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.
Thank you. You mention NTAs versus that new position, a person with an Associate, as school climate.
Climate support assistant. Tell me what you feel about that. Obviously we know it's a lot more personnel, but I believe that person 369 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget would trade off in terms of a principal picking whether they want that person or a teacher. Tell me what your thoughts are on that position.
We don't agree with that position. That's a position that will be replacing current non-teaching assistants. It's a newly created position that the District has probably advertised by this time. The salary that they are proposing is $23,000 a year. It will mean the layoff of up to probably 200 current NTAs in the School District, and the jobs would be almost identical. They will be working monitoring the hallways, the cafeterias, the yards, all of the duties that NTAs currently perform.
I see. So they won't be like teachers' aides and that sort of thing, it's a whole different -- it's like an NTA position.
It is, when I read the job description, absolutely, but at a lower cost. 370 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
Thank you very much. Any questions? (No response.)
Thank you very much, and, again, thank you both for your patience and for all that you always do. Thank you. Mike McGinley, Local 1201. After Mr. McGinley is Shelly Yanoff. Shelly, are you here?
Okay. Good afternoon. Thank you for your patience. Please identify yourself and begin your testimony. MR. McGINLEY: Good afternoon. Mike McGinley, Local 1201.
Thank you. MR. McGINLEY: Good afternoon, Majority Leader Blackwell, Council members, 371 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget 1201 members, parents and taxpayers, my name is Michael McGinley. I am President of Local 1201, the union that represents 3,500 non-teaching School District employees. The vast majority of our members are minorities and females. They earn about $24,000 per year. They are an older group of employees who will find it exceedingly difficult to find new employment if you allow the School District to lay them off. They are your constituents. Nearly 100 percent of our members live in Philadelphia. They pay Philadelphia taxes. They vote in Philadelphia. Of the 225 employees who face Vallas directed layoff, 68 are single parents. I sit before you to ask for your support and for your understanding of what is currently taking place in the operations of the School District of Philadelphia. Yesterday the School District CEO, Mr. Paul Vallas, testified in this chamber. He stated, in part, that he wanted to privatize the jobs of 225 members of our union 372 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget who are your constituents. His testimony was not completely forthcoming or correct. " I am here to set the record straight. Our members clean the school. When they leave at or o'clock at night, the 10 schools are clean. The challenges they face 11 daily are daunting, graffiti, vandalism, simply not paying attention to the rules that principals don't enforce. But they get the job even if it requires them to stay late or work extra hours to complete the work of an absent co-worker. They are proud of the job they do. You can see that pride in the pictures we have attached to my testimony. We make no claim that the schools are spotless, but within the system designed by the School District, the system that the School District negotiated over an 18-month period, our members have more than met the challenge. The majority of problems that exist in the cleaning process are not the 373 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget cleaners but the system itself. In the last contract, we warned the District that its square footage cleaning requirements were too high for the number of staff they assigned to the job. We told the District that its square footage cleaning requirements were way above industry average. We told the District that forcing these square footage cleaning requirements would lead to burnout and absenteeism. On the subject of absenteeism, we offered to work with the District to reduce the absenteeism. They ignored our offer. Yesterday Mr. Vallas stated that absenteeism was at percent. That figure is 17 wrong. And under the same terms of the past 18 contracts and the current contract, there is a 19 system to reduce chronic absenteeism that the 20 School District ignores. 21 Mr. " I've 23 been to the restrooms here in the City Hall 24 both yesterday and today. They are not clean 25 at noon time or mid afternoon. Not because 374 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget the cleaners are absent, but because they are not scheduled to work in the daytime when the building sees heavy use. I might add that City Hall bathrooms are the responsibility of one of the same companies that have submitted a bid to clean our high schools. Yesterday Mr. Vallas stated publicly that all fired cleaners would be absorbed into the system and would not lose their jobs. In private meetings with the School District, the District made no such promise. In fact, they stated that they would simply abide by the terms of the contract, which would allow them to lay these resident voter caretakers off from their jobs and end their pension promises if they gave proper notice. Privatization of cleaning the public schools has failed before. Failed miserably. In 1992, ten schools were outsourced to a for-profit private contractor. These contractors performed below 1201 standards.
After 18 months, they walked away with millions of taxpayer dollars. 1201 cleaners were reinstalled. 375 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Firing 225 employees will not make the schools any cleaner during the daylight hours. Firing 225 employees will not make the schools any cleaner at o'clock at night or 6 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Changing the 7 system will make the schools cleaner. Proper 8 staffing, proper equipment and proper supplies 9 will make the schools cleaner. 10 This Local has a strong history of stepping up to the challenge and solving problems. For example, in 1995, there was going to be no JV sports programs. While others were pointing fingers and placing blame, this Local found the solution. Our members sacrificed their pay increase and diverted their money to fund the sports program. 5 million. What we want is not a pat on the back, just the opportunity to provide these kids with a safe, clean and healthy environment. Involvement with the kids and the schools won't occur with for-profit companies. 376 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget For-profit companies are ultimately for the shareholders, not the kids and the community. We have offered to work with the School District to keep these schools cleaner. We are prepared to co-pay for a program to teach the kids and school staff to be responsible for the cleanliness of their own schools. We have a solution for making the schools cleaner. Give it a chance. Give it support. Join us in working for a real solution. Today I end with an offer and a challenge. This union will be happy to take any or every member of Council to any school to do a tour of what the schools look like before our members arrive and a few hours later we'll do another tour to inspect the condition after our members have completed their task. If you accept this offer, you will walk away with a new appreciation of the dedication and accomplishments of the work these underpaid, understaffed minority public servants succeed at every day. Thank you. 377 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
We thank you for your excellent testimony and the job you do. Thank you very much. MR. McGINLEY: Thank you.
My pleasure. Shelly Yanoff, PCCY. Is Sasha Vann here or representatives from Comprehensive Day Care? UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yes.
Good afternoon, Councilwoman Blackwell, Councilman Rizzo. I'm Sharon Ward of PCCY. I'm here on behalf of --
Spell 378 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget your last name.
I'm here on behalf of Shelly Yanoff. I'm the Child Care Policy and Advocacy Director of Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth. I'll give you my testimony. The issue of having to stretch dollars is not new and it is particularly not new to the School District. In fact, what is new is that the District is undertaking an enormous numbers of initiatives, from building many new schools, to developing a variety of options for children in every part of the City, to setting a goal of providing almost all three- and four-year-olds with an early childhood program, to having some kind of magnet school everywhere for almost every age, every grade grouping. We applaud these effort, as well as the critical one of focusing on high schools, making them small enough to develop the kind 379 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget of learning climates that kids need and large enough to provide the opportunities that life demands. We urge the District to work with these communities in developing the schools. Small schools are enhanced by community planning and commitment. We at PCCY are working with the District on developing a school dedicated to the pursuit of peace and conflict resolution. We are hopeful that the school will open in September and be a model for creating a more peaceful, less violent climate for all in our community. As proponents of more music and art in schools, we applaud the announcement of a new music program for 30 schools, as well as the emphasis on the arts and the extended day and Saturday day programs. But we are concerned this will still leave many schools without art and music as part of the regular school day. At last count, there were more than 50 elementary schools without a music or art teacher. We believe that our children all need art and music programs as part of their 380 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget regular day. We understand that the District is proposing to convert many of its early childhood programs to a new school day pre-kindergarten program. While we applaud the District's continued commitment to school readiness, we are concerned that there are many families and children who will lose out during this conversion. The Comprehensive Early Learning Centers, which the District is scheduled to phase out, provides valuable child care services for almost 1,300 families. The program has improved in recent years, and research shows that it is particularly effective at preparing children for success in school. It is argued that the program is expensive, but one of the reasons for the expense of the program is that it really helps provide child care for working parents. Over 75 percent of the three- and four-year-old children in this City have a single parent or two parents who work, and they need the hours that Comprehensive 381 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget provides. Part day programs provide a hardship on the parents and an unnecessary transition for the children. We are particularly concerned about the closing of the Infant/Toddler programs, which will affect 182 families this year. The children of teen parents need quality child care if they are to succeed. Without this care, the teens will come to school when they can and not when they should. Moreover, providing high-quality child care for the children of teen parents is one of the pivotal pieces of the Cradle to Classroom program in Chicago. Program founders recognized that the kids of teen parents are the most at risk. An intervention with them early would help ensure their success later on. A two-hour weekly home visiting program that the District is establishing instead a pale imitation and will not produce comparable results. We now have 40 years of evidence that quality early childhood programs result in substantial benefits to children and 382 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget society.
Children who participated in the Abecedarian program; for example, the child care program for children from six months to five years, experienced substantially better school performance and high school graduation rates than those that didn't. Investing in the early years is critical. However, even the fourth year is too late. The best predictor of a child's reading ability in third grade is his or her language development by age three. Comprehensive Early Learning Centers provided the early education necessary to get kids on track and keep them there. Research by the University of Pennsylvania demonstrated two important facts, that the CELC programs had great strengths and that children who attended them performed well, better than children from most comparable programs. This translates into dollars and cents for the District, saving money in remedial programming later. Comparable programs in Pittsburgh reduced special education costs and grade 383 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget retention substantially. Closing these programs may appear to save money in the short term but may cost more in the long run. We disagree with this decision and believe that there were steps the District should and could have taken to improve the marketing and shape the programs to be more efficient. We urge that in undertaking this step, the District commit to providing for the infants of teen parents who need to be in school. If the District must go forward with its plan, we urge that it work with the state and the community of providers to ensure that no baby or toddler is left with a mom who quits school because it was the only available option to care with her baby. We need as a community to support and prepare families for the responsibilities and opportunities of life. We need to ensure that the District is sensitive to the needs of working families and will help to ensure, if not provide, full day, full year services. The City and School District need to work together to commit to helping our 384 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget children arrive at school ready to learn. We need to commit to providing the child care that allows our parents to work. This takes a willingness to plan and to work together. Recently PCCY has, with a group of community volunteers, been visiting schools and looking at schools, and while our results are preliminary, we do have some thoughts to share with you today. We found in our visits to schools that there were not near enough substitute teachers available to cover classes when teachers were absent. We found that this lack of substitutes lowered staff morale and student learning. We urge the District and believe they need to fund a cadre of well-trained, well-supported substitutes. We're pleased that there are many new opportunities to have university students in more of our classrooms, but we're concerned that these are coming at the expense of the Literacy Intern program, who seem to have been at least in part responsible for both the lower class size and the improvements in 385 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget younger students' test scores. The research that was developed as the basis for the District's adoption of this strategy was that the teaching assistants without college degrees had not been near as effective in teaching students as those with college degrees who are in training to be teachers. If the problem with the Literacy Interns was that they needed to be placed in middle grades to fulfill that need, then we would urge that the interns be placed in the middle schools. Further, we believe that breaking the promise of three years' employment as interns to this cadre of people will hurt the District in its effort to attract teachers, particularly when their work seems to have been responsible for student achievement the District can claim credit for.
We understand that budgets always require choices and that unfortunately our school leaders have had to make harder choices than do those in wealthier suburbs. You don't find educators in Radnor or Merion or Bryn 386 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Mawr having to decide between reading teachers or art and music programs, librarians or adequate counselors, but Philadelphia educators do. We must all continue our work together to support an adequate financial formula for funding our schools. In spite of these difficulties, there is much to celebrate in these plans, but lowering standards or changing programs that have been shown to work is, at best, penny wise and pound foolish. We urge the City to support the District's funding, and we urge the District to reexamine these plans and to continue to work with the community in pursuit of its remarkable and visionary declaration of education. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Any questions? 387 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget (No response.)
Thank you. Scott Yusem. Vernard Johnson, are you still here? You're next. Welcome. Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony.
I am Scott Yusem, a second-year literacy intern in Philadelphia public school system. Good afternoon --
-- Ms. Blackwell, Mr. Rizzo, other Council members who are listening, Mr. Kirsch and PFT representatives. To my side is Vanette Capece, another second-year literacy intern in Philadelphia public schools, and we also have three first-year interns accompanying us -- I'm sorry; four. Excuse me. Recently we have been offered information by Mr. Vallas from yesterday's proceedings where it appears to be misleading 388 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget in regards to literacy interns being offered extensions of their certifications to retain their emergency certificates to teach in the School District for the 2005-2006 school year. As of right now, we have not received any such promise from the School District, and we are under the assumption that our positions will be terminated June 30th, 2005 per a letter received March 25th from the School District. After speaking to Mr. Jordan of the PFT prior to these proceedings, he has informed us of options for the upcoming school year that will be offered to second-year literacy interns as well as first-year literacy interns in positions other than intern teaching. However, continuation of our current positions was not mentioned by Mr. Jordan. We are here today to make the Council aware that 450 interns are still attempting to find out what is happening to their positions for the following school year. The clock is ticking. We only have about two months left before our benefits will be 389 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget terminated, our employment will be terminated as per this letter from the School District sent to us March 25th. The letter clearly states that we will be separated effective June 30th, 2005, as the School District is not offering us positions. We have tried diligently to contact as many people as possible to find clarification for what is happening to our positions. We are in grades K through three. We spend our days with children in kindergarten, first, second and third grade. We enjoy our jobs. We love going to work. We have left other business opportunities and employment opportunities to pursue a career in teaching, knowing full well that it has been an underappreciated field of employment. Yet, we still have invested thousands of dollars of our money into our certification programs in graduate school, as required by the School District to obtain this position. We don't want that money to go to waste. We want to pursue another year of teaching and learning how to teach in the 390 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget School District of Philadelphia. We believe that telling 450 people that a program that they were signed on for three years is cancelled is not the best way to retain and attract new certified teachers in the School District that has been struggling to keep teachers.
I'm sorry. Vanette Capece, second-year intern at Mayfair Elementary.
V-A-N-E-T-T-E, last name C-A-P-E-C-E. When we accepted this position with the School District, current second-year interns signed for three years. That was our agreement and what was told to us by the District, and current first-year interns were told that they had two years, as long as we 391 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget would all be certified by June 30th, 2006, and now the District has decided to end this program and is not -- they're not holding up their end of the agreement. What we would like is for the District to continue this program for another year to allow us to complete our certification and become highly qualified as under No Child Left Behind. Thank you.
Thank you. We're going to ask Mr. Jordan to come back to clarify something on the record, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, long-time supporter of children and schools.
My 392 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget pleasure.
We share the concern of the literacy intern teachers here and those in the classrooms, but we just want to clarify one point. The testimony that was given is that, yes, there was a letter sent to literacy interns telling them that the program would be ending this year, and the administration and the union have sat down and the administration has agreed to allow each of the current lit intern teachers the opportunity for alternative teaching positions. The District is eliminating the program. That is correct. The District eliminates any number of programs each year, as you know, and I think that Ted pointed it out in the testimony that he gave. There are schools without a variety of programs. However, these lit interns should be assured that they will be offered, before the end of the school year, a choice of various positions in the School District to allow them, as they have asked, for the opportunity 393 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget to become fully certified by school year '06, and that is going to happen.
That's exciting news. So you all have heard Mr. Jordan speak. We can all attest to his honesty. If he says it, then certainly we believe him, and he's back there on his way out. I see you shaking your head. You should check with him, and we're happy to go from there.
I will get paid $35,000 and benefits and will be able to be in the classroom for five days a week, go to school at night. We have fabulous teachers among other interns. It's unconscionable. I go in there every single day and I teach --
Ma'am, you have speak at a mic. You can't speak from behind the...
Give your name 394 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget first.
My name is Pamela Halpern, P-A-M-E-L-A, last name H-A-L-P-E-R-N. What I was saying was that, yes, we received a letter that had four options. All of those four options were not equal to our jobs. They were not the same job. We called Kim Goodman at Human Resources. She did not even know what one of them meant, and the name that was given as a reference was call Kim Goodman with any questions. I left my job to come here to teach for the School District because I thought I'd be a good teacher, and you know what? I am, and so are the other teachers here at Mayfair. To tell us that you're going to turn your backs on us is just wrong. I think you need to reconsider what you want to tell people the School District of Philadelphia is about. Because I know when I teach my students, it's about integrity. It's about doing the right thing. And when you see something wrong, you stand up and you don't take it or accept it.
We 395 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget agree. That's what America is supposed to be about. And certainly you have people from Paul Vallas' office who are still here. You have Mr. Jordan, PFT, and if he says that's the negotiated position, I think that it would behoove you to talk with him or talk with the School District and see if we can't get some understanding here. Would you be willing to do that?
Thank you. Thank you. Would you speak with her, and then Mr. Jordan is there.
Thank you both very much have. Thank you. Vernard Johnson, concerned parent, long-time defender of public education.
Welcome. 396 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
Thank you. I hadn't made a decision to talk until today, so I don't have a written statement, but I'll go through this what I have quickly. Right now I'm going to -- I'm reading from the annual yearly progress report where Philadelphia public schools stand done by our Research for Action. It gives you 2004-2005 data around each school. In my opinion, right now, I think it's a good time for the EMOs to pack up and go. I don't think that they can do a better job than the District, and let me say that this administration has been an administration that --
Excuse me, Mr. Johnson. We don't want to miss good people. We don't want to lose good people, so let's hang in there and see what we can do. Thank you. Thank you. Continue, Mr. Johnson.
Yes, ma'am. This administration has given, I believe, parents 397 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget more access to the administration and to the decision-making process than other administrations that I've been around for a number of years, but there's still some things that I think that this Council needs to be made aware of, at least from my perspective, and one of them is the work of EMOs. Their work has been average, and I think the District could do just as good a job as the EMOs and I think that the money that the EMOs are now getting could be better utilized if it would go to the schools and to support other needs of students. I just want to read an explanation of some data, some statistics that I'm going to give. Corrective Action 2: If the school continues to be identified as a need of improvement, it necessitates creation of a new plan to be carried out the following year, including at least one radical change, could be replacing the staff, converting to a charter, turning management over -- the school over to the state or private company or other major management restructuring, and that 398 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget parents must be involved in the decision about the plan. And I thought there would be other Council people here, Councilwoman, but I'll just read to you schools that I believe are in your district or close to it. Tilden Middle School is in Corrective Action 2. 6 percent of the kids there are reading at the proficient level. 3 percent of the children there are reading at the proficient level. Locke School, which is one of your schools, I believe, is in Corrective Action 2 for the second year. 13 percent of the children are reading at the proficient level. 6 percent of the children are reading at the proficient level. That's a school, Councilwoman, that I'm sure you're very familiar with in terms of the social needs of the children who attend that school. A lot of the children who attend that school are living in family shelters, some from the local public housing development, and I'm going to get to what I think is a way that if the District had 399 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget more money, it could address the needs of those children. McMichael School is in Correction Action 2 even though it's making progress. 9 percent of the children are reading -- are doing math at the proficient level. org and you can see this information for yourself. And where I'm going with this is that I believe that the CSAP is a critical program for children that I believe is seriously underfunded. It's the Comprehensive Student Assistance Project. That's seriously underfunded. And there are a couple of levels of action that the District could take if it had the appropriate amount of funding to carry out CSAP to allow teachers more time, as teachers would say, to allow teachers more time to analyze the needs of the students, to put supportive services around the needs around the students and to also identify maybe 400 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget community-based organizations who are agencies that could provide a service to children that would address their needs even before they get to the level where they may end up in truancy court, which was an issue today. It's nice that the courts are working with the School District, but I believe there are things that can happen for children and families way before they get to truancy court. So I just wanted to bring that point out, that I think it's now time for those organizations to pack up and go. And you remember, Councilwoman, when we were here a year or two ago our position has always been around reform, and the question around Edison was there and this chamber was full of people and it wasn't too pleasant for my family and other families that were here that day who were advocating for full reform, which may have included Edison. So they've had their chance. I think Mr.
Vallas and his administration and the union, with the working relationship that they have, can do a job 401 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget without the EMOs. I wanted to say, though, to Councilman Rizzo, and I said it to him earlier in private, that for me the dropout rate isn't at and years old. Students stop coming 7 to school at eighth grade. The dropout rate 8 at ninth grade is high. You know that. 9 You've been around for a long time. The 10 dropout rate at ninth grade is high. Half 11 your class disappears. A 500-student ninth 12 grade class, it's gone by tenth grade, if not 13 by the second semester of ninth grade. And 14 that if a kid can make it until he's 17 years 15 old, he's probably made the cut if it's not in 16 ninth grade. He's probably made or she's made 17 the cut and they're going to graduate. 18 So, you know, I think that it needs to be a solid plan around how you stop the bleeding at the ninth grade level and how you continue to get kids who may not be very successful at eighth grade, how you get them to come to school more regular so that we can address their needs earlier on. School climate, Mr. Vallas talked 402 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget about school climate today and that if there is a short side in his view of the EMOs, it's around the management of schools. Well, if they can't manage schools and keep schools safe, then I don't know why they're still here. And so if you look at Vare Middle School, which comes under the management of Universal Companies, friends of mine, I would hope that they would think so, it's been on the persistently dangerous list for three or four years that they've been responsible. And if you talk to principals and talk to teachers, they're often confused about who their boss is, is it the School District or is it the EMO. And for me, it would be very easy to define who the boss is if the EMO wasn't there. Truancy courts are a year behind. They're a year behind. They do a good job, but, again, they're a year behind, which shows that we're still sending a lot of children to truancy courts, and that isn't the answer by itself, I don't believe. So if you look at the 17th police 403 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget district where my wife's company manages a family center at the Peirce Middle School, the truancy rate there is alarming, and they speak about it at every safety climate meeting that the South region has. Every month the principals are concerned about the numbers of students who are truant in that district. And I'll close with these two points: We're still going to advocate and still advocating for quality health services in all schools, that we believe that there should be a full-time nurse in every school every day, and that if the School District is paying for a nurse three days a week and an EMO gets anywhere maybe between $800 and $1,000 per child, then two days a week the EMO, in my view, has considerably put up enough dollars to bring in a healthcare professional to fill the void for two days a week. And a lot of our children, for whatever the reasons are, go to the school nurse for primary care services, even though the nurse isn't there for that, but they go to the nurse for belly aches and headaches and for injuries 404 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget that they sustain in the unmanageable schools, some of these unmanageable schools in the school yard where they're getting hurt, and there often is a not a nurse on duty and we're often concerned that children are taking medication unsupervised and that injuries are going untreated while the kids are in school. And the last point I want to raise, Councilwoman, is the need for a parent academy in every region.
One of the foundations -- I'm often confused about who it is -- just funded a parent academy in three regions where parents would work with parents to help parents either advocate for their children or help their children with homework, whatever it takes to have a child be successful in school. It now leaves six regions and soon to be seven with the addition of the Center City region that will not have a parent academy, and if the School District doesn't ask for dollars to support services to parents, additional services to parents like for a parent academy, then I don't have a problem saying that I believe that the City 405 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget when it looks at its budget and looks at what it's going to send the School District for dollars might want to increase what it provides the School District around social services, to increase healthcare services, to increase education and parents, to make it more possible that teachers and other people in the schools can actually carry out the responsibilities to serve children through the state mandated CSAP program, and you know for years I've always came here and objected to the School District getting more money and this time I don't think that they've been aggressive in asking for additional dollars. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson, Councilman Clarke has a question for you. Mr. Johnson, thank you. Councilman Clarke?
You're welcome. 406 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
First I'd like to commend you for your diligence on the School District issues. I see you in the chambers, in the neighborhoods and hear you on the radio, and I want to commend you for your wonderful work that you do.
I did have a couple of questions as it related to your testimony. Actually, the earlier testimony centering around truancy. You indicated that you thought they were doing a good job, you said, but they were a year behind, and we had earlier questions for Mr. Vallas and his staff about truancy, because I know we talked -- some parts of the district that I represent, it appears on the street to be an extremely high level of truancy, and they didn't have the statistics that show geographically where there were improvements and where there were not improvements. 407 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Can you kind of give me a sense of what your sentiment is on that?
Well, from my view, the truancy sweeps mainly take place, let's say, along the Broad Street line and certainly in Center City. So when you look at areas of Southwest Philadelphia that I'm familiar with than your district, but when you look at areas of Southwest Philadelphia and areas of South Philadelphia where we work every day, you see kids in the neighborhood not in school, and that's a concern, that they're really very visible in the neighborhoods. And so those sweeps -- and I'm not saying the sweeps are the answer by themselves. Those sweeps are not taking place to our satisfaction. There's a group of community-based organizations that I believe feel the same way. Those sweeps are not taking place to our satisfaction in the neighborhoods. As an example, we had Mr. Vallas and Ms. Averette, the Chief of Staff, out at Southwest Philadelphia, the far Southwest 408 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget where Pepper School is, and that question came up about truancy and kids vandalizing property, things like that. So in the neighborhoods, it could be a greater effort, I believe. But on the other side of that, kids are truant for reasons, and I think that if you looked at -- and I'd be happy to provide your office with these regulations and CSAP. I believe if the District and the PFT worked closely together to make sure that teachers, if you take the teachers point of view, to make sure that teachers have more time to do the paperwork that's involved in CSAP and look at the problems and the situations that kids have every day, that we could begin to address some issues of truancy that way. So they all can't be addressed through the courts. And fining parent's isn't going to help resolve their family matters. So I think that we, the community, the parents, the School District, Council, could do a far better job in serving kids. Now, the dollars aren't there. Most 409 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget of the dollars are going to the classroom. And I'm not suggesting the dollars shouldn't go into classrooms, but there are a number of kids who we advocate for who are doing basic and below work that have social problems that need to be addressed. And if the only measurement is going to be test scores, AYP test scores, and you can move eight, ten, 15, kids literally to the next level, the kids 11 who are maybe already advanced and you move 12 them to proficient, that's all you got to do 13 under No Child Left Behind. You look like 14 you're doing well, but then down the bottom 15 here, back in the neighborhood, you know, 16 standing on corners, you see these children. 17 So I think that's a problem. 18
Right. You 19 mentioned that some of these community-based 20 organizations that are contracted with the School District to provide, quote/unquote, lack of a better term, truant officers that are parents or community members. You indicated that they're not necessarily comfortable with the current process that 410 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget focuses on Broad Street and Center City. What levels of involvement do they have in terms of the policy decisions in terms where the sweeps are? I mean, are they at the level where they can say, Well, we think you need to focus your activities more in these neighborhood areas or these neighborhood commercial corridors as opposed to Broad Street and some of the high visibility locations, or are they just contracted with the School District to provide one particular service?
I don't know anything about their contracts. What I was referring to were the organizations like mine that don't have a contract with the District to provide -- to do truancy, and we've looked at truancy. And so I'm not talking about the contracted organizations. I don't know what their --
Some. But I don't know what they do day to day with the 411 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget District, so I won't even attempt to answer that question. But I know that on this end, on the advocacy end, we believe that more work needs to be done to work with children who are truant every day and are in neighborhoods. I mean, there are homes in the communities where we know kids are. The hoagie houses are truant homes, whatever you call them, I believe we need to be going to those houses and bringing those kids out and working with those kids and their families and warning the people, the adults who are responsible for those homes that allow kids to congregate in those homes, that if it continues, then there's a consequence for that, because that's a real problem in a lot of the neighborhoods, is that kids are allowed to hang out at certain homes.
What level is your organization involved with the School District as it relates to truancy? Any at all, or informally?
We monthly attend the safety and climate meetings, and I believe 412 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget there's one in every region, of the South region monthly. Our organization represents -- I'm blessed these days. I don't have a kid in school anymore, Councilwoman Blackwell. So we're representing community-based organizations and the interest of community-based organizations at the South region, but I believe every region has a safety and climate meeting once a month. And at those meetings, the Police district comes, community-based organizations, parents, home and school people, and those discussions are held monthly at those meetings. And we have a lot of input into what happens at the regional level through those meetings, and we've suggested to the people who run the meetings in the South region that we need to pay more attention to what goes on in the neighborhoods, as well as in that corridor that might represent the Broad Street line.
Okay. Also in your testimony you talked about the high dropout rate, particularly among ninth graders. The ultimate elimination of middle 413 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget schools have some sort of continuum as it relates to K to eight, then nine to 12. Do you think that in any way, shape or form will impact on the dropout rate in the, quote/unquote, the disruptive years as was indicated earlier in middle school? Do you think the elimination of middle schools will in any way, shape or form --
Well, I'm a proponent of junior high schools. And probably just because I became out of a junior high school system. So I think that kids -- but the District isn't moving that way. I think that kids -- but I think the state might be moving that way. But I think that kids who have an opportunity to stay in elementary school until sixth grade as opposed to moving in the old system that we have now, the middle school system, I think those kids fare better. I think that kids, if given an opportunity at ninth grade, especially kids that we deal with -- and we're talking to the District about this right now -- I think that kids if 414 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget they stayed in a seven-eight-nine system, they would have an opportunity to mature more and grow up a little bit more and then move into the high school at the tenth, eleventh and twelfth grade level. So in my thinking, we're on a totally different track than the administration is at this point. They're moving through the K to eight system. I think if you don't have the kind of building, the kind of structure in the building to have second, third graders be able to see what seventh and eighth graders are doing, I don't know that -- I don't like that type of system. I wouldn't want my kids to be in that type of system, especially if the building isn't structured so that you could keep them separated. If you have a -- I went to a K through 12 system, actually, but the building was structured so that K to six was there, seven to nine was there, ten to 12 was there, and if you ventured out of that area where you're supposed to be, you had real problems. So I'm still a proponent of the seven to nine 415 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget system. I think that we need to be reaching kids -- and we have a program at Peirce, we call it Move Up Move Forward, where we work with the administration at Peirce School at 24th and Christian, South Philadelphia, where we work with that school, and primarily our work is with students who are overage. I don't want to say they're achievers. I don't think they've been challenged enough to have that tag on them, that they're underachievers. Kids are overage in schools for all kind of reasons. Maybe they didn't start until they were eight years old, maybe they were sick. It doesn't mean that they don't have the ability. And so we've been able to work with kids who might be a year behind and they're in sixth grade or in seventh grade. I think if we start waiting for kids to reach a number where they're 16 in the ninth grade or whatever that is, I think we wait too long. So I think that we need to be working with those kids and their families a lot sooner 416 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget than the District is moving on it now. But no 3 one moved on it before, so I can't be too critical of what they're attempting to do at this point.
Thank you very much. Mr. William Mackey from City Wide we note is not here. Lewis Harris, Healthnastics is not here. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: No. He's here.
Oh, Lew, come on up, Mr. Harris. And is Brenda Digiovannangelo here? I didn't do badly with the name. Okay. Mr. Harris, welcome. Please identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony.
My name is Lewis Harris, Jr., and I just want to say thank you for giving me an opportunity to speak, because 417 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget I wasn't planning to. I just listened to the testimony earlier and I did have some concerns about the NTA. I think that's a critical piece that they need to stick with, and I found -- I feel that when I was listening to their testimony, they made their testimony that indicated that the schools would have a choice to have two classroom assistants instead of an NTA and they will save money, and that kind of bothered me, because I feel that the NTAs do a lot more than sit in a classroom setting throughout the day, as well as the fact that -- they indicated that the classroom assistant will be able to go to the cafeteria and do all of the things that an NTA would do, but I feel that an NTA does far more than most people really know. And I just had -- my wife happened to be an NTA, and she's been one for about 13 years, and every day I listen to all of the stories, that she is so well versed on the kids' names. I mean, she can indicate if a kid come in and their face is not right. She can tell that something is wrong with that 418 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget kid and she can go over and talk to them because she knows those children. The problem I have with a classroom assistant based on what they're saying is that they would be actually mandated into a classroom setting, and if they are mandated in a classroom setting, that's a totally different operation than the current NTAs, because most NTAs float. They go from floor to floor. They go from basement, they go to cafeterias, they go through bathrooms, they go through school yards. I mean, they do a variety of things. They actually do inventory. They load stock rooms. They make sure that the teachers get their supplies. It's a lot to do with NTAs. And what I was concerned about is that they made it sound like it was such a simple thing by having a classroom assistant do the work of an NTA, and I think that's a mistake. The other problem I had with the NTA piece is that I didn't see nothing or heard anything mentioned about a career path for them. In other words, if they're going to 419 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget phase out an NTA who has been around for 13, 14, years, why haven't they begin to offer 4 them career paths towards something else 5 that's relative to that field or give them the 6 opportunity to have some participation in the 7 training of the classroom aides, being that 8 they will be new, you know, as far as working 9 with kids. 10 And, also, I'd like to close with 11 saying that I'm concerned about the fact that 12 they are giving the illusion that that 13 position is going to stay viable, when I keep 14 hearing statements like they getting ready to 15 eliminate them, and I think it's only fair that they can begin to start telling the NTAs and them in advance to begin to position themselves within the school system with maybe more education or with some other alternative so that they stay within the school system until their retirement. So basically that's what I wanted to say, and I really wasn't prepared to speak and I apologize for not having nothing in writing, but it just hit me as I heard their 420 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget conversation this morning. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Harris. Any questions? (No response.)
Thank you very much. Ms. Brenda Digiovannangelo and with her, Anur Dalwaite. Not too bad or anyhow. Is there anybody else here to testify after these individuals? Lenore Shelly, you're here. Is there anybody else? (No response.)
Then Lenore Shelly will be our last. Welcome. Good afternoon.
Good afternoon. I'm a little bit nervous. I am here on behalf of Comprehensive Early Learning Centers. I've been with this program for and a half years. When I 25 started out back in 1979, we were 185 strong. 421 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget We're now 45. Every year, no matter what we try to teach, whatever came along, we always taught the children. Always. They were always our first concern. Things have changed through the years. We have learned ten times as much when we first started out, but even from the beginning, I always did lesson plans, always had lessons. Now we have core standards that we have to do. Myself and six other teachers were chosen to advocate the DLM program, which was actually advocated to the Focus on Fours that Mr. Paul Vallas introduced to us two years ago. He had closed down Comprehensive classrooms, left a lot of centers with one classroom and after school age children. That program, Focus on Four, failed. There's only about five of them left. Now he wants to take away all of the program. When we introduced -- the parents were hearing rumors and rumors when we first saw the article in the paper yesterday, the first thing our parents asked, What are we 422 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget going to do with our children? We have to work. The difference between Comprehensive Early Learning Centers and Head Start, our parents are all working, they are in school training to be able to go out into the work field. Head Start, you do not have to work. I have children in my class and 10 we have 19 school-agers. Now, the parents' 11 concern is they want to know what day cares 12 are available, not at the times they've been 13 told. It's not suffice to them. 14 My program, my teaching, my children 15 always came first. My greatest story is what 16 I teach my children, the theme of whatever 17 month it is, whatever we're learning about, 18 for them to come back and repeat everything to 19 me. 20 I've gone to workshops, literacy 21 workshops, to teach our young, our three to 22 five-year-olds the beginning of reading. You 23 can walk in any one of my colleagues' classrooms. We've all been going to the same workshops. We do a message board every 423 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget morning. The message board consists of calling the child up, seeing if he recognizes a letter. We have workshops to learn how to handle special needs children. We have a lot of special needs children in our class. I do many, many things with my class. We just got done doing a life cycle of a butterfly. Now we're doing a life cycle of little chicks, watching them beginning to hatch. If you could see the joys on the children's faces. This is our future. If we're not here to teach them and we're nurturing -- I'm not baby-sitting. I have never baby-sat my children. They learn. Our children in the core, on the core testing, we score higher than Head Start, any other program that we score higher than. My class scores are very high. It's just -- it makes no sense you want to close down a program that is really doing children good. Parents come in. I get children 6:30 in the morning, and sometimes the children wake up on a bad side, they're upset, 424 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget and when the parents leave them with myself and my co-worker, they're happy. That's 6:30 in the morning. And we're there until 5 o'clock at night. 6 If this is our future, what is this telling you we want to take away everything from our children. It's just not fair. And for me, it's the children. I have been asked what is my main concern. The children. Where is it going to leave the children? If we're not there for them, who is going to be there? There is really nothing out there. I have private day cares of parents and pulling them out left and right because they have no structure. They have nothing. And Mr. Vallas is saying there's going to be plenty out there. No, there's not.
Not in the kind of care that we give. He has never come up to my classroom or any others. Whatever site he went to, we know nothing of. But I want him to come to my classroom and see what we do, how my children learn and what they know. Baby-sitting? No. If some of us 425 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget are not certified but we have degrees, okay, I don't have my certificate, but I do have my degree and I have and a half years behind 5 me of nurturing and loving and be able to 6 teach these children. And, Mr. Vallas, I'm 7 telling you right now, you're taking this 8 away. You're taking away what I love to do, 9 what I've done for 26 years. That's what 10 you're going to do. 11 Thank you. 12
Anur Dalwaite. 19 I'm a center leader at Rhawnhurst Early 20 Learning Center. And as one of our 21 teachers -- she's not in my school, but this 22 is the teachers I see every day. 23 As I sit in here, I lost all my 24 thought after I seen a young teacher in tears. 25 I am older. I'm going to retire maybe this 426 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget year or next year, but when I look at the young generation that comes to School District, wants to thrive, wants to teach, wants to do something, they should not be sitting in here and crying. They should not be worrying about that they have no future in school business. They should be proud of themselves. I don't think they will have enough time to pay their fee bills, I guess. They will be fired probably in the next month. So this is really sad. I try to write something to talk about it today, but I have so much in my mind. As I look at it, I said, Okay, let's start with our President's slogan, No Child Left Behind. I think we are leaving lots and lots of children behind and we are leaving staff behind. We are leaving parents behind. This is a business that has a chain reaction. It is not just we're going to get rid of 644 students, could be infant or after-school program. They could be two months or they could be 11 years old. It 427 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget doesn't mean how old they are. What it means is, parents needs us. Children needs us. Everybody needs the services. I don't know where these people are going to go, where this parents going to go. I have been speaking with my parents yesterday and today. They are very upset. "I must quit my job. " Number one, last year when we opened this Focus on Four, it does not work for the people who we deal with. Our parents is not executive. Even they don't come home 3 o'clock. Mr. Paul wants to run the school hours 8:00 to 3:00. Which parents comes home 2:30 or goes to work 9 o'clock? Some of my parents goes to work 6:30 until 6 o'clock, and I still don't have enough time to serve for their needs. And they make maybe $250 a week. And you're asking me, these people going to take the child from my center or any other centers we have and just put them in some lousy neighbor's house so it can get hurt, killed, whatever, God knows what. So these are issues that it is not 428 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget just we're going to lose services, our staff going to be jobless, it is the social issues. My after-school program, my parents like dying, "Please make sure, make sure they have room for me," because they don't want their children to go home by themselves after 3 o'clock. They want them to stay in my school where they are safe. Sure, they are learning. We are educating. We are not just baby-sitting, which seemed to me Mr. Vallas even himself looked upon us we're a bunch of illiterates, we're just baby-sitting. No, we are not. Whether some of my staff are older, they do not have the Bachelor's degree, but they have the years of knowledge, and they raise 18 their own children and they are pretty good 19 parents. 20 And I feel so sad to see these learning centers will be closing. We're talking about 35 centers -- 45 centers. He's going to leave us with six centers. Where are we going to 300 staff, from custodian to center leader, of course. I don't know where 429 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget we're going. I'm not worry about me because I already put my retirement. I will leave. I am here for the people who I am leaving behind, because I do care what I do. years ago I used to be a clinical 7 director and I left twice as much income to 8 join the School District just to help the 9 young children, because in this society, 10 children are dying. We lost our kids. And I 11 do not believe that we shall be shaping the 12 children when they are seven, eight, nine, ten years old. They shall be shaped way before the five, and that's our job. And we do very well job. And I wish Mr.
Vallas was in here to see that crying teacher and to hear what we are really seeing. Look at our eyes, what we are saying it, because we are not joking in here. This is a serious matter for the City and this is a serious issue that has to be dealt. I cannot just retire and say, Oh, well, I got what I want, it's your problem and deal it. No. I still live in the City and I'm proud to be a Philadelphian, and I love my 430 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget children and I will not stay back and just close my eyes. I will fight for this cause. And, Mr. Vallas, hear me out, please. Sit down and think. This is the richest country. We always cry we're broke from here to Washington. Well, when the things arise, we found money, don't we? So find your money, through your elected officials, through whoever. You cannot keep cutting the Comprehensive Learnings that make money. You cannot get rid of the NTs or whoever works for the children to make money. Please. Understand the reality and the reality of what we do all day in here. So respect us so we can all respect each other. Thank you very much. )
Hi. Good afternoon my name is Lenore Shelly. I have two children that attend the Comprehensive Program on Belmont. It's Joseph Leidy School. The Comprehensive program is the best in 431 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Philadelphia. I have let my children attend private day cares, were the worst. The Comprehensive program is structured and also they do background checks. They just don't let anybody work for them. And, also, I would like to say that my son who just turned five years old is reading on a kindergarten level, which is better than any school that he's ever been to private, and I would like to urge Paul Vallas not to end the program funding but to continue the Comprehensive program. And that's all I have to say. Thank you. (Applause.)
Do we have anyone else that would like to testify? You do want to testify?
Thank you, Madam Chair, Mrs. President and Mr. Rizzo, my friend. I just want to make some remarks.
Excuse 432 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget me one minute. We need you to introduce yourself. We call him The General, but, John, introduce your.
John Ross. I live in West Philadelphia. I'm 71 years old. Everybody says, You don't look 71. How are you supposed to look at 71?
I just want to testify, Madam President and Ms. Chairman, that in my experience in school, I hookied school when I was a young fellow because I didn't have the right clothes to wear at the time, in 1949, 1948. However, I learned the value of school in the Air Force. I also learned the value of being a good boy in the Air Force. I received at that time a top secret clearance, which was very difficult to get. However, I found out for the FBI agents who checked my background, they also check with the teachers for their remarks in their little books to see how you behaved in class. So I want a program started in the public school system -- and I've stopped 433 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget children from fighting, because I tell them, number one, your background is very important. You live in your background now. This is important. If you go to get a steady state job, federal job, city job, and if you look in the paper, a lot of private jobs are requiring background investigations. Background investigations mean if you're in kindergarten, first grade, fifth grade, they're going to check your background. I think more emphasis should be put into the kids' curriculum as to what your background means, the consequences of being bad. These kids don't realize how important it is to get a good education in addition to being a good person. I was so glad I was a good person to get that background investigation clearance. You don't know what it means. Then, too, as a police officer, HIU, Headquarters Investigation Unit, Mr. Zanoe (ph) know what I'm talking about, they check your background. If you're a smart aleck in class or act up in class, those teachers' notes are not thrown away. 434 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget So, Mr. Vallas, Mr. Green, those people in charge, along with the school, should make the kids aware of why they're there, what they're there for and what the consequences are when they get into trouble. I'm quite sure a lot of them don't know. And one thing, Madam Chairman, the ones I've talked to did not know that that can depend on your income, your promotion, where you're hired. The state department doesn't want you. A lot of departments will not accept you with a bad reputation. Now, this gentleman over here that spoke about the parents/teachers thing should emphasize that character is very important in the school system, and I see nowhere where it's taught. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you, Ms. Chairman.
Thanks, Mr. Ross, very much for all your leadership over the years. Many of you who 435 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget remember Senator Freeman Hankins and Representative James Barber, he was their right hand. So we've known each other a long, long time, and he's loved our city and its children a long, long time. Thank you, General.
I don't want to go back to the President's dad in South Philadelphia.
Thank you. Nice seeing you. Is there anyone else to testify? (No response.)
Seeing no one, the Committee will stand in recess until 5:30 this evening. Thank you. 436 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget (Recess from 3:45 to 5:40 p.m.)
Good evening, everyone. This is the continued public hearing of the Committee of the Whole. I would ask Mr. McPherson to please call our first witness. MR. McPHERSON: The first witness is Johanna Lanum.
Pull the microphone closer to you, and I think there's the button there; is there not? MR. McPHERSON: No. 14
There's not. Okay. Please identify yourself for the record.
Good afternoon, President. Good afternoon, Council members. My name is Johanna Lanum, and I am here on behalf of my Comprehensive Learning Center, which is located at 6100 of Cobbs Creek Parkway. I am a working parent with three children and I am truly concerned in reference 437 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget to the closing of the Comprehensive Learning Center. The accusations that Mr. Paul Vallas had put across in the article in reference to the Comprehensive Learning Center stating that the Comprehensive Learning Center had no core or no standards was false. I can speak as a parent that the Comprehensive Learning Center not only has a core curriculum, it also has standards. Taking away this program would take away a big part of my working. The before and after care is a big help to myself and my husband, picking my children up from school and taking them to school. I'm a parent that has to be at work at 5 o'clock in the morning. And I'm not talking about leaving the house at 5 o'clock in the morning. I mean I have to be present at the Internal Revenue at 5:00 a.m. I just ask that you guys review every single document that you have in reference to this program and please look really hard into helping this program continue to stay. Thank you. 438 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
What time does your child go to the Comprehensive Learning?
Okay. I don't know whether someone from the School District would want to address this. No? Okay.
Would you just come to the witness table and say that? Please identify yourself for the record.
Hi. Good evening. Claudia Averette, Chief of Staff. I just responded that Mr. Vallas is still working with the union on this issue so there's no response at this time. 439 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
Would she be able to answer a question in reference to where Mr. Vallas received the information in regards to the Comprehensive Learning Center saying that it had no standards and it had no core curriculum?
I don't know that she would be in a position to respond to that.
Okay? I think that's something that Mr. Vallas would have to address.
You're welcome. Our next witness? MR. McPHERSON: Amy Miller.
I'm Amy Miller and I am a first-year literacy intern at Arthur Elementary School, and I'm just asking that 440 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget the literacy intern program be saved, because I know that it's up for being cut next year. And I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania last year, and I know that I wouldn't have considered staying in Philadelphia if not for the literacy intern program. And then now I plan on continuing to complete my certification and become a stand-alone teacher next year and that I really don't think I would have gone into teaching if not for the literacy intern program. That has been a great bridge into teaching. So it's not head first as a stand-alone, but I've been able to work for a year with a mentor teacher. I have spoken with a lot of other literacy interns also who feel that they wouldn't have gone into teaching if not for the literacy intern program. And so I really feel like it should be saved for next year.
Thank you very much. Are there any questions or comments from members of the Committee? 441 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget (No response.)
Thank you so much for coming in to testify. MR. McPHERSON: The next witness is Sherria Saunders.
Good evening. How are you doing? My name is Sherria Saunders and I'm here on behalf of the Cleveland Early Learning Center.
My name is Sherria Saunders and I'm here on behalf of Cleveland Early Learning Center, and it's located at 19th and Erie Avenue. I have two children. We need our Comprehensive Early Learning Center morning and after-school care. It is very valuable to us parents who work and who do not have anyone to help us to take our children to school or pick them up. I have to be at work at 7:30 every 442 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget morning. I drop both of my children off. I just had a three-year-old and a five-year-old. He's been there for two years and he has learned a lot. And for him to want to close the centers down is not right and it's not fair to us parents who are working to take care of our children. We need this service. Not just for them, but for us, to help us to stay and work to be able to take care of our children. So the services is needed for the inner city schools, so please don't take it away.
I just want everyone to know that we do have representatives from the School District here that are hearing your plea, and though Mr. Vallas himself is not here, they will certainly report back to Mr. Vallas your concerns.
Thank you very much. MR. McPHERSON: The next 443 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget witness is Debra Nelson.
Good evening, Ms. President. My name is Debra Nelson. This is my daughter, Crystal, and my granddaughter, Lisa. Lisa attends the Germantown Learning Center located in Germantown on Haines Street, and my concern is that my daughter is in college and if she doesn't have day care for Lisa, then she won't be able to go. I have to pay for it and it's very affordable right now for me to be able to pay for the day care, as well as pay for my daughter to go to college. She's in her first year, so she still has three more years to go, and if they take away the day care, it's going to cause a lot of problems for us. Not just locating another one, but being able to afford another one.
And what time do you take your granddaughter to day care?
She usually gets there between 7:30 and 8 o'clock in the 444 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget morning, and she's usually picked up between 5:30 and 6:00.
Okay. Are there any comments from members of the Committee or questions? The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Miller.
I really don't have -- I just want to thank parents for coming in. Day care is an issue that certainly I'm familiar with, having been a mother and knowing how important it is in our lives where we're trying to work or go to school. Mr. Vallas did address the issues yesterday, and I think some of us Council members still have questions. I've always seen the Comprehensive Day Care Learning Centers as being a valuable resource to people. Most recently my niece went to the same one. You're talking about the one in Germantown High School?
My niece 445 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget just had a daughter to go through there. In fact, she was actually trying to get her youngest son in that same Comprehensive Learning Center. So I just want to thank you for coming in. There were questions yesterday as to what options would be available to parents, particularly those the children under three, because it sounds like there will be some alternative that the School District will run for those three and above. So I guess we have to continue to get information, too, from the School District.
And I also wanted to add that my granddaughter is reciting some pretty remarkable things that she has learned in this center. I don't know if she'll do it now, but she is learning there, and I think that it's great that at the age of 3 years old she's able to repeat some of these really positive things that they are putting into her. So I think it's a good program.
I would offer the suggestion that many of the 446 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget concerned parents that are coming before us certainly go to the School Reform Commission when they have their meeting. Does anybody know when the meeting will be held?
And will this issue be one to be considered? Should parents be going before the Commission tomorrow?
It's Tim Spreitzer (ph), Deputy Chief of Staff for the School District of Philadelphia. The School Reform Commission is considering the School District's budget in the May meeting. So parents and other community members are certainly welcome to attend. Those are the second and third Wednesdays of the month. So I don't know the date off the top of my head, but it's the second and third Wednesday of the month in May, and those meetings are o'clock at the School District headquarters at 2120 Winter 447 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Street.
I have a question of the School District. When are they proposed to eliminate the Comprehensive Learning Centers? When would they close?
Well, we can get -- I can get you that information after this session. I don't have it off the top of my head. I don't want to give an incorrect answer.
Because I think I'd like people to know that -- I don't know about you, President Verna, but I actually just found out about this yesterday.
The 448 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Chair recognizes Councilman Ramos.
Thank you, Madam President. If my memory doesn't fail me, I believe that when Mr. Vallas brought this up, he said that the Early Comprehensive Learning Centers were going to be changed into something else.
Right. Or at least I got the impression that this program was just going to change name and maybe some changes in it, but it was not going to be eliminated as such.
I think he also indicated that they would be able to service more children.
Well, they did say that service more, with my memory, three to four-year-olds and above, pre-kindergarten, but I think the concern was for children -- how old is your daughter?
My granddaughter. 449 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget She's three years old.
She's three? I think the concern was for the children below three, because I think the centers serve from zero to four or five years old. I think it was the children under three years of age.
Again, I don't want to give out inaccurate information. I know in the briefing books that Council members received, the issued papers, there's a section and it does detail the movement to these centers. So if you have that -- actually, I have mine with me. I just don't want to give out inaccurate information.
Again, I personally would encourage the concerned parents to go before the School Reform Commission, and as you heard, they meet on the second and third Thursday in May at o'clock. 450 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
It's the second and third Wednesday. So it's May 11th and May 18th, are the two meetings. And just the public needs to register the day before at 4:30 and they can do so by just calling 215-299-7850. I'll give you that.
215-299-7850. And you have to register the day before by 4:30 p.m.
No. 17 Mr. Spreitzer, I think Councilman Ramos is asking you a question. Is there a meeting tomorrow?
There is a meeting tomorrow, but speakers need to register the day before by 4:30 p.m. So there's a School Reform Commission meeting 451 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget tomorrow, but as I was mentioning earlier, the budget is being considered at the May SRC meeting. The School Reform Commission is adopting -- has plans to adopt the School District's budget for '06 at the May meeting. So if parents have concerns, they can do so either at the May 11th or May 18th meeting.
But if they wanted to attend the meeting tomorrow, they certainly could?
Certainly they can attend, yes, but to come and speak, they have to register the day before at 4:30. The School Reform Commission requires you to register the day before at 4:30. So people would have had to register today by 4:30.
Council President, in this booklet that was passed out yesterday, it says, "Comprehensive Early Learning Centers, one year phaseout," and then it says "Bright Futures, 67 new classrooms modeling Head Start will replace." So, Councilman Ramos, certainly you're correct that it would serve more 452 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget children, at least in that particular age category. I think the three's, the four's and the five's -- well, by five, they may be in kindergarten. And I believe the issue yesterday was that the children under three would be those that would be having to seek -- and someone did question Mr. Vallas about the availability of day care for those children that would not be able to go to Bright Futures, and he did give an answer. I just can't remember exactly what it was. Okay? But it says here it's a one-year phaseout.
Thank you. Councilwoman Tasco, I believe your light is on.
Right. Good afternoon. I just wanted to say that I think the concern is for the children/infants to three, what's going to happen to those children. And Mr. Vallas did say that there were other Comprehensive day care programs in the City. They're run in private homes. But what was happening in the 453 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget private homes, they are limited to six children, and if they go beyond that, we have limited them in City Council, they have to go get a variance, and in most instances, the City and most of us oppose having those day cares expanded to more than six because of just the nature of the business. So it is -- and also we raised the issue of the quality of service, and the School District certainly provides quality service and education to the young people. We're not sure that we get the same quality of service in the home day care. Not that they're not protected or well fed, but what is the educational opportunities for these children. And so that is a concern we have to phase out of the program, what happens from birth to three or four.
Thank you. 454 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Thank you both for very much. Do we have anyone else to testify? Hello. Please identify yourself for the record and proceed with your testimony.
Latifa, please pull the microphone closer to you.
Sure. My name is Latifa Simmons. I'm a parent of my daughter, Martina, which she's a five-year-old that goes to Whittier Comprehensive Day Care at 27th and Clearfield. What I wanted to say was, she goes there for before and after school basically. So I want to know what happened to those five-year-olds and six-year-olds that need before- and after-school care if they close the day cares? I work until 5:00 in the evening. I won't get to her until 5:45, and then I have to be at work by 8:30 in the morning. So that basically was the leeway for me to get to work on time and still have her in school and still pick her up and still be 455 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget able to stay at work all day. So I'm wondering, why are they closing them if -- I'm a single parent. I don't have anybody else to pick her up or anything. So to me, closing them would be a big inconvenience for a lot of single parents, who really have nobody else to pick up their child, who has to work an eight-hour day. That's all I wanted to say.
What are you being told by the school or the center?
What I've been told is, they're just looking to close certain ones of them. Certain ones are going to stay open. I think about six of them. But after that, the rest of them are going to be closed.
Did they say whether yours is going to be closed?
Well, to my knowledge, the teachers at the Comprehensive Day Care are telling us that they're closing. By June 30th, they're supposed to be closing.
Well, 456 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget again, I would encourage you to go before the School Reform Commission and make your plea there. It is our understanding that they do meet on the second and third Wednesday in May. That would be May the 11th and May the 18th at 1 o'clock. You would call them the day before to let them know that you do want to testify. I think this is an issue that certainly should be brought before them and they should hear what the concerns of the parents are.
Fine. Councilman Ramos, your light is on. Did you want to be recognized?
Yes. Those parents that have come out here this evening, you've shown how much you are concerned about the situation facing your little child. You need to continue to do other things, like go to this meeting and make sure that you're 457 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget heard, because I'm sure that I can say then on behalf of the members of City Council, you were concerned about this situation. We heard about it yesterday. It's my understanding that there was going to be someone else to replace it. It could very well be, though, that the younger children services will be discontinued. So we want to find out as soon as possible as well, and I'm quite sure that Tim and the rest of the folks here from the School District will get us an answer ASAP, please. Thank you. Thank you, Madam President.
Thank you very much. We appreciate your coming in to testify. At the moment, do we have any other witnesses to testify? (No response.)
We 458 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget are going to sit a while. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Tasco.
I'd like to know -- you can't answer it today, but I would like to know how many Early Childhood Centers there are presently operating. I'd like to know the location. I'd like to know the number of students/children in those day cares, the early learning literacy centers that you're proposing to close. I'd like to know the population of the children from infancy to four.
Now, the after-school program, would they incorporate the lady who has the child, she doesn't get home until 6 o'clock? Would there be programs for her child to participate in if she can't find -- well, she needs a day care. She needs a day care from 7:00 in the morning until 6:00 at night.
Right. Again, I don't want to give inaccurate information, 459 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget so we'll give you the full breakdown. I believe there are 45 centers, and we'll give you the location and the population per center.
The other thing is, has there been any dialogue with the day care providers to see looking at the geography of where these centers are located, how they could be fed into those centers?
Yes. That I know there has been. Donna Piekarski, who was here earlier and she was asked some questions, I know that they've had dialogue with the day care center providers throughout the City in anticipation of this programmatic change.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Miller. Do you want Mr. Spreitzer?
Yes. 460 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget Mr. Spreitzer, I think what we need is clarity. For example, under early literacy, it says 67 new classrooms, which means additional children. However, what does 67 new classrooms mean? Where are they, whether they're going to be spread out across the City. And then in the briefing book that you gave us, it does identify where -- well, it says by numbers where they have day care centers, but we don't know where in terms of geographically across the City and which ones are going to be eliminated and which ones will ultimately be a part of this Bright Futures and then it talks about Head Start. So it doesn't really say specifically the where. I don't know how many we have in cross sections of the City, but that's important to people when they're working. I know that this Early Childhood Education program run by the School District has always been an excellent resource for parents for before- and after-school care, and we need to know more information about what's going to be available. 461 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
And through the President's office, we will get the breakdown of the current 45 centers and then the proposed locations throughout the City.
Would they have the schools in the same geographic locations?
I believe there wouldn't be much variance to -- they would be disbursed throughout the City, you know, essentially the same. But, I mean, I think we'll get the future breakdown for you, the current and the future breakdown for the Council.
Great. Thank you. Do we have any other witnesses that would like to testify? (No response.) 462 4/19/05 - Bills 050004, 050005, 050006 - Budget
We're going to wait a while, because I think we had originally said public testimony would be from 5:30 to 7:30. So I think we'll wait, because it's still rather early, and we'll take people as they come in. Okay? Thank you. (Pause.)
This Committee will stand in recess until Thursday, April the 21st at 9:30 a.m. Thank you all very much for your patience. (Committee of the Whole public testimony adjourned at 7:00 p.m.) - - - 463 I N D E X Paul Vallas, CEO, School District........ 263 Ted Kirsch, PFT.......................... 352 Michael McGinley, Local 1201............. 370 Sharon Ward, PCCY........................ 377 Scott Yusem, Second-year literacy intern. 387 Vanette Capece, Second-year literacy intern.................................. 390 Pamela Halpern, First-year literacy intern.................................. 393 Vernard Johnson, concerned parent........ 395 Lewis Harris, Healthnastics.............. 416 Brenda Digiovannangelo, Comprehensive Day Cares............................... 420 Anur Dalwaite, Comprehensive Day Cares... 425 Lenore Shelly............................ 430 John Ross................................ 431 Johanna Lanum............................ 436 Amy Miller, First-year literacy intern... 439 Sherria Saunders......................... 441 Debra Nelson............................. 443 Latifa Simmons........................... 454 464 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the proceedings, evidence and objections are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me upon the foregoing matter on April 19, 2005, and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. ______________________________ MICHELE L. MURPHY RPR-Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)