems now, parents don't have that control. That's one of the issues that we would like to push. Number two is, community participation is the key component to ending school violence before school and after school. Having adults monitoring the movements and directions of children 345 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 going and coming from school can prevent fights. The community can also inform the school and other parents of potential problems and create a plan to stop violence before it happens. If we have the community -- and we have some examples. Mill Creek, men of Mill Creek, they have a big influence in that neighborhood. They know the children. They have set up a safe corridor that children know the direction of going and coming from school. Also, they have a connection to call that principal and say, Hey, there was a party this weekend on 40th Street, be mindful because some trouble happened. So you can put an action plan in. We also have it in Donna Reed Miller's Council District where Germantown was a high hot spot last year. By having the community get involved in that school, starting to set up safe corridors and having people just stand in their door, it stopped a lot of violence 346 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 from taking place. Because people want to do crime and get away with it. They don't want to be identified. So having that community have a voice of what way children come and go to school is a very vital point. And, last, school partnership is vital. When schools partnership with parents in the surrounding community, they are developing a safe haven for children, staff, parents and the community at large, because then the students will feel safe knowing that there are three sets of eyes working together and watching for them. See, when we talk about involving the partnership with school, when the school connects with their community, their staff becomes safe. Because not only when the teacher goes out to get into her car after school, there's a parent identifying with her. Right? There's a community that's identified. 347 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 The school is not separate from our communities. For some reason, we believe that a school is a separate entity. The school sits in a community.

So it is that community. So a partnership has to take place with every entity in that community, whether it's a PAL center, a rec center. And what we try to do when we do the stakeholder piece is identify that school with every faith-based association, with every recreation center and with any -- if it's a middle school, with any elementary school or senior high school in that neighborhood. Then you build a uniform coalition of partnership. And that's our solution on dealing with school violence. And I believe the people in this room, I believe your staff and the other members of this Committee understand that. It's just about doing implementation of it and allowing us to do what we do. We must stand our land. Everybody has a land and 348 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 everybody here is wonderful in their land, but I believe that this is a problem that we can defeat. I believe it's a problem that with us addressing it at the end with great solutions, it's about us doing what we can do and having great Councilpeople like yourself with their great leadership allowing other leaders to participate in making our schools safe. Thank you.

Thank you so much. We must solve it. If not us, who? Brother Malik Aziz, Assistant Director of Programs and Outreach, Mayor's Office for Reentry of Ex-Offenders Program, and Program Director of Safe Schools. Did I get your title that time? He knows I'm calling on him.

Former gang member, ex-offender.

Thank 349 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 you. Mark Horrell. Thank you all. It's very, very, very important. The last thing I'll say is that I have someone who came up through Lex Street gang who is now 53, who decided at 35 that he didn't want to die. Because every man in his family died of drugs or alcohol at age 36. This is a gentleman who has a Master's degree and who is working with youngsters who have no 13 families and who don't know what to do. So no matter when, we don't give up on people. He didn't wake up until he was 35. But we have to be a family, we have to love one another and we have to decide that nothing is more important than that love, and that if we stick together, we can yet overcome this problem as we have. If we could come through slavery, we can overcome all the rest. Thank you.

Councilwoman, I want 350 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 to first thank you and the Committee for having us come to testify.

Thank you.

And I'm also co-founder, co-chair of Men United for a Better Philadelphia and Chairman of the Education Committee. To my right is Will Little. He's a member of Men United for a Better Philadelphia and also the founder, Director of Poetry in Motion. And Director of Men United for a Better Philadelphia, Mark Horrell. And to my left is Sean "Froggy" Banks, and he's the CEO of Philly-Wood Entertainment, who is currently working on a documentary in the City of Philadelphia called Close to Death in talking to the young people in the streets about violence and crime. And that's soon to be released. What I want to say is that earlier in the day when you had two -- 351 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 and one of my mentors is still here, David Fattah, who is still over there, and you had Hardy Williams and you had Benny Swanns in here, they were instrumental back in the day when I was acting like a nut running up and down the streets, putting up gang signs and stuff like that and gang-banging. They changed my life. So I was pretty much in awe and inspired to see them come in here today, because they're still fighting. No 13 matter how gray Hardy's head is, he's still on the front line. And no matter how long David Fattah is sitting over there, he's still on the front line, and I really appreciate that.

We're going to have him testify. We're going to get Earthquake and him next. That's right. We do appreciate him still on the battlefield.

I'm going to read this real quick. Are we making our schools and 352 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 communities safe? And the bottom line is, all of us need to help. In 2001, the Mayor's Office of Community Service's Safe School, Safer Communities Program was designed to help students settle disputes with conflict resolution and peer mediation. The program was unveiled at Shaw Middle School where Principal Shareef El Mekki saw his share of violence and crime each and every day. He was very glad to listen to the champ, Bernard Hopkins, then the undisputed middleweight boxing champion of the world, tell the young audience of 400 students to focus on education and not to settle disputes with violence. He told them to talk it out, and if they can't reach an agreement, to get an adult to mediate between them. Since the inception of Safe Schools, Safer Communities, we have presented at over 75 schools to hundreds of students in the Philadelphia school system and surrounding areas. What we 353 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 began to understand after our visit to the schools is that if a child is not taught to deal with disappointments, conflict and aggressive impulses at an early age, he or she will most likely develop poor coping and social skills. Plainly stated, no amount of police overtime, social workers, psychologists, community leaders or Ritalin will ever take the place of effective parenting, period. In my opinion, one of the most effective approaches to dealing with youth conflict in schools and community is "A Day At Your School." The beginning of "A Day At Your School" is an assembly for everyone. This assembly will set the guidelines for the day and introduce the topics. The topics include critical thinking, conflict resolution, career goals, bullying prevention, inappropriate touching, staying in school and addressing trauma. After assembly, the classroom 354 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 presentations will be done by professionals from various fields. The presentations will be done in a rotation form so that each classroom will benefit from each presentation. During the lunch period, there will be a conflict resolution presentation performed right in the lunchroom. Our final presentation of the day will be a grand finale assembly with special celebrity guest stars, a fashion show and final remarks from the guests. This assembly will serve as a reward for the students' participation for the day. The cost for "A Day At Your School" is nominal. It is far reaching and enriching for every member of your school community. Another component of reducing violence in schools and communities is the parent development assembly and workshops. This is instrumental in giving parents the necessary information that is current, and it will also bring them up to date in regards to trends, 355 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 fashion, street codes, gang awareness and other services that are available to them. These facilitators are also trained educators in conflict resolution 7 and mediation, along with being streetwise and astute to what is going on in the community and schools. The assemblies and workshops are a great service to parents and caregivers that are having problems with students. Men United for a Better Philadelphia has support staff in two area schools, Ada Lewis Middle School and John Bartram High School. They are school community violence intervention specialists that do home visits as well as staff support. One intervention specialist at Ada Lewis also works with behavior modification techniques. This is valuable because it helps to change behavior right there in the school. The bottom line to all of this is that as adults, we need to care about 356 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 our children, our schools and our communities. And with that, I'd like to pass the microphone over to Will Little.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

My name is Will Little. I have an organization, what you can call a movement, called Poetry in Motion, which is about members ages 12 13 to 42 years old, and we deal with the 14 dilemmas and the trials, tribulations 15 that our youth are facing today in our 16 community through poetry, through this 17 outlet. 18 You see back in Harlem Renaissance that a lot of our people, they dealt with their problems and their issues through music and jazz. So today it's done through poetry, through expression, so our kids have time or a chance to express themselves in the dilemmas that they go through. 357 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Looking at the situation today and the violence in Philadelphia, how many murders that occurred last year and the growing rate of this year, that our solution to this problem and the only solution to this problem is to change the mentality of our youth. That's the basis of our problem. The mentality of our youth is going to the point that these kids have given up on life, they have given up on themselves and they have given up on everything else. They have no hope. They have no spirit. So what we try to do is create that type of hope for them and show them through our example and through our experience in life that there is a possibility that you can become somebody or someone one day. And what we try to show them is like -- most of them identify with us because they know us from the community and know how we grew up and know all the problems that we've been through and the jails that we have 358 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 been in, and come out and now we are trying to be a solution to these problems. So to identify with these children, we have to create a way to change their way of thinking. Most of our kids, they're geared towards violence, because what they do when they listen to the violence in the community, they listen to these rap songs and these other things and it steers them in a negative direction. And they believe that they have to be negatively focused in order to get some attention paid to them. So a lot of times when the kids are doing positive things out there, they have no exposure, no media exposure or their parents don't even come and sit with them or show them support. So we have to try to convey the mentality of these kids. They can learn how to know how to deal with the issue and deal with the problems through a positive way, as opposed to dealing with 359 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 a negative reaction to what other stress they may be going through or problems they may be going through. Poetry in Motion is one -- we try to show these kids through this method of poetry in dealing with the dramas that they're dealing with, see if they can relate -- our problems relate to their problems. We went to a school. We went to Girard College and we did perform at Girard College for like an hour, and we did a panel discussion with those kids. Those children opened up to members of our group. They opened up to us about the issues they were dealing with, the problems they were dealing with. And the teacher said it created dialogue for two weeks for them to have discussions with other students in their class. Same way with Germantown High School. We went up there with Malik Aziz and we did a performance there, and they had a panel discussion there also. But 360 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 we weren't part of the panel that time, but the children who had seen us in the back, they came to the back and they gravitated towards us and they started asking us questions about the trials and tribulations of how we were dealing with it, knowing that we come from this same environment. The whole thing is a hit and miss, because a lot of us who are willing to step up and try to help our youth and the community deal with the issues of violence, they're not connecting with our youth.

Our youth see that they don't connect with them, because they don't understand the nature of their questions or the response that they give to the children when they ask them how they deal with this situation or how they deal with that situation. So the whole thing is -- my position is to try to get support from different organizations or groups to help us come out to these kids and talk to 361 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 these kids through poetry and let them express themselves through their writing and creative ability that they have and see that they have some hope in the future of becoming something greater than what they are today or someone that's placed in the grave at an early age.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chairwoman Blackwell.

Good afternoon.

Thank you again for having us here. I'm speaking on behalf of Men United for a Better Philadelphia in particular, the other two co-chairs, Bilal Qayyum and Ray Jones. The third co-chair, Malik Aziz, he spoke for himself. We have been fortunate in the short time that we have been an active body in the past three years in the City of Philadelphia to work with the Office 362 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 of School Climate and Safety within the School District in high schools and middle schools throughout the City of Philadelphia, and have seen firsthand the impact of school violence not only the schools but the individual students themselves, the families and the communities in which they come from. We have been effective in helping to turn a number of these young people around, getting them back into mainstream education in a manner where they are not acting out in anti-social behaviors as they were before we were able to engage them. Last year, we were fortunate through the Blueprint to recognize that in order to be even more successful, we have to look at the earlier grades, and we were able to provide services in two of the elementary schools to K through 5 students to provide intervention and prevention services in a particular part of North Philadelphia where we provided 363 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 safety resources for our young people in the public school system. We would encourage Council, and whoever else is going to be a part of this endeavor, to look at providing intervention and prevention services earlier in the school career so that these young people will build as a part of their life-long learning experience the conflict resolution skills and the refusal building skills and those skills that make it necessary for them to grow up as productive citizens and adults in the City of Philadelphia. So we are prepared to continue to work with you, Council, and whoever else endeavors to make the schools in the City of Philadelphia safe, not only for students but for the communities and families in the City of Philadelphia.

Thank you very much. Thanks for all that you do.

Good evening, 364 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Councilwoman Blackwell. I thank Brother Malik for inviting me down here. As he told you, my name is Sean Banks. I grew up in North Philadelphia. I ran the streets of Philadelphia hard. I was selling drugs, shooting guns, so on and so forth, but then again, I also had a high school and a college education also. So my problem was, I had a lot of animosity towards my father for him not being around. So basically the streets raised me and a lot of the other guys in the streets. Not saying that my grandmother and my mother didn't do their job. It was the choices that I made. So one thing led to another. I was blessed to get called out to California to do some acting on TV shows like Family Matters, Boy Meets World, so on and so forth. Because I was kidnapped in 1995, March 27th. So I made a personal prayer to God that if he ever gave me a chance to give back to him, which I knew I couldn't pay him with no 365 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 type of money, is to help these young guys. So what I did was met up with a partner of mine named Rick Kennedy, and we came up with an idea to shoot this film called Close to Death. Basically, it is about former drug dealers that were so close on the brink of death, but they're still here to tell their stories. And what we do is, we show these younger guys and these younger kids the consequences. We just don't tell them, No, don't do this. We show them like the bullet wounds, the morgue shots. We talk to them about getting the power of that gun in their hand, how it makes them feel, the consequences of their actions and just open their eyes, like in 2006 scared straight, which a lot of these kids can't even look in the mirror at theirself because they don't even know theirself. But if they could sit down and relate to someone that had been through it, they tend to listen to you more. 366 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 And a lot of these kids are just reaching out for help if you look into their eyes. And I see when I walk the City streets these days -- there was a lot of people in here today that I listened to, political members, so on and so forth, people in the hospitals, people from the schools, but these same people if they walk out in the streets today, they can see a guy with a hoodie on his hat, a fitted hat and the hood on his shoulder and they can't even look these kids in the eye because they're scared. So what are you really doing if you can't really sit down next to somebody and talk to them and say, What's your problem, how was your day? Not a lot of people even talking to these young guys like that. That's all they need, is someone to show them they care, listen to them, give them something to do, and then maybe they'll open up and give you their problems and tell you what's really going on in their life. 367 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 I'm not even a police officer. I don't sell drugs no more. By me just being out there, a lot of these guys put their guns down because of the film that we showed them and see what I'm trying to do now. So it's not even that my company is on record. I don't want no 10 money from this. I almost been killed seven times, and this is the only way I can repay God. I'm not a religious person, but I know I'm here for a reason. And right now we had the cover story in the Philadelphia Weekly a couple weeks ago and it raised a lot of controversy, but that's what I wanted also, to hit these parents, hit these kids to open their eyes so they can know exactly what's going on out here and to see what it feels like to be shot, to see what your body looks like after you're paralyzed, to see what it looks like when you can't move from the neck down. Again, they don't think about these 368 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 consequences. All they think about is going out, riding, doing this, that and the other.

But if they see the other side of it, they tend to open their eyes more and they tend to respect what you're saying and they tend to listen a little bit more. So I appreciate you for having something like this, because there's not a lot of the Councilpeople out here as far as yourself that really care about the community. I know it's political. It's all about money, but I really commend you on that and I appreciate you sitting here listening to me today, and hopefully by this time next year, the crime rate will go down. Because right now it's like a battlefield out there. They don't have helmets or canteens and all these big guns over in Iraq, but they are going through war in these Philadelphia streets right now, and it's a sad situation and I'm tired of seeing guys laying in a casket. It's just a sad 369 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 situation. Like I said, I commend you and I appreciate you. I appreciate Brother Malik for having me come down to talk to you.

Thank you. I commend you and I appreciate you as well. Thank you for all you're doing. God bless. Profound testimony. (Applause.)

Thank you. Thank you. Earthquake, I know I held you up after I called you, as I did Big Brothers and Big Sisters. Come up. Come up. And David Fattah. All of you know the House of UMOJA, Mother Fattah. We want you to come up. And Brother Steve, I see you back there. You've been patient all day. We welcome you and love to have you say something, if you'd like to. I know you work hard with youngsters in your community as well. 370 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 So anyone who would like to testify is invited. It's our forum. It's the public's building. It's the public's forum. That is, it's legally that way, but that is as it should be. Thank you very much. Welcome. Thank you for your patience. Thank you, Earthquake.

Thank you. Good evening, Madam Chair.

Good evening.

I'm Paul Moore, but everyone knows me in Southwest as Earthquake or Quake. Councilwoman Blackwell asked me to come speak here today because she knows that I came from the streets of Southwest Philly. I attended public high school. She knew that the community I work in involves putting me on the front line working with youth in the community, with some of our troubled youth. Unfortunately, she knows that most 371 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 recently the Southwest community has been a target of several shootings that took the lives of both our older and younger citizens. What's worse, some of these shootings occurred at Myers Recreation Center, which is designated as one of the recreation centers for our teen youth center, and it should have been a safe haven for our youth. Instead, several young people were injured. One lost his life. There was also another young person shot in the Paschall area. There's no easy way to combat these type of violent crimes that occur on our street, but as a dedicated community activist, I think positive. I know that each child I help or take interest in, especially those that are trouble, that have a troubled background, I'm helping stop someone who one day will probably commit a crime because they have been ignored, neglected or poorly educated. God forbid, all three. I figure that I can deal with these 372 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 troubled youth now, before their penchant for violence escalates or see the results of frustration later when they take it out on another member of society. I'm going to skip some of this, Madam Chair, because it's a whole lot.

Thank you. We'll still submit it all for the record, so it will appear in the record as if you read it all.

Yes, ma'am. The part I'm skipping is how I got started and left home at age 14. I'm going to shoot right through. Now I do something every day to better their lives. I'm asking members and pastors to do their part. No matter what religion, it plays a big part in the discipline and development of our youth, but, remember, we discipline our kids. We must also reward them with things like savings bonds, trips, movies, museums, sporting events and even opera. Some of the kids have not witnessed opera, take 373 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 them to some of these cultural things. We need our role models to talk to our children, show them that they are real people, too. If dignitaries would show up like Lynne Abraham, you, Madam Chair, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, and other individuals show up to talk to the youth, they feel wanted in the community. They feel like somebody cares about them. I'm not going to read all this. I'm just going to get to the point now. What I'm saying is that youth violence starts -- because then I think we do need to go back to the round-table discussion, whereas though as parents, our parents tell us, Sit down, you're not going outside until we talk about this issue that is bothering you. Is your friend bothering you at school, or any other type activities. Also, as you know, my mother and mothers will tell you in a minute, Your son is out there doing something. We need that unity back with our parents. 374 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 We're not asking them to be tattletales. We just tell them the tell. As City Council, we can work on a partnership in creating some more funding in programs such as programs for these, I call them, at-risk and hard core youth. I like taking kids -- I do a military boot camp where I take it to the hood. What I mean by the "hood," I take it to the environment that they mess up. If they mess up, they got to clean up. If they clean up their environment, they won't mess it up anymore. If their friends see them out there doing different things, they'll respect them more. They'll see the discipline that they're getting. I just want to say thank you very much. You've been very patient. It's been a long day. I'm sure it's going to be long for you. You go home and get some good sleep, by the way. I just want to say thank you, and I want to submit this as my 375 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 testimony. This is a whole lot involved, and like I said, it's been a long day and I have another meeting to go to, too. So thank you. I want to submit this, Madam Chair, and I'd like to thank you and all the Councilmembers and the City Council President and more and every individual that's participating in this conference today. Thank you very much. May God bless you. May God bless Philadelphia.

Thank you, Earthquake. God bless you. And we know about the toys, the food you give out and all the programs. We thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Fattah.

How's everybody doing? I don't know if I should charge you or you should charge me for being here. I feel like I should pay somebody some money, either tuition money or pay them for the book you all just gave me or just how do I respond to this. 376 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 This has been one of the most educational, interesting sessions I've been to in a long time. I think that sitting here listening to what was said, so many people are on top of this thing, and I think that once you coordinate it, and I can see you're moving in that direction, we can finally meet here maybe in ten more years without wearing vests and helmets ourselves. Because if we don't get this straight, we will be meeting here wearing vests and helmets ourselves, if I make it, because I'm getting kind of old for this. When I saw Benny and Hardy, some of the other folks here, I realized this is indeed Black History Month, because we've been working on this a long time. But I think today one of the most profound questions that I heard asked when someone asked were the kids badder now than they used to be. That really made me stop and think. As much as you know, we've had 377 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the House of UMOJO for 37 years. Also, the fact that, like yourself, I was a teacher in the classroom for at least ten years. And it makes you really wonder have they gotten worse or better. And when I heard this young man here talking about how he felt about his father, you know, and the kinds of things he was doing, I realized that the children today and children his age that are now men have had deeper, stronger challenges than the kids that we dealt with earlier, which means that as we're taught in science, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But now the points have been moved further apart, and that means that we're going to have to put out more effort to reach these young people to bring them around to our way of thinking, because now we have to deal with drugs. We have to take advantage of things we didn't do when we had them, such as you're doing now with the jobs. And it's just a deeper 378 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 challenge. The parents are younger now. So many times we look to the parent to do things, but the parent wasn't raised like we were. We were raised -- certain things you just didn't do in front of mom and certain things you did when your brother or mother said something to you. So one of the things that we're doing now -- that's why I gave you a copy of the Imani Pledge. We went back into history when we had the No Gang War Campaign in '74 to bring forth the principle of teaching young people to keep their word. We came to the conclusion if we can convince these young men to keep their word; in other words, if you say you're going to do something, do it, let your word be your bond, instead of doing just the opposite or trying to be slick or trying to miss the point. And one of the things we wrote in this document, this Imani Pledge, we referred back to the father to let them 379 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 know that there was a point in history of Philadelphia where their father stood up and kept their word and stepped forward so that they themselves would be able to walk down these streets without fear. And part of the pain that we feel today is that those kids that everybody was worried about before they were even born have come here so angry and disillusioned, feeling as though we did not care about them in spite of the fact of all the blood shed that was overcome so that peace could come before the gangs. Because the gang thing was rough. People went out to kill somebody. Here, recently, we've been working with the schools. I don't know if you know that or not.

I've been working closely with the faculty provider for Climate and Safety, and one of the things that we've been able to do is, we've been able to give them cookouts, we've been trying to -- I don't know if we invited you or not. We meant to. 380 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 We've had a wisdom circle on the side of the schools where the men come and talk to some of the young bucks to slow them down and get them to act a little better. We still have kids at the House of UMOJO or those young men we have under what we call Truancy Prevention Program. So we're doing a lot in terms of trying to bring together the community and the school. Most recently, though, we ran into a bottleneck. We found out by really working hard with the area high school, it slowed down violence in all of the feeder schools. In fact, the principal said our work in the high school, it helped them to have less problems with the kids in middle school. That was extremely encouraging, and we were able to do that by letting people meet the kids. Like people saying here all day, we had safe corridors at the high school first. We usually had that at the middle schools. Because the high school kids were so angry. And there was 381 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 shooting. I've been to at least five or seven funerals in the last two years. In fact, we're coming here today -- yesterday I was at a funeral. A young person from West Philadelphia High School recently committed suicide. But the good part is, at least 30 of his fellow students from the school joined the church yesterday. I'm coming to you from seeing a young man the day before last that was shot in the chest, showing his mom how she could get his school work from the school. The day before that there was a young man beat up on the bridge and they threatened to put his eye out. So things have not changed a great deal, but we are still on top of it. What we need to do now, we've had a problem doing it at this high school. What we want to do is put in two mobile teams, one of the outside, one on the inside, who can work with kids in different neighborhoods. The school is 382 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 in the middle of five distinctive neighborhoods. Each neighborhood has a group that relates to his community and finds a reason to have hostilities with the other neighborhoods. On different occasions, we've been able to put them together. As you know, we saw you down at the fight when we had the wisdom circles. We had brought one from each area to the fight. And I saw you down there, Ms. Blackwell, so I know you like to fight, because you was right up front. I said, Look, there's our Council lady up there. They said, Wow, she's up there, too. So these are the kind of things that bring them along, get them to have dialogue and talk to each other. But the School District is having trouble being able to fund this activity. But if they don't spend money on the little things, then you got to spend a lot of money on big things. Because when children are 383 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 sitting down and you have a situation where you have five neighborhoods that are explosive, you have to put people on point who can respond. And anybody that has a school will tell you that the most explosive point of that school is the lunchroom. If it's not people in the lunchroom that can talk to kids -- I don't know if it's the menu. I don't know if it's the culture, but when they hit that lunchroom, you best be prepared. Most of the fights and real bad, ugly situations have either happened in the lunchrooms or now everybody has got a cell phone, so when they come out, there's people coming up in cars, who don't know how to act, too. So those are areas that you have to maintain and protect. Our children have to be protected. A child should not have to wear an armored suit to go to school. They should not have to wear helmets when they get in there.

And at 40 percent, as I heard today of the 384 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 school police are not there, that means if you got ten, you only got six working. Who is in the lunchroom? So this is just one of the things that I want to point out to you. And also I'd like to thank you for a lot of the work you did. As you know, a place called Fairmount Avenue is very close to my heart, and now I go down there on a regular basis just to stand there and look around and kind of smile. So I'd like to thank you for your work over the years, not only for the House of UMOJO, but for my family and for the neighborhood. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Fattah. Let me say just as I said in 1973, Lucien Blackwell put out a bumper sticker that said, Give you something to do, something to love and something to look forward to. In 1974, the Fattahs put out a bumper sticker that said, Reach out and touch a black youth's 385 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 hand, make Philadelphia a safer place for him in '74 if you can.

No gang war in '74.

Thank you.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Thank you for your patience. Please identify yourself and begin your testimony.

Pat Harner, Physicians for Social Responsibility. I have had the pleasure of coming in and leaving and coming back again and I know you people have not, so thank you for hanging in there and thank you for listening to everybody.

Thank you.

I have been very, very impressed by the collective responsibility and ownership of the 386 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 problems and the solutions of violence in Philadelphia. I fully believe -- I've worked in this business not as long as you have, but for a number of years, and I believe the moment is now for people to come together. There is a talent and a passion in Philadelphia that's beginning to coalesce, and I think it's very exciting. Our work is in the School District and it's around interrupting the cycle of violence in two of the programs that we have. One is bullying prevention, and as you all know, whosever left, bullying is one of the very early indicators of children that go on to commit more serious crimes. And, in fact, 8-year-old bullies are four times more likely to go on and commit a serious crime by age 24. Bullies are often times associated with school shootings, like in Columbine, Minnesota, Atlanta and different school climates. One of the things that Vallas 387 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 talked about this morning was the school climate, and the School District is working from somewhat of a technological perspective of putting in more surveillance cameras, more security guards. We are trying to change the school climate with our program. What does that look like? It looks like training the staff to understand what bullying is, setting up consistent rules, consistent consequences for infringement of the rules, positive incentives for the children. And one of the key elements of our program, which Jackie Barnett brought up, was the importance of kids being able to sit in a circle and getting the teacher to come out from the safety of behind the desk to interact with the children. We have classroom meetings that are mandatory in our program, and children can talk about bullying or they can talk about anything that's bothering them. The intent is to get the unrest to bubble up in a safe environment, and 388 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 that's what we're trying to create, a safe environment where kids can learn and teachers can teach and not use their resources towards discipline. In those schools that have been successful, we've been able to reduce bullying behavior -- when I say "successful" that's compared to what our fidelity model is -- percent reduction 11 in reported bullying from year one to 12 two. And if they don't comply with what 13 we ask them to do, the classroom 14 meetings, the positive incentives, so 15 forth, there's an increase of 19 percent 16 aggregate bullying. But what's really important is that we surveyed the schools, and we're in over 32 schools serving 20,000 children, 2,500 staff. The lunchrooms are the hot spots. That, and if the kids are lucky enough to have a playground to go out to, that's another one. What we've done is, we've reduced observed bullying behavior by 66 389 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 to 93 percent in the lunchroom with four simple steps. Reduce the number of kids in the lunchroom, reduce the freebie lunch contest so everybody goes up to line together. The third thing is to put caring adults in the lunchroom who will actually talk with the children. Imagine that. Rather than sitting in a corner and facing the wall and talking to themselves. The fourth thing that we've done, since many of these children don't have the luxury of going out to recess, is, we've given them things to do, chess, checkers, board games. We have provided that. And in those situations in some of our most difficult middle schools, we've reduced observed bullying behavior by 66 to 93 percent. So that it's really significant. The other thing that we have done is, we have engaged the parents and engaged the community. That's the hardest part of the job. We can make the 390 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 climate in the school change, but it's harder to make the climate in the community and at the homes be in sync so we're all speaking the same language.

One of the most compelling things that has happened -- and I'm not going to take total credit for it -- in the schools where we have been, once again, overall improvement -- this is aggregate data -- in math and reading levels have gone up, 50 percent in math and 8 percent in reading. We're not taking total credit, but what we do know is in those environments where kids feel safe and they can learn, they will learn. They have the ability to do that. We've built up a relationship with these schools, a partnership, and they have said to us, Can you help us with two more problems besides bullying. One is adult bullying, parents on administrators, teachers on teachers. And so we have an adult bullying prevention component that is now a 391 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 standard part of our training of the people in the schools, because if we don't do it, the staff brings it up and wants it. The second component is in two schools where we finished four years of bullying prevention, they asked us to come back and work on girl on girl gang violence, and that program is called Peaceful Posse, and we are in -- we're two-thirds of the way through this pilot program in two middle schools in Southwest Philadelphia. And there are a girls group at Turner Beacon and a girls group at Shaw, and the most exciting thing about this is the --

What schools did you say?

Turner Beacon and Shaw. And those two schools, we trained community and staff to run the programs. PSR trained them. The school paid for them to run the groups, and Allstate Insurance Company paid for trips and 392 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 materials and so forth. So it's a true collaboration. What happens, which is no 5 surprise and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out, is, when kids are listened to, they tell you what the problems are, and if they feel trust, they solve their own problems. For example, at one of the two schools that I just mentioned, report cards came out, and the girls were very upset because they got poor grades, and they were saying to themselves, Why did we get poor grades. And it turns out that what they said supported the surveys which we had done before we started the groups, was that they were disrespecting the adults in the school. And they said, Gee, do you think there's any relationship between our grades and disrespecting the staff in the school? Gee, I don't know. We should probably look at this. And so they've looked at it, and they're trying to develop a way to 393 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 treat their teachers more respectfully. Yes, to get better grades, but also because it will create a different environment. And in the other school, there was a problem of fighting, and they said, I really feel angry. I really feel angry when somebody touches me when I don't ask them to. How can I deal with that anger? So we provide an opportunity for the girls to talk, to listen, to talk to each other and come up with their own solutions. And they can. That's the good news. So we have been funded by a number of different groups, including the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, Title 4, Independence Foundation, DCED funds, and we try to work in partnership with as many groups as we can. We're about to go into Olney again on a partnership with bullying prevention, leaning to integrating the Peaceful Posse team. 394 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Our tightest relationship over the past five years has been with the School District of Philadelphia, and in spite of all the problems in the School District, it has been a wonderful relationship. And like many other people here today, we are tight with the Office of School Climate and Safety. And Vern Trent, who was here this morning, is the most wonderful person and has done a really wonderful job for the School District of Philadelphia. So thank you very much for the opportunity to be here, and I'm going to turn it over now to Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

Thank you very, very much. They're both my schools in my neighborhood. Thank you. And I know which one that the fights persist in. Thank you.

We're also in Shaw. I love that school.

Great. 395 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205

Good afternoon -- or good evening. My name is Jennifer Carroll. I'm the Director of Match Support for Big Brothers and Big Sisters Southeastern Pennsylvania. I would like to thank you and Councilwoman Donna Miller for the opportunity to present today. I know it has been a long day for you, and we do appreciate you hearing these testimonies. It does seem appropriate to end this long day on a positive note, which is where Big Brothers/Big Sisters come in. It's a positive program, positive role models, mentoring children, providing positive outcomes. I represent our agency on behalf of thousands of children and families and volunteers, mentors who know firsthand the power of mentoring. Big Brothers/Big Sisters Southeastern Pennsylvania is the largest Big Brothers/Big Sisters affiliate in Pennsylvania. We have served children in 396 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Philadelphia for over 90 years. We make and support one-to-one relationships with at-risk youth, matching them with volunteer Big Brothers and Big Sisters. Last year, we served over 2,600 children, the vast majority of them from Philadelphia. Our goal is to serve 5,000 children annually, because we know that the need in the community is great. You've heard many statistics on violence. I don't need to tell you, but we believe that we are part of the multi-prong solution to the problem of violence. We know mentoring works. Big Brothers/Big Sisters is classified as a Blueprint program. It has been shown to be effective in reducing adolescent violent crime, aggression, delinquency, substance abuse. We have specific programs reaching out to children who are most at risk, children with parents who are incarcerated, children with patterns of truancy and delinquency, and children who are either perpetrators or victims of 397 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 violence. The statistics for these kids show a grim future. Children with incarcerated parents are six times more likely than other children to themselves become incarcerated, and a recent U.S. Senate report shows as many as 70 percent of them will themselves become incarcerated. As the oldest and largest evidence-based youth mentoring program in Philadelphia, we feel like we're uniquely qualified to provide the necessary intervention and prevention that the children of Philadelphia need. Last year, 2,600 youth in Philadelphia and in Chester and Delaware County were matched with a Big Brother or Big Sister, but there are still 2,000 kids on our waiting list, 80 percent of them male. As a recent Philadelphia Daily News editorial said, "By becoming a mentor, you could change a child's life, 398 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 enhance your own and possibly affect the homicide rate years down the road." On behalf of Big Brothers/Big Sisters, thank you for this opportunity to present. I would like to submit my entire testimony for the record.

Thank you very much. You said if their parents are incarcerated, 70 percent of those children also?

For children with incarcerated parents, up to 70 percent of them will become incarcerated themselves.

That's a tough break. Tough break.

We serve 2,600 kids, probably about 1,000 of them with parents that are incarcerated.

That's rough. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Youth Violence Reduction Partnership. We have the Bivins testimony; 399 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 is that correct? After the Youth Violence Reduction Partnership, who else would like to testify? We look forward to it. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilwoman Blackwell, for this opportunity, and I know it is late in the day.

That's all right.

I wanted to present two programs that are violence reduction programs. One has been operational in the City of Philadelphia for the last almost seven years, and the other one, as the Commissioner of DHS mentioned this morning, AVRP will soon be launched. My name is Denise Clayton. I was recently appointed to the Managing Director's office as the coordinator of the Youth Violence Reduction Partnership. 400 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 The Youth Violence Reduction Partnership was formed in 1999 with the goal of reducing the number of homicides among young people ages to 24. At that 6 time, while overall homicides in 7 Philadelphia were on a downward trend, homicides of young people remained alarmingly high. In 1998, 144 Philadelphians ages 7 to 24 had been murdered. In 2005, 149 were murdered in the same age group. The initial inspiration for YVRP came from Boston's Operation Cease Fire, a faith-based community government coalition that helped reduce the city's murder rate among young people significantly in the 1990s. With the support of the William Penn Foundation and Pew Charitable Trust, Philadelphia law enforcement agencies, including the Police Department, District Attorney's office and Adult and Juvenile Probation, agencies serving youth, representatives of local court, 401 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 public-private ventures and Philadelphia Safe and Sound came together to examine the situation in Philadelphia and developed a public-private partnership to tackle the youth violence problem. YVRP is currently fully operational in the 24th, 25th and 12th Police Districts. It recently moved into the 19th Police District and is building steadily towards full capacity. The 22nd Police District is targeted for YVRP expansion this spring. Most YVRP organization partners are local government agencies, with the District Attorney's office, Police Department and Adult and Juvenile Probation playing leading roles, along with Philadelphia Anti-Drug and Anti-Violence Network, also known as PAAN, which provides the streetworkers components of the partnership. These law enforcement agencies are working together in new ways. Police and probation officers are patrolling neighborhoods 402 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 together. Probation officers are no 3 longer desk-bound, but out on the street. This is changing the culture of how law enforcement agencies work together, but also improving the view the community has of law enforcement. There are five major components of YVRP. The first is identification of those most likely to be killed or kill. This identification of youth partners, as they're known, is based on an analysis of past offenses, criminal activity and community intelligence gathered by police, probation and community-based streetworkers. The second is intensive surveillance by probation officers and police who work closely to monitor the youth in their homes, schools and neighborhoods. This includes stepped-up random home visits by probation officers at all hours, regular identification of hot spots with targeted joint patrols by probation officers and police, and 403 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 frequent and random drug testing. The third is graduated sanctions in which violations such as drug test failures or curfew violations provoke immediate sanctions, ranging from area and association restrictions, curfews and hourly reporting requirements to require treatment, electronic monitoring and confinement. The fourth is positive supports, such as drug treatment, job training and placement, and education assistance coordinated through a team of streetworkers that are assigned to assist the YVRP participants. And the last is gun suppression to enforce gun laws against the targeted offenders. Working with local, state and federal authorities, YVRP works to deter the access and the use of firearms by the youth partners with a clear no tolerance policy for any youth partner possessing a firearm.

A key factor in the 404 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 effectiveness of YVRP is the identification of which youth are most likely to kill or be killed unless there is some intervention. To do this, the YVRP Operations Committee reviews the criminal and delinquency records of candidates, looking at both convictions and arrests. Candidates are initially identified and referred to the Operations Committee for consideration by the Police Department, either through general referrals of known high-risk offenders or by examining crime logs on a weekly basis; Adult and Juvenile Probation units, either by YVRP staff scanning criminal records or by referrals from other probation units on people who fit the general criteria; and, thirdly, the YVRP streetworkers or by the general community, who may know of a high-risk offender in the neighborhood that may not yet have the kind of criminal record that would otherwise make them a candidate. Once offered for YVRP 405 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 consideration, the major factors considered in the final selection for the program include any charges for a gun offense; involvement in a shooting incident, either as a perpetrator or a victim; an arrest record for violent crimes or offense relating to drug trade; failure to adjust while under court supervision; or community knowledge of an individual's propensity for drug trafficking or violence regardless of a lack of any of the previously mentioned factors. Since YVRP was initiated in the 24th Police District in 1998, murders in that district among youth ages 7 to 24 have declined by an average of 50 percent. 5 per year as an average since the year 2000 through 2005. In the 25th Police District, since the implementation in 1999 of YVRP, murders in that district among the ages 7 to 24 declined by an average of 48 406 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 percent. 6. 3 since 2003-2005. In 2005, City-wide, if you exclude the YVRP districts, which are the 24th, 25th and 12th, homicides between the ages of 7 and 24 increased 98 percent, from 54 to 107, whereas in the YVRP districts, the 25th, 24th and 12th, homicides in the same ages of 7 to 24 increased only 62 percent. YVRP currently operates in four of Philadelphia's police districts, 22 with one more district scheduled for 23 operations in this spring, as mentioned 24 before. In 2005, there were eight police 25 districts that experienced eight or more 407 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 youth homicides in at least one of the last two years. We expect to be fully operational in five of those districts in Fiscal Year 2007. It is with the funding from the Blueprint for a Safer Philadelphia and a federal earmark from Senator Specter that YVRP has been able to not only continue operations in three police districts, but also fully expand into another and begin the framework for expansion into one more. District expansions are based on analysis of trend data over several years, so that patterns of violence can be considered over time to avoid entering a district based on a single or limited number of aberrant incidents that drive homicide numbers up for a single year. In the past, YVRP leadership has been cautious and deliberate in its expansions in an effort to ensure that the factors that contributed to its prior successes could be carried over to new districts. 408 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES.

051205 We are confident that YVRP successes can be replicated throughout these additional high-risk districts because the conditions of success have been forged already through strong and institutionalized leadership at the strategic, management and operational levels; a well thought-out and tested concept; strong partnership, with all participating agencies committed to a common vision; an attention to detail in the development and delivery, with operational protocols aimed at maintaining consistency and accountability throughout the initiative; strict accountability for meeting performance standards; and, finally, intense focus on a well-defined discrete objective, which is reducing murders among young people. These conditions form a strong foundation for successful expansion. In fact, some of the elements of YVRP are being used outside of YVRP. For example, 409 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Adult Probation High-Risk Units are being formed to provide targeted joint patrols with police and more intensive supervision for offenders ages to 35 6 in other non-YVRP police districts. 7 Youth violence in America's 8 cities remains a seemingly intractable 9 problem. Yet, there has been 10 considerable research in recent years on 11 how to tackle it. A 2001 Surgeon 12 General's report on youth violence noted 13 that the key to preventing a great deal 14 of violence is understanding where and 15 when it occurs, determining what causes 16 it and scientifically documenting which 17 of the many strategies for prevention and 18 intervention are truly effective. We believe that the reduced youth homicide rates that YVRP has demonstrated since its introduction is the best evidence of its effectiveness. Through YVRP, we are analyzing data to identify what parts of the City are facing the greatest difficulties and 410 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 what young people are at greatest risk. We are intensively targeting resources to those young people, using tested strategies of supervision, sanction and support to prevent and intervene against future violence. We are closely monitoring the results of the initiative, continually emphasizing accountability for performance and adjusting our approach as the data demands, and we are keeping our eye on our ultimate goal, saving lives. So that was about YVRP, and I'll just briefly tell you a little bit with some detail about AVRP, as the Commissioner, Cheryl Ransom-Garner, mentioned earlier. As you may know, the City has made unprecedented investments in after-school and youth development programs in many of our most troubled neighborhoods and is providing safe, supervised alternatives for thousands of school-age youth every day. 411 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 In 2000, we could only serve 8,000 children and youth in after-school programs. We have increased that number to nearly 50,000, an 85 percent increase, and created a total of 141 after-school programs. For some children, this will not be enough. We must beef up and improve interventions with the highest-risk younger youth who we can identify already as headed for serious trouble. Here is why this is so important: National research shows that juvenile offenders 12 years of age and younger are much more likely to be future serious violent and chronic offenders. These young people leave a string of victims as they move through the juvenile and young adult years, and often become victims of violence themselves. A brief recently published by Philadelphia Safe and Sound examining young offenders here in Philadelphia notes that "early delinquent behavior is 412 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. " The study finds that last year in Philadelphia, more than 1,000 arrests were made of youth from to years of 8 age. This number has remained steady 9 over the last few years, though there is 10 some good news on the fact that the 11 number of arrests for violent offenses is 12 falling.

Nevertheless, this is a large number of children who are already showing the need for intensive intervention to keep them from going completely off the track toward a life of crime and violence. In response to this needed intervention, Mayor Street recently announced a major new initiative, the Adolescent Violence Reduction Partnership. AVRP takes some of the best elements of the YVRP model and incorporates them into a new initiative 413 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 to intervene with young people even before they reach the point where they are likely to kill or be killed. AVRP represents a major expansion of the City's efforts to reach out directly to the highest-risk youth, especially in the to age range. In 9 the first phase of its operation, AVRP 10 will target youth in the 12th Police 11 District in Southwest Philadelphia and 12 the 25th Police District in North 13 Philadelphia, which have the highest 14 incidence of serious juvenile crime in 15 the City. It is expected that AVRP will expand to other areas of the City in Fiscal Years 2006 and 7. AVRP has been designed on the basis of best practice research identifying models and approaches that have proven results in protecting youth age 10 to 15 from becoming perpetrators or victims of violence. Specifically, AVRP requires youth to attend on a regular basis a youth center in their own 414 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 community that will offer the Get Real About Violence curriculum and Aggression Replacement Training. In addition to implementing these approaches, AVRP will provide regular and intensive supervision to these youth modeled on the work of the YVRP partnership. Along with that supervision, AVRP will work to link these youth to the continuum of existing supports for adolescents, including behavioral health treatment services, adolescent health initiatives, literacy programs, mentoring, youth development, family counseling, parenting and delinquency prevention programs and alternative education programs. And I thank you, Councilwoman, for having this testimony on record and for listening to two major initiatives the City has underway to address youth violence.

Thank you very much, and thank you for your 415 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 patience and for your testimony. Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Alice Wright, United Block Captains. Welcome, and thank you for your patience.

Thank you. My name is Alice Wright, and I'm the President of United Block Captains Association, Block Captains Hospital here in Philadelphia. I'm going to be very, very brief. I just want to let the record know that the United Block Captain Association was here and that, Councilwoman, we will do whatever you want us to do. The block captains are very vital here in the City of Philadelphia, and we are the key to getting the information out to our blocks, to the youth and also to the community. So if you need us, we are here. We sent our remarks in earlier, so you have them, and I'm not going to 416 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 read them, because I just want you to know that we're by your side, and if you need us, you can call on us.

Thank you. We have your recommendations. We have your testimony. We will make it part of the record as if you had read it. We thank you for all you do. Whether we're serving the homeless or calling a meeting on schools, you're always there. We appreciate all that you do.

Thank you. That's what block captains are for. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for your patience. Would you give us your name and begin.

Yes. My name is Donna Laws. This is an NAACP Education Committee presentation on improving school discipline, and this was written by Dr. Karen C. Bivins. She's the NAACP Board member and Education Chairperson.

Thank 417 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 you.

You're welcome. Councilwoman Blackwell, Council President Verna, members of City Council, ladies and gentlemen, I have been a teacher of biology, chemistry and physical science in the School District of Philadelphia for 29 years, and an administrator for nine years, as the principal of the Alternative Placement Center for six years and the principal of Allegheny School, a disciplinary school for girls, for three years. I retired from the School District of Philadelphia in June of 1993 and went to work as an administrator for VisionQuest, a program for adjudicated youth, for two years, 1994 and 1995. From 1999 to present, I have been and am the NAACP Education Chairperson. I have analyzed the problem areas in the large high schools and divided them into the areas where discipline problems occur: School 418 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 entrances, halls and back hallways, the auditorium, bathrooms, gyms, lunchrooms, schoolyard and after-school activities in the school. Good administrators understand that students need to know the expectations that the administration has for them, their limitations and the consequences of negative behavior. Consequences for negative behavior must be explained to the students by the administration so that the students can determine if the consequences are worth it when they decide to exhibit negative or acting-out behavior. Students need to believe that the school administration and the teachers want the best for them and are willing to make the students want the best for themselves. This will depend on the verbal skills and method of persuasion used by the administration. Entering the school: Some large high schools may have 20 or more entrance doors around the building. The 419 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 administration usually wants students to enter through the front door so that they can pass through the metal detectors to ensure that there are no metal weapons entering with them. The other doors may be locked from the outside, but the doors are set so that they can be pushed open from the inside in case of fire, et cetera. In many large high schools, support staff check to ensure that the back and side doors have not been propped open by students who wish to let intruders into the building who may surreptitiously bring in drugs, weapons and/or alcohol or other contraband. The metal detectors used as students enter the building are effective in detecting metal weapons. Some students now bring in glass bottles of soda to school. The metal detectors do not detect glass. After some students drink the soda, they save the bottle, which may be used later in the lunchroom to assault students in a different gang 420 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 or security in the lunchroom during a melee, broken and used as a serious weapon against students of a rival group when the perpetrator holds the neck of the bottle and uses the jagged edge to stab rival students and/or security personnel who may come to break up the fight. There was an incident in November in the lunchroom at Olney High School where a female security person was hit with a glass bottle. I was called and informed of the problem, and I told Mr. Vallas about it at a meeting in November. I asked that students also be checked for glass bottles. If security is not up to par, students who enter through side or back doors may sneak up the back stairs to the fourth or fifth floor of the building instead of reporting to advisory to be marked present. Many of these back hallways begin to smell strongly of, quote/unquote, pot or marijuana being 421 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 smoked by the students who come to school but not to class or they head to the back of the stairway after advisory. Often teachers on these floors call the office and report the strong odor of pot in the school. Savvy administrators are usually in the halls, along with support staff, in the morning between classes.

If the odor of pot is detected, they implement a plan called the Hall Sweep. They start in the basement or the first floor and go up the stairs to the fourth and fifth floors, driving the students who did not report to class ahead of them. Teachers are notified five minutes after class starts to lock their doors and not let late students in. This way, the administrative and support staff are able to trap the pot smokers on the fifth floor. There they are herded into an elevator and taken to the auditorium or a designated holding room. Students found with drugs can be arrested and suspended 422 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 for a mandatory five days. The parents must pick them up at the police station and bring them back to school after the suspension is over. This only has to be done a few times before the students get the message that their misbehavior will not be tolerated. The administrators are then able to plan a variety of educational experiences that will result in programs designed to provide continued academic progress for many students and academic excellence for those who are capable but who are too preoccupied with daily survival to extend themselves to their fullest potential. At the same time, good attendance is rewarded with Student of the Week or Student of the Month award certificates. If the whole advisory has perfect attendance, they get their group picture on a protective bulletin board or their names in the school newspaper, a pizza party at lunch and other incentives to reward good behavior. Peer pressure 423 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 will soon discourage negative behavior and demonstrate that negative behavior is not productive, nor in the best interest of the student. Staff development: Teachers, especially new teachers, should be given staff development programs on behavior management techniques and peer tutoring techniques. This will help them to make the classroom have a win-win situation. Students will work in small groups doing peer tutoring. The brighter students help the weakest members of their group, thus developing a team spirit, rather than having a classroom where some students are demeaned and/or frustrated and left to feel that it is impossible to succeed in high school. Administrative responsibility: Administrators play a key part in the building of a positive school climate. Many of them were responsible for implementing groups that help to develop exemplary administrators. These 424 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 organizations included Educators' Roundtable, Women in Education, of which I was a member in and past President, Black Women in Education, Phil Delta Kappa and others. I can and will name some former and present School District administrators who I know personally and who have done an exemplary job of bringing a positive school climate to their schools. The administrators that I admire include, but are not limited to, the following: Dr. Norman Spencer, Dr. William Bayne, Mr. Leonard Herd, Mr. Bruce Ryan, Mr. Cliff James, Mr. Ed Monastra, Mr. Brien Gardiner, Mr. Tom Lynch, Mr. James Lytle, Mr. Harold Adams, Dr. Oscar Hankinson. Some female principals that I have admired over the years for their ability to effectively run large schools include, but are not limited to, Mrs. Anna Kender, Mrs. Ernestine Smith, Mrs. Diedre Shorter, Dr. Karen Hill, Mrs. Ella 425 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Travis, Dr. Adrienne Carpenter, Dr. Eleanor Walls, Mrs. Barbara Bravo, Mrs. Lois Mondesire, Mrs. Ceatrice Beard. These administrators and others have demonstrated that Philadelphia public schools can be run effectively and efficiently when they use forms of student management that effect student behavior in a positive way. Unfortunately, some of the schools with the biggest problems in terms of student behavior and student management may have administrators that do not manage by walking around.

They may not make themselves nor their expectations known to the students and, as a result, do not have the respect and admiration of the students and their parents. Sadly, I have been told that in some secondary schools, the only time any administrators are seen in the lunchroom is when they are getting their lunch or they may have a cafeteria worker or subordinate take their lunch to the 426 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 office. In the past two years, I have seen cases of new textbooks being thrown out of the school windows of two of the largest high schools during the school day because staff or administrators didn't properly secure them and lock them up. Serious incident reports: Some administrators do not write serious incident reports or call police when the incident warrants an arrest because they believe that it presents a bad image of their ability to run a building. If students are caught with weapons or drugs in their possessions, they need to be arrested and taken out in handcuffs. Students need to be made aware that there will be a zero tolerance for any weapon or drug offense. The administrator needs to file 23 a serious incident report, as it is not a negative reflection of his or her ability to handle student discipline, but 427 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 indicates that serious infractions will not be tolerated. It sends a clear message to those who might be thinking about perpetrating negative behavior. Bathrooms: In large high schools, only one girls' room and boys' room should be open per floor during class sessions. An NTA, non-teaching assistant, should be outside of those bathrooms to observe the hall in two directions and ensure that students do not vandalize sinks or toilets, and that male students do not lurk or hide in the girls' room to molest or rape female students who would otherwise enter unattended bathrooms while classes are in session. During the passing of classes, additional restrooms should be unlocked and relocked after class has passed so students cannot hide or lurk in bathrooms and cause harm to unsuspecting students who have an urgent need to use the facilities. 428 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 In the lunchroom: Some students come to school to sell drugs. They are, quote/unquote, drug dealers. They spend all their time, three or more periods, in the lunchroom in schools that have no way to account for student attendance in the lunchroom. Some schools with the proper equipment have machines or cash registers where lunchroom personnel can swipe student ID cards. The machine will register if the ID card has been swiped in the lunchroom more than once. Lunchrooms need proper supervision by responsible adults. It is not the job of the cafeteria staff to police the lunchroom. No child should be allowed to stay in the lunchroom for more than one period. School personnel should clear the lunchroom after each lunch to give the cafeteria staff a chance to clean up. This would cut down and eliminate the ability of student drug dealers to sell drugs. 429 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Depending on the ethnic makeup of the school and the lack of adult supervision, student drug dealers would take over certain areas of the lunchroom. For example, blacks on one side, whites or Asians on another and Hispanics on another. If dealers stray from one side of the lunchroom to another, this will result in a fight or riot situation due to turf violation. This is where glass bottles may become weapons. Parent accountability: My parents, my friends' parents, the parents of all of the students who attended Girls High and most of the public schools when I was a student there in the '50s tolerated no nonsense. Unfortunately, currently many students may not have a biological parent in the home. The responsible parents will step up to the plate and set limits and expectations which their children will obey or suffer the consequences.

In many cases, grandmothers, great aunts and foster 430 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 parents may be picking up the slack. In some cases, the gang takes the place of the parent, and their values may not be those of a responsible parent. If the school administration is very clear about school policy and follows through with the discipline program that demonstrates serious consequences for serious infractions and positive rewards for positive behavior, the majority of the students will fall in line. After-school activities: These activities should be limited to the gym, lunchroom, auditorium and library where supervision is provided so that children feel safe. Elementary school programs: Students should be tested upon being registered for elementary school programs to determine their basic aptitude, and if there are any exceptionalities present, in the area of hearing, vision, dyslexia, autism, retardation, et cetera, 431 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 appropriate testing materials should be used to test for suspected exceptionalities before students are placed. Thank you, Councilwoman, for hearing this testimony.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your patience all day. We do appreciate it, and you know we do. We really, really appreciate the work of Dr. Bivins and Mr. Bivins. Thank you very much. Steve Rawlinson, Darrell Thomas. Thank you very much for your patience, and thank you for being here so long all day, and we appreciate your work in the community and your work with young people as well. Thank you.

This had to be an act of God to have us here tonight, because we actually came down here for other reasons, and it's just we walked in and --

I signed up. I 432 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 signed up.

We'll let her go.

I'm sorry. That's all right. I'm sorry. Mr. Christmas told me you signed up with Donna Miller. We're going to seat her. There's only two people after this. Be nice. Be nice. I didn't have you on our list. Maybe you did with Donna. It doesn't matter. Everybody who wants to testify gets a chance to testify.

I was here. They just walked in.

No. We was here.

No, they didn't just walk in. They have been here all day, Ms. Robinson. Let's be nice and let's be fair. We want them to testify. We're going to have you testify. But I'm sorry. They've been 433 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 here all day. They were here many more hours than you.

I signed up the right way.

So did they. They've been here all day. I don't know with whom you signed up. I'm sorry. But you're still welcome -- it doesn't matter. Everyone is welcome. We want you here.

You're treating the citizens wrong. You do this all the time. The citizens that's not a part of a group end up last. That's disrespectful.

We --

No. 19 Ms. Robinson will have to wait her turn.

We don't have to be part of a group to speak. We don't have to be part of a group.

Ms. Robinson, I will run my hearing. Okay? It's my hearing. I chaired this 434 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 hearing. I'm Chair of the City Council Committee on Education, and these gentlemen are speaking now, and if you want to wait, you can, and if you don't, you don't have to. That's your choice.

I'm waiting.

All right. Thank you. Steve, spell your last name for me.

My last name, R-A-W-L-I-N-S-O-N.

Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry.

I'm going to make this brief. I have an agenda in my personal life, and it's concerning the community and what we see that's going on in the areas and the violence of the youth, and there's the whole surrounding of the destruction of our communities. I'm a genuine concerned citizen. I have very genuine feelings towards what's going on, and I'm actually 435 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 looking for men that can participate in the things that I feel, and we can sit down and brainstorm or however, come up with some kind of solution. I had a store one time across from Bartram and Tilton. I called it Bixby's Corner. I sold the store to a guy, but I kind of got a little frustrated somewhat. But, however, throughout the times that I had the store, I had an opportunity to talk to a lot of the youths. And they addressed me as Big Steve, and they was looking up to me as a big brother, and I took advantage of that in terms of attempting to get into their minds to see exactly what do you want to do with your life and how do you want to continue to live a good life if you can. And a lot of them, they actually need that type of brotherly love from men of concern. And this is one of the main things that I wanted to bring to the table, is that if we can have men that has a genuine concern for the 436 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 community, I think we can make a big difference. I have a great hunger for change, and if I can get these -- if I can get actually at the table with men and we can actually go out to the communities and set up a plan and something that can be effective. I'm coming up here without notes or anything, because, like I said, it wasn't planned.

You're doing a good job.

Thanks. Throughout the conversation that I used to have with these youths -- I'm talking about from the age of 14, 13 up to recently a 23-year-old man, that he just actually didn't have no direction, and he live across the street from me. And I see the things that he do, and I asked him, I said, Man, you need to go -- I'm going to refer you to try to get a job. Go down to the construction sites, get 437 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 your hardhat, put some Tims on, go down there and at least attempt to get you a job, because the work is here. You just got to find it and go get it. Don't just wait for it to come to you. I always use my son as an example, what I did with him. I referred him to a friend of mine. Right now this guy is running. I'm talking about as fast as he can to get to his work. He's working now making 21.50 an hour. Yesterday he came home. He was so excited. He said -- he calls me Big Steve. This is my stepson. He said, Big Steve, he said, I'm going to be an engineer. He says, I'm going to be an engineer. He said he's going to call. And some guys talked to him about driving the crane. But he's exciting. This is one of the cards that I had. A few young guys, they put together a business card, because we did some construction work, and I gave him a title, which was Team Elite. They do a 438 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 little bit of everything. They're excited. The only thing they need is the guidance and someone to really get into their wants and their needs. And it got them into that direction. And my thing is, too, if I can get it together, I'm here however, you know, for whatever to get it done. And I really appreciate you giving me the time to speak to you today.

Thank you. I know you came out for neighborhood clean-up. I got a thank you letter in fact today from WHAT that a senior citizen is saying thank you, who complained and complained. And so we really try to do our part to effect the quality of life, and I know your commitment to the youth is sincere, and we look forward to working with you in many ways and appreciate your commitment.

Thank you.

Thank you. 439 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205

Ms. Blackwell, my name is Darrell Thomas, owner of Philly Cuts, 4321 Chestnut Street. I'm also in somewhat of a way a product of Big Steve's commitment. I attended public school in Philadelphia, Robert E. Lamberton High School, went on to Howard University, came back home. In 1995, a good friend of mine, real close friend by the name of Leon Anderson, was killed on the streets of Philadelphia on 40th and Girard, and it really had an impact. It made headlines. It was a van ambush. I think they shot maybe around 30 to 40 rounds. In the van, there were three young fellows in the van. One escaped. That was Leon's younger brother. That kind of spurred me to thinking while I was in Washington. I came home for the funeral. There was a lot of young people at the funeral. I came home, came back to DC and I said, I got to go home. I got to do something. 440 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 I got to change people's ways of thinking. Never in a million years -- at the time, I was majoring in communications. I had came home for an internship in '91-'92 for Visions. I worked with Vernon Odom, and we did a piece on infant mortality rate and we visited Osteopathic Hospital. And they had a crack ward. They didn't call it a crack ward. I forgot what they called it, but it was a piece on infant mortality, and you seen chemically addicted babies. And it seemed as if I walked in the gateways of hell, like it was a doorway to hell. So with the culmination of those events and Father's Day tribute at Presbyterian Church, which your husband gave a speech, and the speech was on coming back home, young people coming back home and invigorate your neighborhoods, bring something back, and that's what spawned me into opening up 441 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Philly Cuts in 1997. Since then --

Wonderful.

Since then -- I made some notations, and this was really impromptu. I grew up with a mother and a father on 46th and Fairmount, right where the Blackwell homes are. My father was very instrumental in everything. I later realized as you grow up and you see the inner workings and you have your own family, that my mother was the backbone. He was just the enforcer and he saw things through. If I guess it was a basketball team, she was the point guard and he was center. I was made to speak two languages in a business setting or in a scholastic setting. I was made to speak the king's English. When I was with my friends, I could speak what they call Ebonics, but I was just talking with my buddies. I think that's a necessity. In order for our children to compete, they 442 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 have to be educated and there has to be a foundation set. Adults need to be adults. Children have to know that they're children. They have to know their beliefs. If they were adults, they would be born adults. But they're born children. They have to be nurtured. They have to be raised. I have two children of my own, one five, one two. And the five-year-old -- it's funny. I planted a tree -- I'm going to try to keep it brief, but it's something that's really inside me. I planted a tree when he was born, and you have to fertilize a tree. You have to stake it to make sure it grows straight up. I kind of dropped the ball a little bit on the tree, so it's leaning a little bit to the side, but with children, you have to do that. They take 24-hour attention. They have to be pruned. They have to be fed. The weeds have to be taken away from them so that 443 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 they can -- so fertile soil can be laid so they can grow. Since Philly Cuts is open, it's been open nine years, our motto in there is "grab one child and do something with them," and I've had a total of nine employees, and we get them in middle age. That's where I prefer to grab them, because they're still like pieces of clay, you can mold them. And it's nothing that I came up with special. It's something what the community did for me. I was in Boy Scouts. I loved Boy Scouts. It was kind of hard being in Boy Scouts in tenth grade, coming home where the projects were. I didn't live in the projects. Not that I have anything against that, but my mother and father provided a home on May Place, but it was in that area. They sacrificed living in that neighborhood so that all my brothers and sisters, if they chose to go to college, they could go on to college and they could finance it. They had the 444 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 finances. But those activities, it was hard to do certain things where you lived across the street from the projects, because there was a certain tone and a certain way you had to be living in the neighborhood. But there was a bigger force. A greater force to me was my father, and I had to do what he said. I'd rather deal with them rather than deal with him. And those individuals who I saved them, they were me. I was just afforded opportunities. So I come back home to try to give individuals the same type of experience that I had. And since then, we have had nine individuals there, all of whom are high school graduates, except two, which are now attending Sulzberger Junior High School -- Sulzberger Middle School rather, and they're on the Dean's list. They're honor roll students.

Wonderful. 445 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205

Three are in college. My first one graduates this May from Bloomsberg University. And in the barber shop, it's a real unique setting, because working with these kids every day, you get to help them with their homework. We even built an office so they can go in there. They have access to the computer to do their homework. Every barber and stylist that we have, it's a communal thing, and it's not just -- it's not a policy and procedure sort of thing. It's not structured, so much of a parole officer or a wrap-around, an individual as a job. It's a way of life. So I say that we employ hugs, we employ talks, we employ when you mess up a little embarrassment and a little consolement just to those soils, those minerals in the soil, to let those trees grow. So just to be brief, let you know we're here, anything you need. 446 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Philly Cuts is supportive. I missed the clean-up because that was my son's last basketball game in little league, but I'm with Steve and we're here.

Thank you. He spoke well of you and talked about your commitment to the young men and your work in the community as well. So we knew you before we met you. And certainly we look forward to our working together to try to do what we can. I thank you both for coming. Thank you. Thank you for your excellent testimony. Thank you. Ms. Bodine.

I can pass.

Mr. Butcher. Thank you for coming down. I see you all the time in the community. Thanks for what you do.

Yes. I see you also. I'm going to add another name to your name. For the record, it's Jannie 447 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Blackwell Job. She has the patience.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I didn't see anything -- I mean, I didn't hear anyone today from the School and Home Association, but that is something that I want to get involved with with Dr. Ruth -- I don't know. You know her. She's alumni with you. Dr. Duffy. Well, we're working on increasing the membership of the Home and School Association at Sulzberger Junior High School. I just became a member of the alumni right after September, and I'm working with James Williams, et cetera, and they're on this banquet for the scholarship things in April.

Yes.

And it came to my attention that Sulzberger Middle School has some things they want to do, and one of them is having an environmental community, a service learning community, 448 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 but the one that got my attention was the entrepreneur community. And as you know, an entrepreneur is defined as a person who organizes, operates and assumes the risk of a business venture. And a community is a group of people in the same locality under the same government. So what I'm going to do is work with that school in the social service department or whatever. Come March, I'll be teaching a class once a week on Wednesdays. It won't be just teaching social studies, because that's not what I'm about. I'm about practicing social studies. So they will be involved with the political end, the sociology end, the law end and the economics part of it. So starting with the economics, I talk to people once in a while and they say, Well, the Civil Rights Movement was a failure because they got away with all of our stores and the black-owned businesses, and that was like one percent. Well, I don't know about that, 449 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 but on the other hand, there's other people that say, Well, we have to be competitive when you're in business, whether you're black or white. So we have a plan to put the children in business. Now, the children cannot work a 9:00 to 5:00 because it's against the law. They can't sign a contract. It's against the law. They can't borrow money. And the poor little darlings can't even vote. But, see, God is good. They can go into business if they have a parent or custodian or a guardian, whatever. So that's what we're going to do. At Sulzberger, we're going to do three things. We're going to have a student store, and that store will be a co-op store, which means when they spend like $10 in that store, they will get something called a patronage dividend. That's what you get in a co-op, you get a dividend. Let's say they spend $10. They get a dollar and a half back. 450 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Well, what are they going to do with that dollar and a half? Well, we need a credit union, because that dollar and a half that they save on that product that they buy from that store will go into a credit union as a savings, and then they will be able to invest the savings. Lastly -- and, by the way, the Freedom Credit Union has agreed -- they're the teachers' credit union -- has agreed to work with us using their credit union until we get our own community federal credit union. And the last thing, but the most important -- well, first of all, anything I say to you today has already been done somewhere in this city or in this country. The wheel has already been invented. I'm just painting it a little different colors. Now, we have a student union at the high schools. It's seven schools, I think, involved. Guy named Eric Braxton, 451 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 I think is his name. We're going to start a credit union in the middle schools, but it's a credit union of love. It's not about striking or raising cane. It's about a children's rights movement. The children have the rights that other people have. They have a right to have a better life mainly. And the kids in the suburbs get 13,000, that's what Paul Vallas said, per student. We get seven or eight. But the thing is, is that we want to make it better for the children. Now, what I'm doing, I'm contacting different people, like real estate, MBAs, CPAs, urban planners. I don't need the other people. I'm going to need people about business. And I'm not dropping a name, but Bernie Anderson is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and he looked at our plan, and he's looking at it now. I'll have to give him some more information. But the man who was here earlier, Harbucks or somebody from -- I called his name wrong. 452 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 I messed it up.

Ira Harkavy.

What's his name?

Dr. Harkavy.

Yes, Harkavy. Well, anyway, I got in touch with him, but I didn't hear back from him yet, but Bernie taught him. So, I mean, that's good. Just to follow along, when I go into the schools, I hear the teachers or the teachers aides hollering at the children. They just holler at them, the children. And I know that people don't like to be hollered at. And I got a loud voice. People say, Wow, you talk so loud. I said, Well, I talk -- you're hollering. So I know the kids don't like it either, and I think if I was a teacher or an aide in that school, I'd holler at him, too. But the point of it is, we got 453 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 to get some kind of anger management with the employees in the School District. I think that would be very important. Because when you go home, the parents are hollering at them. In the supermarkets, they're hollering at them. You know, it's a problem. Marvin Gaye said, Make you want to holler, throw up your hands and all that. So I'm saying that let's try love. Let's give love a chance. We define love as to care. And that's all it's about. And the children will -- and the union is a love union. It's mainly about respect and it's about self-love, self-help, self-invest and co-ownership, because eventually when they take their dividends out, they're going to take those dividends with Bernie and those people to show them how to invest their money. And we have a saying now with the kids, it's called MAGIC, and MAGIC means that -- it's an acronym, meaning Members Are Guaranteed Investment Capital. 454 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Because when you're in a co-op and you spend your money and you get your patronage dividend, you're using that for investment capital. Wall Street has a stock market, but the children will have the co-op markets. This is a two-part plan. That is Phase 1. The reason why the children have to be in a union is because a union is about mutual benefits, mutual interest and benefits. They will have a voice. Just to read something here about the rights of the students, number one -- this book is called School District Code or something like that. " If a student is between the age of 6 and years old, 20 they get a free education. 21 "Not be excluded from public schools or from school privileges because a student is married, pregnant, has a disability," et cetera, and all that. Number three, "not to be 455 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 subject to corporal punishment," and number four, "to be afforded the discipline procedures set forth in the other paragraph," meaning that that's not much for rights. I'm thinking they could put something -- you have a right to have a union represent you in case there's a problem. And like someone said -- I think it was a lady. Barnett said that they should come before their peers, you know, to be punished. So all I'm saying in a nutshell is that I would like for at Sulzberger Junior High, we're going to start the student store, we're going to have a union and we're going to have credit union people teach us credit union. But I would like for each school to have a connection to a Councilperson in their district. In other words, Sulzberger Junior High School is in Jannie Blackwell's district. I don't know who is in Nutter's and all that, but they would have a direct connection. Maybe 456 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 you could just get some part-time people or some students to be on a committee, that these children would have somebody in City Hall that they can talk to and whatever. And, lastly, I guess -- I think I covered all I wanted to cover, but -- I think that's it. Hold it. I forgot one other thing. The universities. I think I mentioned that, really. But we want the universities -- oh, they had the Beacon program at Sulzberger Junior High where we can pay; that is, pay the university students who are going to school to become an accountant or an MBA, whatever, come in and practice. I mean, show the children how these things work.

And they have this Beacon program at Sulzberger and other schools where these students will be paid. So it's going to be like student to student. And then the Phase 2, which I'm not going to mention, but has to do with 457 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 all our service unions. When the children are in the union, then they can go to the SEPTA union people, the City union people, especially the teachers' union. And I met the fellow that spoke earlier, the Vice-President, out in the hall. We're going to meet in a couple of days and discuss some things. So I think, Jannie, what you're doing today is going to work for me, I know, because there's enough people here that came through this door that I can contact, even the President of the block captains. People don't understand how powerful that is, because that way, you're in the community. So I think you've done a fine thing here, whatever it is, the committee meeting.

Thank you.

And I really appreciate it. And I don't mind waiting, because I didn't expect that I would even 458 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 get this done.

Thank you, Mr. Butcher. Thank you for all you do. We're doing a lot of work in Sulzberger in that land behind trying to work there. So there are a lot of positive things going on there. And the Beacon school, that's a program that's been vital to many schools in the areas now. But we look forward to working with you, and I'm sure I'll see you soon at the next neighborhood meeting. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Ms. Robinson, please come forward, and welcome.

Good evening at this point. My name is Judith Robinson. Just for clarity, I think I came here today for a public hearing on public safety, and I get this notice in the mail, so I try to follow protocol. I 459 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 believe in everything in decency and in order. I did the proper thing. I called. I got on a list, so I thought. There must be some more equitable way to engage citizens in this process. There is no law that says that you have to be a part of a group and that they all go first before a citizen that is not affiliating themselves with a group. I think this process is very disrespectful. It disencourages people from even wanting to be a part of the process. You know I have testified many times before, and it's the same thing. The citizen that is not affiliated with a group is put at the end of the process. It's very disrespectful. It's downright foolish even. There was maybe a major mix-up here today because, Madam Chair, you are convening this hearing as the Chair of the Education, but I really wish that we had been notified by mail about the changes, because it's disrespectful to 460 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 have someone have to come here and spend all day, like I did. I went out and took care of business like other people did, and then I came back. I don't mind waiting, but I want to be respected just like everybody else. Mr. Tom Knox, for instance, who is not even a declared candidate, was propped up here. For what reason? Why was that done? To say whatever. I think everybody has something to say. I took my time to research this violence issue, too. And you know what has occurred to me since what I've heard today? A lot of people are working as a result of violence, mostly in the African-American community, with our young boys killing each other with illegal weapons. A lot of people are getting paid. Okay? It's keeping a lot of people working. If we got rid of some of this violence, I wonder where these people would be working. That's what I wonder. 461 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 So as I researched this major problem we have, I purchased a book, and one of my recommendations is that every Councilperson -- by the way, I want to digress for a minute, because who are the members of this Committee, this Committee on Safety, that were not here most of the day? I want to just make sure I got that on record, that most of the people from this Committee on Public Safety were not here today. I wasn't here at the very beginning, so maybe there was an explanation why these people were not here. Mostly black young boys killing each other in our street and I didn't see many black men from the City Council here. It's some major problems. It's something very strange about it. As I did my research, to go on, I'm reading a book that I purchased called Murder is No Accident. And I believe that. Murder is no accident when I see it in certain corridors of our 462 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 communities. If it was white boys being killed every day by some illegal guns, we would be doing something about this with a quickness, but because it's black boys, it's unfortunate that black people are willing to allow this to just fester and keep going on and on and on. This book, Murder is No 10 Accident, Understanding and Preventing Youth Violence in America, is written by Deborah Stith and Howard Spivak. This book is from 1990, and here we are in 2006. This is a lady from Boston that everybody is running around toting around now, years later, after we allowed over 200, 300 youth, black boys, young black boys, killed every year. I think we all should be insulted and we shouldn't be disrespectful. We should be listening to every doggone body, because you know what? We are out of order. Black people are out of order that we can allow this while we sit up here and act like we powerful. We ain't so powerful that we 463 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 could stop this. Crime right in our community.

And we know who these people are. It tells you. They know who these people are, over and over again, being allowed to run rampant in our community with illegal guns, and then we sit up here and act disrespectful to each other. That's where it starts. So anyway, I want to talk about how violence is preventable. We know it is. We know it is. That's why I'm so outraged. You know, this woman talks about that in Chapter 10. One of the things I want to encourage is that we do get youth involved. It says in this book one of the major points that should be dealt with right away is that we allow our teenagers to be involved. Teenagers need to be involved in the development of the program, any program, from the time it's named, to its content and design. They need to be a part of it, not all these adults, old people running around here sucking down dollars while all this 464 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 violence keep going on. If all these programs are so great, how come we got all these problems? We are out of order. We just as crazy as we think our youth are. I think it's the adults that are out of order. So what I want to know is this: I heard nothing about parenting. I hear parents are all out of order, but I heard nothing about what we're going to do to help parents get back in order. I heard negative talk about households, but I heard nothing about or I see nowhere where money is being helped to help to households stay intact. We know economics is very much a part of it, but all you Councilpeople wheel and deal with these developments, but you can't figure out how to get these black boys on these jobs in these low-income developments in your own communities. Isn't that interesting? You know, violence keeps a lot 465 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 of people working. It does. I really hope that we can figure out a way that we can reduce this and maybe find some other type of employment for some of these people. I want to know where are the dollars going. I follow the dollars. Because I know where the dollars are going is maybe where some of the problems are, you know. How effective are some of these programs? I heard some people toting these same groups. These groups haven't even been around that long. They're being toted, given money, and they come in after the fact. I came here today because I purposely wanted to hear what preventative measures are there. I'm here today because I'm concerned. I'm a mother, I'm a grandmother, I'm a business woman, and I was born and raised and still live in the heart of North Philly, and if God spares my life, I am going nowhere. So I know I have to do 466 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 something, but I'm not down here sucking up dollars. I want to use my own money, and I will. I will employ people. I use my own money now for everything I do, and I'm involved with my community. I used to even be a block captain. Okay? But you don't have to be any of that to stand up where you are and be the best you can be and help somebody, help some youth. Okay? I don't have to be a part of a group to do that. I talk to the youth of my community every day, and I don't have to wait until somebody pat me on the back to say it's okay. I do it as a mother and a grandmother and all that I am. So we need to stop all this nonsense. If we cut those dollars out, I'd like to see how many people would stand up without a dollar in the way and do something. Everybody sucking down all the dollars. I want to know after this hearing, all this knowledge, everything I heard today, what's going to happen? 467 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 What will be done? Will there be some report that will sit on somebody's shelf like other reports have been? I want to know what's going to happen. What's going to happen with all of this information? What programs will be implemented as a result of this hearing? I want to know. That's why I came here today. In conclusion, again, get a copy of this book, please. Please.

I got it off the Internet. You can, too. If you really are concerned about how to prevent problems, this woman had a whole curriculum. If you want to talk about how really to be inclusive and respectful of the community -- I keep hear people talking about the community got to be involved, and then when we come down here, we got to sit around and wait all to nighttime. Who do you think going to have time to do this? I only do this and can do it because I have my own business, thank God, and I could wait here until 468 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the midnight hour. I'll wait out anybody. I don't care about that. I'm willing to be here, and I came here because -- this is not my area of expertise, but I thought they said they wanted us to be involved. I didn't need to buy a book about murder. Why would I buy a book about Murder is No Accident? I'm not here because I don't have nothing else to do, and I don't like being disrespected. I really don't. So I'm just going to say this in closing: Get a copy of this book. Let me get out of here. Have a good day now.

Ms. Bodine, would you like to testify? Thank you. If there's anyone else here who would like to testify? Ms. Bodine, are you coming?

I'm a lot like Ms. Robinson. I came unprepared. I heard on a WHAT call that this was going 469 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 on. It could have been you, Ms. Robinson.

It was me.

And I would like to thank you because I took a U-turn on the East River Drive, somewhat of an illegal U-turn. I've listened on and off to so many people speak, and I guess I'm just going to make three points. The first point is that I would suggest that in the Philadelphia school system we make peace education and human rights education fundamental in every school. This could be implemented by your principals, who could serve sort of as the spearhead of this kind of movement. It is absolutely imperative that we put this education into our classrooms so that the teachers have the proper tools. My heart is beating a little fast. I feel very strongly about it. I believe that children have 470 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the right to be treated with dignity and respect. It's not only their human right, it's declared in the declaration of universal human rights and also in the United Nations Charter. As a teacher substitute, I have gone into the school systems and I have been saddened by the disrespectful way that the students are taught. On the flip side of that, I have seen teachers that I have so much respect for, guidance counselors, school police, school nurses. I've spent two years going into as many schools as I possibly can and to try to witness for myself what the truth is. I've written up many programs. One of them is called Peace Keepers in the School that I wanted to launch in honor of Black History Month. I teach the young people about Ralph Bunche, Kofi Annan's Principles of the Peacemaker. I've had experience for over 15 years working with youth and anti-violence rap. I'm a producer, a writer. I have a lot 471 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 of experience both in the classroom and out of the classroom. You have a challenge today, Councilwoman, because you have heard from so many people so committed and so dedicated, and now the challenge is to somehow find some program that will serve as a harmonization and unification of all of these things. And I believe that that one particular program could help to ignite a pilot program that this country so desperately needs. I am absolutely blown away by the people that you had here today, the quality of your speakers, the dedication and their service. So I would say to you that the answer that we're searching for is probably right here and within us, and that the real challenge is to take these ideas, take these people and create some kind of a vehicle of engagement, a mechanism of involvement. Let me also say that I live in Ambler, Pennsylvania. I travel all over 472 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the City. I take all kinds of transportation. But there is a wider community, a community that stems far beyond Philadelphia, and these people need to be engaged somehow. They need to be brought in somehow. So it's incumbent upon the administration and leadership to design the kinds of programs that will somehow engage a wider stream of involvement and also I would say a funding stream that sustains. One of my concerns is that in the schools, you have spotty programs, and I am really dedicated to trying to find out a solution that serves all students with equity and fairness. What you have are some terrific teachers and then you have some places where they get no resources. So I would like to suggest a program that would empower the principals. In terms of the students, I have found that the more information you give them in terms of their development 473 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 and how to empower them personally, how to prioritize, their own priority prevention, do they tend to want to shoplift, are relationships their problem, if you give them a lot of information, they tend to use it and they're very grateful for whatever is given to them. Secondly, I think the school and the city has failed miserably to utilize the media to activate campaigns, not about ourselves, not about the so-called leaders in the community, but a campaign that would highlight the youth.

I am tired of seeing the same people in the front of the anti-violence campaign. In many ways, I agree with the former speaker. I think that we have to stop -- how can I say this in a polite way? I really don't think I can. I don't believe we're running a jobs creation program with the anti-violence movement, but I believe it's highly politicized, and I think the losers are the students. 474 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 And I think that if we want to create a campaign for the City of Philadelphia, it should highlight the youth and the youth that are making a difference. Secondly, I don't think we utilize our prime time media. They run around and chase the violence, and we have yet to discover how to use the media to focus on the priority prevention areas that Dr. Robinson so identified today. So if there isn't in school an in-school ad campaign or a City-wide campaign, it should activate and focus on the priority prevention areas that Dr. Robinson and others have identified. And, third, I believe that we need to create a whole new culture of peace in our schools, peace and respect for our young people. I believe that they are amazing. I don't see violent youth out there in Philadelphia. I see amazing young people full of all kinds of potential and promise. I have never been afraid in the 475 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 school systems. I am blown away with the young people. I love them so much, and I feel that they have a right to be heard and to participate in the creating of a program that will honor their dignity and their worth as citizens and also as students in our City. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now recess this hearing to the call of the Chair. Thank you. (Committee on Education adjourned at 6:15 p.m.) - - - 476 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on February 8, 2006, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)