COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING - COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, April 19, 2005, 10:30 a.m. (Hearing continued from Monday, 4/18/05) BILL 050003 - An Ordinance amending Section 10 19-1801 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Authorization of Tax," to further authorize the Board of Education of the... Bill 050005 - An Ordinance amending Chapter 12 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "School Tax Authorization," by amending Section 19-1804, entitled "Authorization of Net Income Tax," to further... Bill 05006 - An Ordinance amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "School Tax Authorization," by amending Section 19-1806, entitled "Authorization of Realty Use and Occupancy Tax,"....... PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT ANNA C. VERNA COUNCILWOMAN BLONDELL REYNOLDS BROWN COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILMAN JUAN F. RAMOS COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO COUNCILMAN FRANK DI CICCO COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE L. BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 262 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
Good morning, everyone. This is a continued public hearing of the Committee of the Whole. I would like to make mention that the testimony taken yesterday will certainly be made part of the record, and I would ask Mr. McPherson to please read the title of Bill 9 Nos. 050004, 050005 and 050006. MR. McPHERSON: Bill No. 11 050004, an Ordinance amending Section 19-1801 of The Philadelphia Code, entitled "Authorization of Tax," to further authorize the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia to impose a tax on real estate within the City of Philadelphia; all under certain terms and conditions. Bill No. 050005, an Ordinance 19 amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code entitled "School Tax Authorization," by amending Section 19-1804, entitled "Authorization of Net Income Tax," to further authorize the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia to impose a tax on net income from real property and tangible and 263 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget intangible personal property of residents of the School District of Philadelphia; all under certain terms and conditions. And Bill No. 050006, an Ordinance 6 amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code entitled "School Tax Authorization," by amending Section 19-1806 entitled "Authorization of Realty Use and Occupancy Tax," to further authorize the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia to impose a tax on the use or occupancy of real estate within the School District of Philadelphia.
Mr. Vallas, do you mind taking the witness table. Mr. Vallas, yesterday you testified the District will serve 400 families through the Parent/Child Home program. Would you mind elaborating on that program, what it does?
The Parent/Child Home program is a program that about 22 districts across the state participate in, and basically what we do is, we provide counselors 264 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget to go into homes and to work with parents of children who are not in pre-school or early childhood programs to, in effect, teach them how to support their children at home, in effect, to do like -- it's a version of pre-school home schooling, so to speak. When they go to the homes, obviously they focus on the child's academic development, but they also try to coordinate healthcare services, they try to make sure that the children are registered for the Kid Care program. If the family is in need of additional social services, they try to coordinate the delivery of those services. But the program is actually a state-wide program that school districts participate in, and they've been doing it for a number of years in districts outside of Philadelphia. It also has a lot of support in Harrisburg. We're hoping that it's a program that the state legislature will eventually provide more financial support. But just to reiterate, what we will be able to do with the reprogramming of the 265 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Comprehensive Day Care dollars is, we will be able to shift the 240-plus children who will be adversely affected into the same identical programs provided by 500 state reimbursed providers, and then we will be able to use the savings to, in effect, place over 2,000 or almost 2,000 additional children in a school district funded and managed early childhood program, which, in effect, will allow us to get to about -- will allow us to approach about 80 percent of the children who we've identified as being in need of early childhood care. We're hoping, obviously, to address the others through the state reimbursed private providers, but there will be a net increase and there will be 400 children who, for the first time, will participate in this program. Another 500 will participate through our Cradle to the Classroom program that we administer through ELECT. These are our pregnant teens. So we'll go from about 900 pregnant teens -- I'm sorry; almost a thousand pregnant teens in the program to 1,500. This 266 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget is where the pregnant teens are provided parental counseling, parental training. The babies are put in day care, pre-school, et cetera. And then the remaining students, well over a thousand, will be added to the School District's Head Start program. So, in effect, when can you expand services for 2,000 kids, for 2,000 children, with the same amount of money and dramatically improve the quality of those services? It becomes a win-win situation.
Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Brown.
Could you please update us on the Center City district idea/concept that's being talked about?
Yes. For a number of years, the School District organizational 267 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget structure has been criticized because the Central district and parts of the South Philly district had too many schools. I think the Center district had 51 schools. So what we decided to do was to add a tenth district and to draw that tenth district. The district is called the Center City district, but that's a little misleading, because not all the schools in that district one would consider to be traditionally part of the Center City district. But this allows us to reduce the district size, so all of our districts have -- when you include charter schools, have between about 30, 35 schools, when you're including the charter. So now we have ten districts, all of which are pretty much balanced in terms of the number of aggregate schools that they have. Once again, the criticism in the past was all of our districts have between 22 and 35 schools and then you had the -- 23 including the charters, but then you had the 24 Central district that had like 56 schools. 25 And I don't think I'm even counting all the 268 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget charters. Now, when we drew the boundaries, we did sit down with the local elected officials, for example, to get feedback from them, and we added a number of schools to the boundaries of that district. For example, at the request and after discussions with Representative Thomas, who has always been the strongest advocate in Harrisburg for the relieving of the burden of the Central district being as large as it was, but we now have ten districts. And if you look at the diversity in the Center City district, it's extraordinarily diversified not only racially but also racially, ethnically and also there's economic diversity in the district, too. But, again, it will give us ten very reasonably sized districts that -- and no one district is going to have too many schools. We've also created, so you know, an 11th district, and this is our corrective action district. And those are the schools that have been persistently underperforming. They have not met AYP for, I think, six years 269 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget in a row, and they're in corrective action, too. And No Child Left Behind mandates that corrective action be taken in these schools. We will have at least schools in 6 that district. We may actually have more by 7 the time we reach our final conclusion. But 8 we have a separate administration. We have a 9 separate regional superintendent managing the 10 corrective action plans for those schools, and 11 there are schools -- and the corrective action schools are scattered throughout the district. So we think that -- it's modeled after the Chancellor's district in New York. That's the model that we're using, and the Chancellor's district has received national claim as an outstanding approach towards taking corrective action in struggling schools.
Okay. Under your leadership, what has been the policy with regards to the shifting, the movement of the regional superintendents?
Well, we've reassigned -- or we've replaced a number of our regional superintendents. George Schuller 270 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget recently retired. We recruited a new regional superintendent for South Philly. We recruited a new regional superintendent -- obviously Janet Samuels is moving to the Center City district. We've recruited a candidate to replace Janet Samuels. We haven't announced him officially yet, an outstanding candidate, former superintendent with an impeccable reputation. He's coming from, I think, Seattle, right? By way of Seattle. We'll be, as soon as we've completed our extensive background search, because we vet every candidate coming in, we'll publicly announce him. We've brought Marilyn Perez in to staff our CAR district, and there are at least two other regional superintendentships which are coming available which we have not selected personnel for.
So I guess the fact that personnel move out then forces you to make, what do you call them, reassignments, correct? 271 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
Yes. Most of our superintendents, regional superintendents, who have left have retired or in some cases moved on to other districts. Dana Bedden became a superintendent outside the district, just as Craig Williams was recruited from St. Louis to become a superintendent. We're becoming a superintendent training academy here, I guess. And George Schuller has retired. And Ellen Linky is the only superintendent who, in effect, is moving out who has not retired. She's going to be running our gifted programs, our accelerated learning programs. So we've made -- we changed about a little more than a third of our superintendents, but most of them have moved on or retired. So we're just not reassigning them and then carrying them, with the exception of Ellen Linky. We needed somebody to manage our accelerated learning programs and we feel that Ellen is very capable of doing that.
Okay. With the emerging scholar schools, would it be 272 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget fair to say given their potential and what that does in terms of the students in the schools, that they then require a budget that allows them to do those additional activities and programs so that they can indeed be an emerging scholar school?
We're allocating anywhere from $75,000 to $125, $150,000 to those schools just the first year alone. So while there's a transition to the emerging scholars, montessori, IB Prep, we've appropriated $5 million for the 50 schools that will have the high achievement academy, so to speak, accelerated learning academies. So we feel that that is more than enough start-up money to get those schools underway. Because, again, one of the reasons we've been able to successfully balance the budgets and why we haven't come to you with crisis after crisis is, the money is following the kids, and we're spending our money in much more practical ways. You know, if you suddenly begin adding accelerated programs or accelerated classes or AP honors, advanced 273 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget placement, you need to spend a little more money, but you don't need to spend a whole lot of money, because at the end of the day, if the money is following the kids and the kids are flowing into more AP honors, advanced placement classes, well, then you hire teachers using the money that you're not spending because there's fewer kids in non-AP honors, advanced placement. So while certainly our move towards gifted and accelerated is being financed by reprogramming dollars and allowing the money to follow the kids, we are appropriating additional money. On the average, it's going to be about $100,000 plus for each of the schools that are going to be establishing the accelerated learning academies.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo. 274 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
Good morning, everyone. I have a couple questions, and the one is about the sale of the Headquarters building. It's not so much about the transaction. It's about what goes with it. For years, the school districts had the luxury of parking on, I think it's, Wood Street outside the right-of-way, and I'm wondering, has that area been obviously excluded in this transaction that the developers of that property, I would hope, don't think that they're going to be able to utilize public property to park? So I hope that it's clear or what -- could someone explain the arrangement with this sale, what happens to the, I think, courtesy that's being extended the School District to use public space for parking.
This is Frank Siefert. I'm the special assistant to the SRC. We closed on the buildings, the sale of the buildings, last week, last Thursday, 275 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget and what was sold was three of our buildings, JFK, the Parkway and the Stevens building. The parking that you mentioned, Councilman Rizzo, outside of the Parkway is not part of the sale. We are allowed, as part of the agreement, to remain in the buildings through the end of September and use that parcel, but after that, that will go to the developer.
So I understand for the record that when you move out, the new developer will not be permitted to use that area unless they work it out with the City. That goes away, that parking, along there.
That is correct. And I know that Mr. Wilson is working closely with the neighborhood groups regarding that.
Because that's one of the concerns that the neighbors have come to me, that they -- I don't want to use the word "tolerated" it while you were there, because they realized they couldn't fight City Hall on that one, but they realized 276 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget that they can fight City Hall as it pertains to a developer. So that's good to hear, and I'll communicate that, that that parking there will cease after your departure.
If I could add one more thing that may also allay some of your fears. Part of the development of the Parkway will include a garage underneath the building.
Are they going to use any of the original structure at all?
Yes. They're going to use all of the original structure. However, they're coming off the west side of the building and going underneath with a parking garage. To my knowledge, sir, that's the plan.
Well, I don't know who to address this to, so I'll just throw it out to the witness table. The Recreation Department and the School District have a relationship that I think needs some 277 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget work. The relationship is the swimming pools that they use for their programs that are located within our schools. One particular I believe is Sayre where that pool has been closed, and I've talked to Vick Richard and Deputy Commissioner Carapucci. I can read people very well. They didn't say it, but I could feel it, that they did not have the best relationship in this arrangement that could exist. So, Mr. Vallas, what I'm asking is that your people and the Recreation Department get together, because it seems like it's a struggle when there's issues that affect their programs. I know the pools belong to you. The maintenance is your responsibility, but to have a pool shut down and be shut for six months when it's one that's used for training for summer lifeguards, et cetera -- and I believe the information that I have is accurate and honest, and I just think that there needs to be some work that makes this relationship better, because I feel that there's some stress there and it doesn't work 278 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget as well as it could be.
Let me respond by saying the School District has one -- on any given day, 180 of our schools are open through the dinner hour and we have programs. Some of them are programs run by the Park district. Some of them are programs run through Safe and Sound. So that's about four times the number of buildings that were open four, five years ago. So the relationship doesn't get any better than that. In fact --
Honestly, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about swimming pools.
Let me say something about the swimming pools. All of our swimming pools are in need of repair. Sayre is scheduled for, I believe, $14 million in capital renovations. It includes a revamping of the swimming pool, which has been leaking and has had problems for upwards of five or six years. So it's always been like closed and open and closed and open. 279 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget So let me reassure you that all the schools undergoing renovations with swimming pools -- and, unfortunately, we don't have enough schools with swimming pools. The renovation of the pool is included in the Sayre restructuring. So we hope to not only open the pool, but to be able to open it so it stays open. So I just want to reassure you, there may be some frustration over the closing of the pool now, but if you look at the capital plan, the design -- I think the contract, the CM has already been awarded and the design is already happening. We are, obviously, waiting until the school closes, because so much of the construction would be disruptive of the educational process. But the pool is one of the priority items. So I want to assure you that the pool really by September is going to be, hopefully earlier, will be ready to be used again.
Let me add to this conversation this: When I first came here, there was a lot of confusion. An 280 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget example: Recreational Department and Fairmount Park Commission, who was doing what, little community parks, should the Recreation Department should be cutting grass or should it be Fairmount Park. They got together and they worked it out where Fairmount Park is better at doing certain things than the Recreation Department. Should we have a group assembled to see if all this money for these capital improvements for swimming pools and schools, should we have an organization that maybe schools aren't the best place for the pool, maybe next door to the Recreation Department should be the place for the pool? Why don't we look at the entire issue to see if these -- and it's obviously going to be millions of dollars that we're spending, are best spent in the schools or in the Recreation Department. My point is, now this relationship with Fairmount Park and the Recreation Department is so much better because they looked at it and said, Yeah, the way we were doing it isn't the best way. 281 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Should we look at this issue of swimming pools City-wide?
Yeah. Well, we have so very few pools. Let me tell you, I mean, we have so very few pools in the School District. Of the new high schools under design, I don't know if any have swimming pools included in their budget. So let me just say that we're not expanding the number of pools available. We simply can't afford to do that. What we are doing is, we're renovating the pools that we have, the pool in Lincoln, the pool in Sayre, the pool in the Early Childhood Center in Councilman Clarke's district. That pool was formerly managed by the Park district and it's been closed for about two years, and we house some of our early childhood programs there and we took over the building. So our approach, I think we've had -- we can always have a better relationship, and obviously any better coordination we would invite, but I want to tell you, the last three years with the 282 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Mayor's Safe and Sound initiative, with the Beacon program and with the Park district, we have more coordinated activities going on in our schools than any other school district in the country. In fact, those coordinated activities are taxing our buildings. So there is very good coordination. That doesn't mean that there's not some tension in individual schools where a pool has been closed or perhaps a school is undergoing repair. But we meet with the Park district, we meet with the Fairmount Park Commission, President Nicks. The coordination on the construction of the -- and the location and the construction of the Microsoft School was unprecedented. So let me assure you, I think we have excellent coordination, but obviously if the City Council wanted to create an advisory group or a task force to work on coordination -- to work out improving coordination, I mean --
I don't think Council, Mr. Vallas, has to do that. I 283 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget think you and the Recreation Commissioner need to get together and look at the issue of swimming pools, whether they're best placed in the existing schools or should the money be spent to create a new recreation facility or should the Recreation Department be responsible for the pools and not have to come to you with hat in hand and saying, The heater is broken, we need to get it fixed. I mean, it's sad to hear the stories that I've heard. So my request to you is to have your staff get together with the Recreation Department and look at the issue of pools. Hey, maybe the way we're doing it is the best way.
Everybody said the relationship that they had with the Fairmount Park Commission ten years ago was the best way and it wasn't.
So that's my request. 284 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
You're welcome. Mr. Vallas, yesterday you indicated that over the next months, we will break 10 ground on new schools, one being Audenried, 11 and I believe you indicated yesterday that we 12 would see that happen in January or February. When do you anticipate demolition of Audenried taking place?
Probably -- well, definitely this summer. The reason we haven't demolished Audenried is because the Audenried boiler heats the school close by. But we have a specific -- What's the specific date for that? Do we have Pat here? We will be advertising for the demolition of the building this summer. We'll have the building down before the end of the year. We will then be advertising for the 285 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget construction of the building. Of course, we have a CM for that building right now. It's Keatings Universal. So we should be breaking ground on the school by February. When is the date for completion? Have we projected that? December 2007 the building will be complete. So we will probably -- what we would then probably do in September of 2007 is take a freshman class and house that freshman class at a temporary facility so that when the school reopens in December, we'll be able to move the freshman class to the new building.
Wonderful. You also stated yesterday that there will be major renovations at several of the schools, one being GAMP. When do you see those renovations being completed? When they will start? When will they be completed?
Hi. I'm Pat Henwood, Director of Capital Programs. 286 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget GAMP is currently scheduled for advertisement in October for public bidding. We expect construction to start March, and completion by October of '07.
I think we're supposed to have another community meeting, are we not, regarding GAMP?
Yes. We'll have another one. Let me point out on the GAMP project, Madam President, as you're well aware, there has been intensive community involvement in that project.
And the design has been modified a couple times based on that community involvement. Of course, the recent recommendation was to also tear down the modular, which we're more than willing to do. So I just want us all to understand that part of the delay is the desire to provide the community with as much input as 287 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget possible. We've had 273, at last count, community meetings on capital projects across the City. So we've gone to great lengths to involve the community in every project. We're still meeting, as Councilwoman Blackwell will point out, we're still meeting on the West Philly site issue, and, of course, the numerous meetings we've had with Microsoft or, for that matter, the numerous meetings we've had on the Lincoln replacement. So we are -- being inclusive sometimes delays projects, and I'm not saying that as a point of criticism. At the end of the day, the more community input, the more support we have for the project. But I just want to reassure you that we're eager to get started on this building. We just want to make sure that we've got all of our bases covered.
Wonderful. Thank you very much. Again, the Chair recognizes Councilman Rizzo. 288 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
Thank you, Madam President. With all the conversations we're having here in Council about libraries, could you tell me, have you had any conversations with the Free Library about the way you do business and the way they do business; in other words, again, coordination? In time of tight budgets, what could you do or what have you thought about to work with the system to possibly, in some locations, create a library that's good for the public in a school with, obviously, security concerns out of the way? But what could we do to work together with the Library, the School District, to maybe come up with some ways to improve service and maybe save some money?
We have had conversations, Councilman, with the Library, more than a few conversations. Obviously when Library about a year and a half ago laid out their long-term capital construction plan, we had conversations with them on that plan. Let me tell you what we've been 289 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget doing. As you know, in all of our major high school renovations, one of the priorities is to renovate our existing libraries and convert them to library multi-media centers and to give the public access to those buildings. In addition, all the new high schools that we're designing, that are under design, will have libraries that can be accessible to the public and yet libraries that will not allow the public to have access to the larger building. So, for example, when the new Lincoln is built, when the new Fels is built, when Microsoft is built, when the new Audenried is built, the public will be able to enter the building to use the gyms, to use the cafeteria, to use the auditorium, to use the library and not have the run of the building like we have -- like Germantown. You're well aware. You visited so many schools. Germantown has 46 doors. So they'll be able to access facilities in the schools for public purposes without basically having the full run of the 290 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget school. By doing this, this will lend itself, this will allow us to do our new school construction projects and retain the option of turning that library into more than just a school library. You see what I mean? So as the Library Commission moves forward addressing their issues and dealing with the challenges that they face, the option will always be open to perhaps picking one of these schools and converting that library into a smaller version of a Free Library in an area that is underserved. Another example, the Balsh building right now, our partnership with the Franklin Science Institute, MIT, New York Cyberson, their magnet school, we're doing is Center City magnet of a high school that will be open not only to residents from Center City, but will also be open to residents from anywhere from Philadelphia. And it's really going to be a spectacular school. There is a free library in that building. One of the options available is for 291 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget the School District to, in effect, use that library and potentially even manage that library, oversee the library, assume the responsibilities for that library, thus easing the already concertable burden that the Free Library has. So we have done some coordination. We need to do more, as you've pointed out. We'll be as aggressive as we will be per your directive on swimming pools, but we are keeping our options open so that there is -- so that none of the new major construction projects preclude us from converting a high school library into kind of like a satellite free library, something that the School District could, in effect, maintain because it's in one of our buildings.
I think you answered my next question indirectly, but I'd like to ask more directly. I appreciate hearing the School District's vision on this. Is it also the vision of the Free Library?
Yeah. That question would be best put to them. What 292 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget we're trying to do, though, is per feedback that we've gotten from the community and the Council is to have buildings that can be accessed far beyond the close of school, accessed on Saturdays, accessed on -- accessed year round, and we're designing the school so that that access really doesn't come at the expense of the building as a whole. So what we're doing is, we're keeping our options open. We're going to be flexible enough so that should the Free Library or the Council say that this area is being underserved and we would like to provide more library services, we will have buildings in the regions that can be used for that purpose.
Well, that's good to hear, but I think that the Library has got to be brought into this earlier than it sounds as though -- your presentation sounds as though that you're interested in this, the Library should be interested, but what I want to hear is the fact that there's some legitimate conversation going on. Because a 293 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget library, at least to my recollection, that serves the school would not adequately serve an adult population in the community based on the inventory that it would have. So I think that if we are building these new schools and you are planning a library that could become a community library, that the library system, Elliot Shelkrot and company, have to buy into it and have some input on what their needs would be. Because, again, going forward to try to run it as efficiently as possible, the big picture, that more people need to be talking. And, again, I think I'd also appreciate having some more dialogue about that, because never once when the Library was here did we ever hear a word that there possibly could be a new concept down the road that would create community libraries in our schools. Never once. So if that was something that was on their radar, I think they'd want be talking about it.
Right. Well, look, I'm not saying that they've signed off. What we're doing is, we're trying to make our 294 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget buildings accessible for recreational purpose. We're trying to make our buildings accessible for library purposes. We're trying to make our buildings accessible for neighborhood theatre, for community theatre, for community plays, and still you have the flexibility to -- so that you're not precluding any sort of cooperation into the future. But we'll be more than happy to follow through with them on that and try to work with them or at least push them to at least tell us what their intents are, what some of their options are. No problem.
You're going to have to identify yourself for the record.
Oh, I'm sorry. Pat Renzulli. I'm Executive Vice-president of 295 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Technology for the School District. One of the efforts that we've had underway, and it's a fairly new one, is the upgrading of the technology in all of our libraries, and it's going to be a multi-year project because we've just begun. Part of that technology effort is for us to give new research capabilities within each school to not only search collections that are within the school, but we are working with the library, the City library network, to share that technology to allow search capabilities within the City libraries themselves. And to add to Mr. Vallas's point, one of the things that we want to do within those smaller school libraries is have the school commit to keep the libraries open for access to the community.
With the announcement of Wi-Fi for the City, you have a significant investment in hard-wired and -- it sounds as though you have a plan right now to do more. Are you going to get off of the 296 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget wires and go to the wireless network?
Well, we are such a large network. We currently are connecting 300 building across the City. We need the capacity for our own network. And we will also be adding wireless capabilities within each one of our schools. We will have wireless capabilities in 100 of our schools by the end of this school year. Certainly part of that effort is to reach out and engage the community, but we see ourselves demanding so much capacity, that we don't see substituting the City's network for ours. Where we see the benefit of the City's Wi-Fi capacity is for our families to access information that we're starting to provide to them in a family outreach program, so that information that we currently have on-line to our teachers, for example, where they can access student records, instructional materials, we want to now start providing that to our families, and our families would thus require that wireless connectivity to the 297 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Internet.
On the wireless, the hundred buildings that you say would be wireless, would they be wireless on the City's Wi-Fi or are you suggesting another wireless provider?
It's our own proprietary network. We have a large wired expansion underway that really brings us to a state-of-the-art network, and it is funded primarily by the federal government's eRate program that we've made very good use of. When the City had begun its wireless effort, I had worked closely with Diana Neff. We were hopeful that in some way that we could be collaborative in optimizing the use of those networks. However, we found that by regulation, we were not permitted to use networks that had been constructed using eRate funds for anything other than School District use. So, again, we've been very excited about the City's Wi-Fi effort, but we see the beneficiaries of that being our families. 298 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
The eRate program is very restricted in its application in what we can do and what we can't do, who we can contract with, who we can't. For that matter, what we can use the funds for. For example, we can use the funds to do the things that Pat has articulated. We can't use the funds to purchase computers. We can't use the funds to provide training and things like that. The federal government is now conducting hearings on the eRate program, and we're lobbying and pushing for a modification, because we really reached the point where we've maxed out on our use of eRate funds to begin to build our infrastructure. Now that we have the infrastructure, we need to build the building itself, and we're hoping that the 299 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget eRate program, that there will be modifications. But for a program that four or five years ago the industry who pays into eRate was actually trying to kill, the mere fact that the program is going to continue to survive, even if it's in its restricted form, is a positive thing. I will tell you, Philadelphia is ranked near the top, though, among school districts who have, in effect, used eRate money by federal definitions in the most effective way possible. Pat has done an extraordinary job, a job that she started doing before my arrival, I might add. So I'm just piggy-backing on her fame. But recently the eRate Committee has invited us -- they've invited us in the past to testify to how eRate money can be used in its most effective way. So I just want to acknowledge and recognize her for laying a good foundation. But we are constricted by eRate dollars. 300 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget And I think we've been able to access how much in eRate money over the last three years?
About $200 million. Wiring our buildings are very expensive. Some of our largest high schools have cost about $2 million each. But we have a state-of-the-art network that will serve us well for many years to come, and what's exciting about having built that foundation is that we're designing a lot of systems that really take technology to the classroom and provide better information to our teachers.
That's good. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair.
You're quite welcome. Let me ask a question. Can you talk a little bit about emergency transfers? We get it on all ends. Sometimes parents say, I don't want my child in this school, my child was attacked, I don't think it's safe. Sometimes you get it on the other end, 301 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget obviously, where a kid has brought scissors to school or something. But you have myriad circumstances for transfers, and we handle them different ways.
We call them extenuating circumstances, transfers for extenuating circumstances, and we do about 1,500 a year, and they vary. They vary anywhere from a child is being bullied, threatened or intimidated to it's a parent, the school is just not working, the child is struggling, the child needs to be put in another environment, to the family has moved or the family is constantly moving. A lot of times there will be a request to transfer a child back to their neighborhood school because the family has moved and the child has been required to move with the family, but the child is not adjusting well to their neighborhood school. But we do about 1,500 extenuating circumstances transfers, and a lot of times the extenuating circumstances transfers are done for school safety reasons. 302 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Let me point out that the way it works is, the extenuating circumstances transfers can sometimes originate from the school or the request for transfer can be made to the regions or the request for transfer can be made to the central office, to my office specifically. Sometimes the request for transfer comes through the Safe Schools line, the 215-299-SAFE. That's our school hotline, 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week hotline. But the way approval comes, it's usually recommended or it's usually done at the regional level, but, of course, parents have the right to appeal to go beyond the regions. But 1,500 represents a very healthy transfer rate. So we do work very hard to transfer students. Now, we will not transfer students for disciplinary reasons. In other words, if a child is a disciplinary problem, we will not usually transfer that child. We'll rather deal with the disciplinary problem in the school itself. That doesn't mean if you have 303 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget kids that are fighting or if there's tension between children you won't transfer for extenuating circumstances, but a violation of the Zero Tolerance Policy results in the ultimate transfer for extenuating circumstances, and that's a transfer to a disciplinary school. And we have, I think, about 2,500 students enrolled in disciplinary schools as we speak. But one of the reasons why I think under No Child Left Behind the number of students electing to transfer under the No 14 Child Left Behind Act, if you're in a persistently underperforming school, you have the right to transfer to higher performing schools -- we've been averaging maybe a thousand transfers a year -- is because parents have so much mobility through the other means and because long before No Child Left Behind said that a child could transfer for extenuating circumstances or because they felt their school was unsafe or they were being bullied, the discipline was allowing children to do just that. 304 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
Thank you very much. Are there further questions? Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown.
Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Your question triggered another for me. Could you just state for us for the record why the Bill that has been put forth by Representative James Roebuck regarding the need to lower the mandatory age for which young people can start school is so important?
Well, we have about five, six percent of our kids who are actually starting school a year or two older than they should be. I think the number was put at about 700 a year. And the problem is, many of the children who start school at that age are not children who have necessarily gone through a home schooling program or, for that matter, an early childhood or pre-school program. Thus, they come to school not academically ready, not socially ready, not emotionally ready but physically more than 305 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget ready. So a lot of times the overage children who are entering the earlier grades, sometimes they become the more difficult children to handle and sometimes they can -- they become the bullies or they become the intimidators. So I think Pennsylvania is one of only -- is it two states, Tim? One of only two states that does not require that children start school until they're eight years old. Only one of two states. The majority of states, it's six. A larger number of states, it's five. So what we're trying to do is, for a second year in a row, is, we're pushing legislation to mandate that children be enrolled in school by age six unless they're legitimately being home schooled. You know, if you have a child who starts school at seven or even eight, and even if it's a limited number of children, all it takes is one child to disrupt a class. All it takes is one child to be disruptive that 306 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget entire school year. When you have a child that much older, how can you use your promotion policy effectively? Obviously you can't retain the child, and if the child is behind in the first place, you're just magnifying and complicating the problem, you see. So we were pushing for the legislation to have state-wide application. I believe it has been amended to limit it to Philadelphia. While there is opposition from the groups that have been resistent to this type of legislative change in the past because they view it as an impeachment on school choice or parents have the right to start their kids in school when their kids are old enough to start, I guess ten is okay or nine is okay. I mean, the bottom line is, you have to be reasonable. The opposition has not been really vocal. The opposition slips are signed in, but I think even the home school advocates who normally have opposed this legislation in the 307 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget past are sympathetic to the challenge that we face and they have not been nearly as vocal as they have been in the past. Let me point out that there is bipartisan sponsorship of this. There's Representative Roebuck and Representative Stairs, who has really been heroic in helping us with this legislation. He's a republican from Westmoreland.
So then the prognosis is favorable that this may move?
We're optimistic. I think it's safe to say that the Speaker is allowing the Bill to move forward and we're optimistic. Once it gets to the Senate, obviously the real test will come. But I think as long as it's limited to Philadelphia and as long as it has a very clear provision, not in any way infringing on the rights of parents who want to home school their children in Pennsylvania, as one of the states most aggressive at promoting home schooling, I think we should be okay. It's an important piece of legislation for us. 308 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
Point of information, Councilman Rizzo. You're welcome.
On the other side, in Pennsylvania, what age can a person, young person, stop going to school legally?
Is that consistent throughout -- you talk about the dropout rate. If we sent a message to young people that at 17 you can just quit school and not graduate, could you tell me, in other states is the age higher, could we do something together with the minimum age to start versus making the age where they would be out of school to -- when you say to a young person -- and you hear them all the time, I can't wait now that I know the age is 17 so I 309 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget can quit. What could we do to make that age so they would stay in school and possibly 4 not have an effect on the rest of their life? 5
I believe that 6 most states -- 7 In most states is it 18, Tim? 8 Most states have it as 18. 9 I will tell you this: We've 10 discussed the issue. So you know, we've 11 discussed the issue of raising it to 18. It's 12 like handle one end at a time. So I would 13 support going to 18. I don't know if there 14 would be support in the legislature to do 15 that. They would -- 16
Don't you 17 think though you have a bigger problem with 18 the dropouts, the dropout rate, than you do at the earlier end? I mean --
Well, if you have 600, 700 students who enter the school system each year who are seven, eight years old and you compound that, chances are most of them will end up dropping out. First of all, I support six years to 310 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget 18. The problem is, you're not going to get enough support to get a lifting of the 18-year-old.
What's the rationale not to? I just don't understand why --
I'd like to know how many -- and I guess you have this at the top of your head. How many people in their senior year or at the age leave the 14 system? 15
Well, the state -- 16 there's two or three points of opposition. 17 First of all, I support it, but you got to be realistic on what you can push through the legislature, because the attitude outside of Philadelphia is choice, is choice and parents should have the choice of -- let me just finish.
What I'll do -- I'm going beyond a point of information here. I'll come back. 311 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
But what I'm saying, I support it. I just want to say to it's clear, I support going to 18, but I'm not going to push somebody to sponsor legislation down there that will not even get out of committee. I will say this, though: The opposition normally comes from two areas. One is from those individuals who, for their legitimate reasons, view more regulations as infringing on choice, and obviously I don't agree with that, but that's the political reality. Secondly, I do want to say this. This is really important. There's a lot of opposition among school districts, too, because a lot of districts don't want to be, in effect -- don't want that mandate because of the cost that that mandate imposes. My approach, though, is this: What we've done is, we will provide educational services for a child literally up to the age 312 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget of 21. The reason that we're revamping our evening schools, our twilight schools, our late start schools, the reason we've opened the accelerated schools, the school for overage underachievers, where incidentally you have to be before you can get into that 8 school, is to basically tell students that if 9 it takes you a fifth year or, for that matter, 10 in some cases if it takes you a sixth year, we 11 don't care if you're or years old, we'll 12 find the educational setting for you. 13 But I'll tell you, we will do well 14 to do both ends, to get that age lowered to 15 six and to get that age raised to 18. And if 16 we get the six-year-old changed this year, 17 we'll be right back down there or over there 18 next year to try to push, even if it's limited 19 to Philadelphia, to try to push a raising of 20 the maximum age to 18. I support that 100 percent.
Thank you. Thank you for your indulgence, Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown.
You're 313 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget welcome. Councilwoman Brown?
Yesterday I did ask about some information regarding the schools that are run by the private managers.
Madam, we're preparing the information. We'll get you the information shortly, but I can answer any specific questions on the performance of the private managers from an academic standpoint or I can -- obviously we can go through them one by one. 314 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
I just basically want to know how their faring academically and is there a difference?
Last year the School District, using the School District's standard, the School District saw an increase in reading and math scores that doubled the rate experienced by the state and about three times the national rate among large urban districts. The biggest increases were in fifth and eighth grade where we had instituted our curriculum reforms. The private managers who most closely matched the School District's gains were Edison and Universal. In fact, Edison's reading scores were actually, I think, one percentage point higher in eighth grade than our scores, but they literally mirrored us in terms of our gains in reading and math. Edison had double digit increases in their reading scores. Universal had similar increases, very close to ours, almost seven, eight, almost ten percent, almost double digit 315 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget increases at the elementary school level. The other providers did not fare as well. The University providers did reasonably well on their Terra Novas. They struggled and they did not perform as well as the District on the PSSA test, which is the state administered exam. Foundations did fairly well. Victory struggled. Let me say that all the EMO schools showed gains last year. All of the EMO schools showed aggregate gains in reading and in math, but clearly the EMO schools that performed most closely or that nearly matched the School District's rather pronounced gains were Edison and Universal. I think that kind of covers it. Go ahead, Greg, do you want to comment?
The test was given to grades five and eight, and what we tried to do was to lay out each provider and then lay out the District as a control group. The District outpaced everyone, with the 316 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget exception of Edison, at the eighth grade in reading, and they were very closely clustered together. I think the group that we were least pleased with was our own restructured schools, and as a result of that, we've taken some deliberate steps to restructure our structured division to a corrective action results region. The other two that we pay real close attention have been our university partnerships with the University of Pennsylvania and Temple, and as a result of that partnership, we've made some recommendations for next year.
Okay. There was a lot of very emotional feelings here in Philadelphia when the whole private management issue was presented. So for those of us that follow this a little bit close, we just want to know was it worth it? It sounds like it did work.
On the whole, they're doing well. Look, you know me. I'm accountability oriented. If someone is not 317 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget performing, I'm going to get rid of them. If someone is performing, I'm going to keep them. The Edison schools have done well in this district. They fared much better with their elementary schools than their middle schools. We struggle with our middle schools. But I think the key to their success has been their managed instructional system. They do instructional management very well. They have clear, definable objections. They use a standardized curriculum. They provide intensive training. Their data-driven instructional program was better than ours until we improved ours. So the bottom line is, I think they've done -- now, they've struggled on school management and/or on school climate, and we've worked with them very aggressively. We've had a number of groups and organizations helping them on the school management thing and on the school climate thing. But you can't argue against a ten percent increase in reading scores. I mean, that was real stuff. If they're able to sustain those gains over 318 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget the next three or four years, I think they'll have a good story to tell. I'll also tell you that our charter schools on the aggregate, while not performing as well as the district scores as a whole, had about five percent gain. So we had some charter schools in particular that did exceedingly well, while we had some charter schools that were dead in the water. So I think overall it was a good year. But some of the EMOs did better than others, and we're going to be making adjustments in the number of schools that the EMOs have based on their performance. That's one of the things that Greg is doing, is we're scrutinizing their performance. And whether they gain schools or lose schools will be tied directly to their performance. We're not completing the third year of our EMO contract. What the universities, they're up and they have to be renewed, because they were three-year contracts. With the private providers, they're five-year contracts. We renew them every year, but at 319 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget the end of five years, we'll do an aggregate assessment of the performance of the program before determining whether or not we're going to do more. We did add one EMO or one full management EMO to the group that was K-12, and they managed the Hunter School, and that school made AYP for the first time. So they had at lot of success, and they are very, very popular in that school. They're doing very well. That's a largely Latino school. So they met those challenges despite the fact that there's some significant bilingual challenges that they had to do. What we've also done, though, is, we've taken the EMO model and we've modified it, and we've established a whole series of management partnerships. Drexel is working with us, with schools. Eastern University is beginning to work with us, with Lamberton, University of the sciences. So we're going beyond the EMO model and we're modifying the model to have more management partners. So it seems to be just 320 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget the five EMO providers. We're actually increasing the number of management partners that we've got with the schools, but we'll be more than happy to -- we'll get you a summary of the test score results before the end of the day.
It sounds very good. Yesterday we talked about -- I don't know the title, but the people that will be dealing with school climate.
We're creating a position called classroom support assistant. We haven't decided what acronym that will be yet. Classroom support assistant. CSAs, I like that. We've created this position called classroom support assistant. That's a position that requires at minimum an Associate's degree. It has specific training requirements. It's a position that is designed to be in compliance with No Child Left Behind. In other words, the mandate, No 25 Child Left Behind mandate, that being that if 321 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget you've got staff in schools, those staff need to be certified. And we're giving the schools the option of hiring classroom support assistants if they elect not to fill NTA positions, you see. So for the cost of one NTA, one NTA vacancy -- and, once again, we're talking about vacancies here -- a school could hire at least two classroom support assistants and they would have money left over to hire at least one SSA. So the goal here is to give the schools more flexibility to bring more highly trained personnel into the schools with the money that they have available. So we view the classroom support assistant as that type of position. And they would be trained specifically in school -- their responsibilities would be clear. They would be trained in school climate management. There would be no confusion over what their responsibilities are. So they would be there to focus solely on school discipline issues, which means before the school starts, they would be 322 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget out there in the school yard, they would be at the entrance helping the children in. At the end of the school day, they would be the last to leave, helping clear the halls and get the children out. During the school day, they could be assigned to a specific classroom where you had a group of disruptive kids. So the objective here is to have a cadre of support people in that school that would be able to work as part of the school climate team. Same thing, last year, Madam Councilwoman, we began to use -- we were allowed to convert some TSS money in 50 schools and use the money to hire behavioral support specialists. These are degreed and Mastered degreed behavioral specialists, and we assigned them to 50 schools, and they are part of the school climate support team. So our goal is to begin to have school climate support teams. Somebody next year in every K to 8 school will be in charge of school climate. And then you'll have your NTA or your CSAs and 323 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget your behavioral support specialist. So you've got a cadre of individuals whose exclusive responsibility is to focus on school climate and to support those teachers on disciplinary issues in the classroom.
Okay. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Vallas.
Your welcome. Councilman Rizzo, you had another question?
Mr. Vallas, before I wrap up the questions, one more that I would like to ask is -- I don't want to use the word "controversy," but the issue with school police. I know that you wanted to have a more significant presence in the school system, put it that way, and so I'd just like for you to give us for the record a report on 324 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget where we are with the school police, armed police, et cetera.
Well, we now have one school police officer in every single school. Prior to this here, most elementary schools did not have a school police officer and very few of the K to 5 schools did not have a police officer. So what we have done in the past year or so, and we're joined by Dexter Green, is, we assign at least one school police officer in every school. In addition to that school police officer, we've embarked upon a campaign to install surveillance cameras in all of our schools, literally all of our schools. Most of our high schools have adequate surveillance cameras, but our goal here is to have surveillance cameras in all the schools, because some of our schools are four, five-story buildings and we want to at least be covering all those floors. So that -- and with parents working in schools, parent help desks, we can have 325 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget retired people, we can have our parent stipend workers monitoring the cameras. It just gives us greater security. It allows us to look at areas and look at hallways or look at stairwells that obviously are not being monitored by individuals, because some of our buildings are too large to have a monitor in every stairwell and a monitor in every floor. What we would like to do, funding permitting, and we have not secured the funding yet, but my ultimate goal would be to try to find a way to actually have at least two police officers in at least all the K to 8 schools. And as you know, by '08, all but eight of our non-high schools will be K to 8 institutions. So we'd love to do, what we'd like to do is to get a second person in those schools. We have some schools that have more than one, some elementary schools, some K to 8 schools that have more than one officer, but we, the District, only purchases one officer for each of the schools. We'd like to reach a point where we can have two officers, two or 326 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget three classroom support assistants, a team of behavioral support specialists so you've got a cadre of individuals working in that school. But that's where we're at right now.
You just threw me off there. Are you talking about School District police in every school or are you talking being Philadelphia police?
When you said you purchased, I thought maybe you were hiring --
No; School District police. I can let Dexter speak to our relationship with the Police Department, which is a very good one and we're coordinating a lot of activities, the Mayor's Safe Schools initiative, exchanging information, giving them access to our hotline, the roving patrols that they have that can immediately respond to any issue, any crisis in the schools. I mean, Dexter can certainly speak to that. 327 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
You're quite welcome. Councilman Clarke, would you like to -- wherever you'd like to speak from. Okay, Councilman Clarke.
I wasn't privy to hear all the testimony. I don't know if this came up or not.
We talked about swimming pools, which you and I have an interest in.
Thanks. You didn't have to bring it up in front of my 328 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget colleagues. I wanted to ask you about truancy. First, what type of program we have, what's the status? I know a couple of years ago there was some discussion about aggressively at the end of the day making the parents responsible to the point we would actually do something to the parents as it relates to truancy. Can you tell me where we are with that? Because I'm just out in the neighborhoods. Just whatever time of day I see these kids walking around, hanging on corners and they should be in school.
First of all, let me say that since we began our aggressive anti-truancy efforts, which consisted of us working with Family Court to set up a roving, kind of a mobile satellite cart that goes, I guess, from area to area to hear truancy cases, which has included the Police Department's very aggressive program of picking up kids who are chronically truant and bringing them to central drop-off points and 329 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget which has included us contracting out with community-based organizations who hire parents and community members to serve in a truancy officer capacity, we've seen about a 6 percent drop in our truancy rate just in the 7 last two years alone. 8 We've gone from, I think, about 9 12,500 daily truants to about 10,000 daily 10 truants. No, that, of course, is still high, 11 but any time over really an 18-month period 12 you can see that type of decline, we hope to 13 see that decline continue. 14 The parent truant officers are 15 working out of every region. They work 16 through the regional offices. They're 17 dispatched to schools. They are knocking on 18 doors. They are tracking kids down. 19 Sometimes they're tracking truant parents 20 down, because they'll make home visits to reach out to parents who are not engaged and not responsive when schools are having problems with the children. But we've seen a marked decline in our truancy rate. We need to continue to get 330 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget better, but I think that's a healthy decline. If we can see about a to percent decline 4 each year, you'll see fewer kids hanging on 5 the street corner. 6 We've also very aggressively 7 approached truancy enforcement working with 8 Judge Myrna Field in Family Court. We 9 actually opened an office in Family Court to 10 coordinate with Family Court on issues 11 impacting kids and impacting the schools, and 12 that includes aggressively pursuing the cases 13 involving parents who have simply been 14 negligent about not responding to our calls to 15 help us address the truancy issue. Do you have some statistics on finance? Go ahead, you have to identify yourself.
Good morning. My name is Delia Reveron. Regarding our truancy court, our initiative with truancy court, this year they've heard up to 7,760 hearings. We've had 7,760 hearings this year to date. The court runs through June. 331 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Many of those students have returned to school, and what happens basically at court is that they're connected with resources so that they can address the issue that's causing the truancy, not necessarily a punitive initiative, but we want to get to the bottom of the truancy.
For a parent. In fact, it was interesting because after City Council, I went to Ben Franklin yesterday where I met with the Home and School Council and at least two of the parents on the Council had been visited by a truant officer. The parents, God bless them, said that their children were attending regularly, and they probably were, but I was at least heartened to know that the truant officers are out there and they're making house calls. But the bottom line is, the existence of our office in Family Court helps facilitate many of these cases being brought 332 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget to court, 7,726 cases. Parents can face up to a $300 fine if their child -- for children who are chronically guilty. And in some cases, a court can send a negligent parent to jail if they feel that the neglect is great enough.
Family Court, yes. Do we have a percentage of the fines, how many have been fined? We have to get that from the courts.
We have to get that from the court. We're working on that data, get that for you.
You mentioned earlier that there were some community organizations that participate in this?
Yes. We can give you a list. We'll give you a list of those organizations.
So are you in contract with the community organization, they subsequently hire -- 333 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
Yes. We have community-based organizations that we contract with.
We have Espida, 8 Ungraso, United Communities, Lutheran and 9 Children and Family Services, Presbyterian. 10
A number of 13 faith-based organizations. We have -- I don't 14 know off the top of my head. How many did I say?
And the criteria associated with both the contracts with the organization and also what criteria is associated with the individual that group hires --
-- to 334 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget basically be a truant officer. Am I correct.
That's right. This decline we've seen really the last two years is actually after years of increase. So we stopped the growth in truancy and now we're seeing a meaningful reduction. And once it gets down to 50 percent, then I'll call it a significant reduction.
In terms of your ongoing analysis of the program, if in fact there was either a spike or lack of improvement in a particular geographical area, would the School District rethink its contracting services and possibly shift the focus to another area where there seems to be a problem?
Absolutely. We actually deploy our resources that way. So the size of the contract and the size of the organization is in direct proportion to the need. But, yes, absolutely. We will submit -- as with all of our programs, we do really very in-depth analysis 335 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget which the School Reform Commission requires before these contracts are renewed on a yearly basis, very in-depth analysis on the performance, and we can submit to the Chair a breakdown on what all the companies are, how many people they hire and where they deploy their individuals. But it's something that -- we're beginning to have some success. We still have too many kids that are truant, but people are at least getting the message. Cases are being brought to Family Court. Fines are being levied and parents are being visited.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just on the issue of truancy continuing along Councilman Clarke's line. Are the truancy courts still being held in 336 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget high schools? Do the courts move around with the masters?
I would recommend Council members, if they haven't been there already, to attend one or two of those hearings. What you find is is that it's very interesting that each individual case is really different from -- there's really no one boilerplate you could attach to the problem. And I'll give you an example. I attended one time. A mother was there. She had been summoned by the court because her kid was chronically truant, and the kid, the young man, didn't go with her. And the master, they're actually very well trained and understanding of these various problems, said to the woman, Where's your son? And she said -- this was a petite lady. She said, He's 6'2", 230. He said, I'm not going. She said, I'm the only one in the house. I can't physically get him out. At that particular day, the Captain of the district where he lives was nice enough 337 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget to send a wagon and go get him and bring him to the court. But you see some of the problems that parents go through. Some of them are negligent. Some of them don't care. Some of them, the kids are negligent. Some of the issues relevant to truancy have to do with learning disabilities, the age of a student who doesn't want to be in a classroom with 12-year-olds when he's 16, all those kind of issues. And the thing I found when you go back again is that they continually keep monitoring the child and bringing the parent and child back. I've seen within wonderful success stories where a child the first time you saw her in the court was an absolute mess. Six months later they bring her back for an evaluation and she looked like a different child. She was bright and clean and alert. The mother was thrilled. And it really does help. What's interesting, though, is that each individual case is really different and they're on the corners and they're out of 338 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget school for like various many, many reasons. But I would recommend that any Council member who has really an interest in this to go and just sit in the back and just kind of listen to the stories and listen to the situations and see how these very talented masters approach the problem. The School District is engaged, the court is engaged. It really gives you some belief that there's hope for a lot of these kids.
The School District has -- the floating court that's been set up, we've actually funded. So we put our money where our mouth is on this. I do want to say this, and this gets to the heart of the kids starting school a year or two older than they should be: If you look at the children who get involved in disruptive behavior, the overwhelming vast majority of them are academically underachieving and the majority of them have a tendency to be not younger but slightly or largely older than their classmates. Overage underachievers. 339 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget One of the reasons that we opened up the accelerated schools for and -- for 4 16-year-old middle graders and 17-year-old 5 ninth graders was to take these overage 6 children who, as you pointed out, they're 16, 7 17 and they're -- 8
-- in classrooms 11 with kids who are 13 and 14 and to put them in 12 a different setting. 13 The transformation is unbelievable. 14 I invite the Council to visit the three 15 accelerated school sites. It's a revelation. 16 Because here you have -- suddenly we have like 17 87, 88 percent attendance, no disciplinary problems. I think we've had one weapon, it was a knife, brought in or confiscated at the three schools all year. I don't know if we've had a disruptive incident. I'm not saying that there hasn't been, but it's just nothing on our radar screen. It's been extraordinarily --
The other 340 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget good thing about the program is that the roving courts are held in the schools, which makes it easier for the parents to get there, it's not an imposing environment with a judge with a robe on a big bench. It's in a classroom. It's in an activity room, and it's not as imposing. It's almost as if it's decriminalizing it in some way and trying to get to the social issues and the family issues that create the problem in the first place. So I would recommend it highly to anyone. Thanks.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Vallas, last year you were kind enough and you brought a number of people from your staff to a meeting that I called in South Philadelphia in Thomas Aquinas to talk to an immigrant community, most of them Spanish speaking, who wanted to know about a variety of things, what services they were entitled 341 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget to, what they weren't entitled to. A lot of it had to do with their fears as new immigrants into Philadelphia. And you talked to them and you brought people from your School District. I want you to talk to us in this public forum of what is your policy towards immigrant children, your acceptance of them in our schools, particularly what is your policy towards undocumented children or children of undocumented parents and what type of program, if any, do you provide this new wave of immigrants of which leads to my, and probably limited knowledge, are undocumented in many cases.
Let me summarize by saying, first, our policy is, if there's a child in Philadelphia who is in need of education, we're going to educate that child, whether they're documented or not documented. You know, our business is to educate children, not to figure out what their documentation is. And that's always been my position. That will remain my position. And it extends to the 342 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget universities on the whole controversy about financial aid. The bottom line is, we're educators. It's like we're doctors. We're not going to pass judgment on documented, undocumented. We're going to provide that educational service.
Mr. Vallas, I'm sorry, I need to interrupt you just one or two times. I don't mean to be disrespectful.
Are there any state or federal laws that will go in contrary or override your authority to accept undocumented children?
I'm not aware of any state law that precludes us from doing that. And so I'm asking staff that. We haven't seen any obstacles. That doesn't mean that there are, but if it hasn't, nobody sued me over it yet. And, you know, sometimes I wait until I'm sued before I -- as the lawyers are cringing back there. There's an old saying what's worth doing is worth getting sued over. 343 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Right, Wendy? Right? I always tell Wendy that. Let me point out, though, we have opened up three newcomer centers. One in South Philly, which opened this year, two under construction at Central East and North. Those newcomer centers, the specific mission of those newcomer centers is to, in effect, deal with immigrants and migrants. So we're simply not limiting -- we're just not limiting it. And those centers are not only centers to provide parents with more effective access to the School District's educational services, but we run them like Ready Wrap. Ready Wrap is our program of providing wrap-around services for juveniles who are at least from the detention centers, healthcare, DCFS, Family Services, various public welfare services. Our mission there is to get the kids enrolled in school, to sign them up for Kid Care, to provide their families with the social service outreach, if that's what the 344 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget need is. So the objective here is to have three centers strategically located in Philadelphia in areas where there is large immigration and migration and to have those centers as welcoming centers for immigrants and for migrants. The second thing we've tried to do, and this we're trying to accomplish through some of the flexibility we've given local schools, we have given all of our schools financial support to create what we call parent help desks or parent help rooms. These are intended to be like little welcoming centers or little open centers in every single school. They're supposed to be staffed by parents and by individuals within the community, and they are provided a stipend. And they are trained to provide parents with greater access to the school and to the school services, as well as train to provide parents with greater access to social services. If you go to Edison High School, for example, Mr. Lebron, because he is the model, 345 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget he's got that parent help room and that parent help desk that's always staffed by parents. So when a newcomer comes to that school, whether they're from abroad or they're a local newcomer maybe coming from Northeast Philly or South Philly, there are representatives from the community there who can communicate to them, in some cases translate to them, and provide them with their services. So we think between the newcomer centers and the parent help desk and the parent help rooms, which we mandated in every school this year, of course. Sometimes it takes two or three years to implement the mandate. We hope to have in all the schools, including the high schools next year, we think that there will at least be a cadre of individuals in those schools who can provide the parents with the support, with the coordinated services that they need and obviously can also communicate to the parents. And we're working not only in the Latino community on this, but in Northeast Philly where you have a growing Russian 346 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget community, in South Philly and in Center City and in Central Philly where we have a growing Asian-American community. So this is part of our design. We think that this will provide us a vehicle to get those individuals in tow.
Are you keeping statistics or are you tracking the number of people that are coming from or the number of the new immigrants coming into the area? I mean, are you doing any of that?
I don't know how sensitive our tracking is, because the newcomer centers we opened for the first -- we know obviously our aggregate data in terms of student population. I can give you student population not only by district but by region and by school and how many kids are new and where those kids are from, are they Cambodian, are they Korean, are they Japanese, are they from Puerto Rico. There's a growing Mexican-American population. So we have that data. We're tracking that data. We haven't set up what I 347 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget would consider to be an adequate tracking system for our newcomer centers yet. We only have one open, and two are under construction. But the parent help desks, we haven't centralized any data collection through the parent help desk, but it's certainly something worth doing. It's something that we probably need to do.
Yes. I would encourage you to take a look at that. My colleague, Councilman Kenney, and I as a co-sponsor have a Bill out there that have stirred some things up around this town, but it's something that we need to definitely look at, because it's Philadelphia and it's America, and how many of these children are we taking care of, are now in our schools, are they going to be able to make it, what are the challenges and --
Well, the idea behind the newcomer centers actually came from the City Council. It came from the article, I think it was, in Philadelphia Magazine. I remember I cut out the section and I said, Why 348 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget can't we have some newcomer centers. So believe we when I say this isn't our -- there are no new ideas; just good ideas waiting to be taken advantage of or implemented. So absolutely. Let me also point out that if you look at the diversity of the leadership in the schools, the management team has never been more diverse. It is not diverse because we're trying to be politically correct. It's diverse because I recruit the most talented people available, and I just happen to have an extraordinary diverse and talented team. But we now have -- three of our regional superintendents are Latino. The new regional sup in South Philly who came by way of Houston and was born and raised in the Bronx in New York and has a spectacular history and background, and, of course, bringing Marilyn Perez back to the district, to the CAR district, and, of course, Lucy Rodriguez, who is one of our regional superintendents and, of course, the queen or king of the entire region, our Chief Regional 349 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Superintendent who oversees all our director of schools and regions and that's Nielson Gonzales, who we're not going to let retire --
We won't let her retire. We're not going to let her retire. But that's an example of the degree to which this District has gone beyond, and you will find both in terms of Latinos in positions of leadership, African-American positions of leadership, women in positions of leadership, dominant leadership in the School District, that this is a very diversified and talented team. And that makes a difference, too. Also, if you look at the number of new principals being hired, at least two-thirds of the principals I've appointed over the last three years have been minority principals, and there's a growing group of 350 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Latino principals in the school system. And it's not because we're trying to be politically correct. It's just we are now producing that level of talent where there's a talent there to be that diverse in your hiring. So sometimes to effectuate change, you need to have people running the programs and implementing the policies who can relate and in many respects have gone through the same experiences. So I think we're making some progress.
Mr. Vallas, I don't have a question. I simply have a comment. Apparently you're doing something right. I sat here this morning thinking, and many of my colleagues will remember, when we had people up in the balcony and down on the floor here screaming and chanting that children needed more books and about the horrible and deplorable condition of many of the schools. 351 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget I am told that we only have three witnesses that have called this afternoon to testify. So I would like to publicly thank you. As I said, I know that we were here in years past until close to o'clock at night 7 listening to the complaints of the parents and 8 the teachers. So, as I said, I think you're 9 doing a great job and I congratulate you. 10
Thank you so much. 11 Thank you for your kindness. Thanks everyone. (Applause.)
Councilman Clarke and then Councilman DiCicco, that should be it.
You'll ask at 1 o'clock? Because you know we'll be back at 1:00. Okay. I mean 1:30. I keep saying 1:00. Councilman Clarke, do you want to ask your question now or are you waiting until 1:30? It's your pleasure.
Everybody 352 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget is leaving.
All right. It seems that circumstances have taken care of it. This Committee will be recessed until 1:30. Those few members of the public who wanted to testify will be here as well and we'll have Councilman Clarke and Councilman DiCicco ask their questions. Thank you, everyone. (Recess from 12:00 to 2:10 p.m.)
Thank you for your patience. We will resume our Committee of the Whole dealing with the School District testimony. The first individual on the list is our friend, Ted Kirsch, President PFT, or Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. Certainly we see Jerry Jordan, Vice-President, with him, and we are always happy to see you and to have you. Again, forgive the delay. Thank you. Please identify yourself and begin your testimony. 353 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
I'm Ted Kirsch, President of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and it's indeed an honor to speak to you today on behalf of our 18,000 dedicated members who are working in the Philadelphia public school system. Good afternoon, Councilwoman Blackwell, and I don't know if there's any other greetings that should be in place at this time. Oh, Councilman Rizzo.
That's fine. For the past 15 years, I have come before City Council to discuss with you what teachers and students need to be successful. We've talked about the need for high quality early childhood programs for every pre-schooler and the importance of reducing class size to help children master reading and math. We've discussed the need for a rigorous City-wide curriculum. We've considered ways to make schools safer and to 354 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget give troubled or disruptive students a second chance. We've discussed programs to recruit talented, qualified teachers, and we've explored ways to improve low-performing schools. Under the current administration, test scores are improving. CEO Paul Vallas has implemented several programs that PFT members believed are crucial to turning around struggling schools. After nearly a decade of decentralized management, which resulted in a hodgepodge of programs and policies, the School District finally adopted a rigorous, grade-by-grade curriculum and is providing ongoing professional development to help teachers use the curriculum effectively. There are plans to create new magnet schools to attract the children of families moving to Philadelphia. Advanced placement, honors and gifted programs are expanding to develop the talents of our youngsters, while extended day, Saturday and summer programs are 355 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget helping students who have fallen behind. The PFT has worked with the District on programs to strengthen middle and high schools, and I applaud Paul Vallas for his efforts to create high-quality alternative education programs. These programs remove disruptive students from traditional classrooms and provide them with a second chance to get an education and succeed in the world. In recent years, we have developed a positive relationship with the administration. Frequently, we have been able to head off problems before they become crises. We don't always agree, but we have mutual respect and maintain a constructive dialogue on how to improve teaching and learning in Philadelphia. As President of the PFT and as a teacher, I am proud of the progress our members and our students are making. With a district-wide curriculum and better professional development for teachers and staff, test scores are rising. But as we have seen with reform efforts around the country, 356 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget gains in academic achievement will plateau unless specific proven reforms are put into place in Philadelphia. Among the reforms still needed in the School District of Philadelphia are: High-quality, universal early childhood education programs; real class size reduction; better retention of qualified, certified teachers for every classroom; making schools safe and orderly, both inside and outside; spending less on private contractors, who make a profit, and putting more money directly into our classrooms; and, finally, creating learning and work environments that support both children and their parents. Reduced class size: For two decades, the PFT has argued that children can do better in smaller classes. We've produced irrefutable evidence documenting the life-long benefits of reducing class size to 15 or 17 children to one teacher in kindergarten through third grade. Despite an abundance of research showing the benefits of reducing class sizes, approximately two-thirds of the 357 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Philadelphia School District attend classes with more than students and a third are in 4 classes with 30 or more. 5 And now, class sizes are headed in 6 the wrong direction. At recent budget 7 meetings, some principals have been instructed 8 that class size in kindergarten and third 9 grade is to be 30 per classroom. This is 10 unacceptable. And I might add that just 11 within the hour, I spoke with Mr.
Vallas in 12 the hallway and he is going to be looking into 13 what he believes was improper information 14 given to the principals regarding class size, 15 because it must be reduced for effectiveness. 16 If we're serious about improving 17 achievement and raising graduation rates in 18 the District, we must reduce class size, and 19 we have to have one certified teaching in 20 every classroom beginning with the lowest and 21 phasing in kindergarten to third grade 22 classes. 23 The District is eliminating the 24 Literacy Intern program next year and replacing the interns with college students 358 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget and part-time classroom assistants. While helpful, this is not class size reduction and will not produce life-long achievement gains or higher graduation rates our children need. We urge Council members to use their influence to move the District's class size reduction efforts in this direction, the direction that research says benefits our students the most. The Literacy Intern programs, we have been negotiating with the School District so that each of the individuals involved will have alternatives so that they can remain full-time employees of the School District. We believe that the second-year interns will be enabled to become interns to complete their education as full-time teachers in classrooms. The first-year interns, we believe, will be given an opportunity to obtain an emergency certificate, which will enable them to continue their education so that they too can become fully qualified under the No Child Left Behind law. It's unconscionable that District funds have been earmarked for class size 359 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget reduction or to eliminate educationally indefensible split classes, in which a single teacher must teach two grade levels simultaneously. Some of this money is being diverted for other purposes. Again, we had the discussion in the hall with Mr. Vallas and he's going to investigate, because there shouldn't be any split grades. It's impossible for a classroom teacher to teach two different levels in the same classroom. And although some funds have been given to the schools to eliminate split grades, we want to make sure that those funds are used properly, that in September we have no split grades in Philadelphia. Regarding our Early Childhood Education programs, the District and the PFT agree there's no better place to start children on the road to learning with early childhood educations, and we applaud the goal of having 80 percent of Philadelphia's children in high-quality early childhood programs by 2008. We don't, however, agree with the way the District proposes to reach 360 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget that goal. The District has proposed eliminating the Comprehensive Early Learning Center program over the next two years. This move will eliminate 162 jobs held by people who live and work in Philadelphia this year and another 80 jobs next year. The CELC program is a unique program that provides care and education for infants, toddlers and pre-school children. It provides before- and after-school care in clean, safe and monitored settings for school-age children as well. The program encompasses the District's teen parent centers, which allow public school students with infants and young children to place them in a safe child care setting while the parents finish high school. Elimination of this program may discourage some teen parents from completing their education. The District proposes eliminating the Infant/Toddler program and the before; and after-school program. m. m. The before- and after-school programs provide children with a safe haven where they can do homework and socialize while their parents work. Hundreds of working parents who rely on these services will be hardpressed to find affordable, competent and reliable caregivers.
The quick demise of this program will send hundreds of working parents scrambling for reliable child care and, as I said, may discourage teen parents from continuing their education. We do not believe this plan will save as much as the District hopes, and in terms of lost jobs and reliable child care, it's likely to cost the community more than the District saves. We need a program that allows parents to go to work every day secure in the knowledge that their children are in a safe, supportive environment. The dedicated employees of this program deserve reasonable notice to allow them the time they need to 362 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget meet changing criteria to keep their jobs caring for our youngest families and their children. We all want better pre-school education for children, but I implore Council to look carefully at this plan and to make sure it serves the needs and goals of infants, children, parents and the community as a whole. On the issue of retaining qualified, certified teachers, without qualified, certified teachers in every classroom, students won't achieve their full potential. Research shows that hiring certified teachers has a significant and positive impact on student achievement. Studies indicated that qualified teachers can help children overcome severe disadvantages, including poverty and language barriers and can help close the achievement gap between white and minority students. The District has taken some steps to recruit and retain qualified teachers. However, the best way to attract and keep 363 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget qualified teachers is to reduce class sizes so the teachers are not overwhelmed by the needs of 30 or more children, provide them with more training and support for good classroom management and offer salaries and working conditions that are competitive with neighboring school districts. On the issue of making schools safe, the District has made it clear to students, staff, administration and the public that violence will not be tolerated in our schools. The stabbing of a female student at Kensington High School yesterday and other acts of violence on our campuses remind us that there is always more work to be done. PFT members continue to support established high-quality alternative schools for disruptive or violent students. Further, our members tell us we must focus on civility and order in schools so they can teach and students can learn. We cannot improve school safety by eliminating nearly half of the 400 non-teaching assistants as some administrators 364 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget have proposed in this budget. Non-teaching assistants provide an invaluable service to schools. They greet students at the doors each day and they know their names. They monitor hallways, stairwells and bathrooms and assist in lunchrooms and on playgrounds. NTAs know the children and their families in the community and are uniquely positioned to monitor and correct student behavior problems in schools. With fewer NTAs, schools will see big increases in hall walkers, students who skip classes and cause problems throughout the buildings. In one middle school where NTAs were temporarily eliminated, the school nurse reported that 40 percent of the students reporting to the health room were there because of injuries caused by other students in unsupervised hallways, bathrooms and stairwells. Instead of cutting full-time employees who make our schools safe, we should find ways to increase their ranks and augment their training and effectiveness. 365 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Again, I'd like to point out that just prior to my testimony, I spoke to Mr. Vallas about this issue, and he's going to continue discussions with the Federation and look into some of the proposed budget cuts that principals have made which we believe are improper.
On the issue of privatization and charter schools, I urge the Council to use your influence to put an end to the expensive charter school and privatization experiment in Philadelphia. We have seen little return on investment in private management and significantly less progress in achievement at the ever-expanding number of charter schools. We believe that close to $60 million are being spent on charter schools coming out of the budget of the School District of Philadelphia. Test scores are making the greatest gains at District-managed schools. Despite spending more tax dollars on schools under private management, these schools generally 366 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget show smaller increases in student achievement. And charter schools, with very few exceptions, are gobbling up an increasing share of the District's budget with no value added for the students who attend them. This money would be better spent improving instruction for all students in all traditional public schools. Privatization is spreading across the district. Last year, PFT food service managers and the PFT's negotiating team successfully fought a plan to privatize food services, only to find the proposal back in this year's budget. Although food service managers would not be laid off initially, we see this as District trend that hurts Philadelphia families, downgrading good-paying jobs and benefits and replacing them with lower-paying jobs. The District's budget may be balanced, but sometimes what's between the lines doesn't add up for Philadelphia's kids or their families. You can't claim to care about kids when you take away the jobs of their parents. 367 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget We understand that times change and programs must keep pace with new needs, but we are seeing in this budget is more money going to non-instructional uses, charter schools, private management contracts and other programs that don't help kids and don't help Philadelphia. Throughout the district, schools are eliminating libraries and art and music programs. Since the year 2000, the District has lost 52 librarians and 27 library assistants. Out of 264 schools, only 84 have libraries staffed with professional librarians who can help children navigate the complex information age in which we live. Libraries, as you well know, are not frills. Art, music, sports, computer education and libraries are the programs that make school enjoyable for youngsters. They are critical to developing well-rounded adults as math, reading and science. As we strive to raise student achievement, we cannot forego the activities, subjects and services that keep students interested, engaged and 368 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget motivated. We agree with many of the goals and the overall vision of the administration. We cannot condone program and personnel cuts that hurt our students, our staff, our families and our community. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Kirsch. Mr. Jordan, would you like to have something to say?
No. No, thanks. If there's questions, I am available to answer them.