Committee Hearing, February 8, 2006

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC SAFETY - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wednesday, February 8, 2006 10:15 a.m. - - - PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL, CHAIR COUNCILMAN DARRELL L. CLARKE COUNCILMAN W. WILSON GOODE, JR. COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILMAN BRIAN J. O'NEILL COUNCILMAN JUAN RAMOS COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO RESOLUTION 051205 - Resolution calling for the Committee on Education to conduct hearings on the incidence of violence in Philadelphia schools... RESOLUTION 051182 - Resolution authorizing City Council's Committee on Public Safety to hold hearings to identify and record what comprehensive, holistic measures are being employed to reduce and prevent violence, particularly gun related violence... - - - V A R A L L O Incorporated Litigation Support Services Eleven Penn Center 1835 Market Street, Suite 600 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103 215.561.2220 215.567.2670 2

Good morning. Thank you all for being here and demonstrating already what an important issue violence in our schools and in our City is. This is the Committee on Education. I am Chair. With me to my right is Councilwoman Donna Miller, who is co-sponsor of a resolution dealing with the issue. To her right, the Honorable W. Wilson Goode, Jr., a member of this Committee. To my left, Councilman Frank Rizzo. So, again, we welcome you. We will ask the Clerk to read the numbers and the titles of both resolutions.

Resolution 051205, calling for the Committee on Education to conduct hearings on the incidence of violence in Philadelphia schools and explore ways in which violence in schools can be reduced; and Resolution 051182, resolution 3 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 authorizing City Council's Committee on Public Safety to hold hearings to identify and record what comprehensive, holistic measures are being employed to reduce and prevent violence, particularly gun related violence - which include, in addition to anti-gun violence legislation, various educational, mental health, social, economic, cultural programs and strategies.

Thank you very much. We'll try to give you some background information, and while we do that, again, we want to welcome you here. As we do that, we promised the Jubilee School, students from Jubilee School in West Philadelphia, that we would allow them to come forward first, Mr. Vallas, since they have to get back to school. And as soon as I make my statement and anyone else, Councilwoman Miller or anyone else makes a statement, we will ask the Jubilee School to come forward. 4 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Again, we thank you for being here for this joint committee statement and hearing between Education and Public Safety. We offer our thanks to all of you for taking time out from your schedules to be here, from the School Board, elected officials, Administration, neighborhood folks and everyone. On December 15, 2005, City Council adopted Resolution 051205 calling for today's hearing because we want to focus on the occurrence of violence in our schools, its causes, past and present, current efforts to prevent it and what recommendations we can do to reduce it. We have people here, as you will hear, who will testify across the board, people like Dr. Robinson, who is the author of African-American History, and how that plays in the issue of raising self-esteem and reducing disruptive behavior. One of my issues, 5 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 youngsters taking Ritalin and behavior-altering drugs, will also be explored by our Health Department and how that may relate to this issue. On December 8, 2005, Council adopted Resolution 051182 introduced by my colleague, Councilwoman Donna Miller, calling for hearings to explore ways to prevent youth violence and particularly gun violence, which has reached epidemic proportions. By way of background and context, the Philadelphia School District is the largest in the state, with approximately 210,000 students attending some 276 public schools and 53 charter schools. The vast majority of students are African-American, who comprise the majority of the population, and approximately 80 percent of the students come from families with a household income that is or at below $24,000 for a family of four. City Council previously held 6 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 hearings on school violence back on December 17, 1992 and January 11, 1993. The joint committees then on Education and Public Safety held these hearings to explore the same issues that we do today. Then it was called Resolution 309, and Councilwoman Joan Specter and myself introduced that bill and held hearings. Among our findings was a 1987 Justice Department report indicating that 3 million individual incidents of criminal activity occurred nationwide inside or on school property. We further found that, according to the Justice Department, 816 serious incidents occurred in public schools in 1991, a number we would later learn was greatly understated. The hearings led to numerous recommendations, with common things being the establishment of uniform policies and the enforcement in the area of school security, additional training for teachers and NTAs, uniforms and many 7 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 other recommendations that were adopted. Requiring that African-American history be made a permanent part of the curriculum was very important even back then, and establishing a special program or a special recognition for students living in shelters in and around schools was also highlighted. By the time we held hearings back in '92, violence in our schools appeared to be on the rise. During the first three months of the '92 school year, 67 incidents of violence were reported in which weapons were used or confiscated. That compared to just 54 incidents involving weapons for the same period in 1990.

Eventually, the School Board reported an aggregate of more than 7,700 serious incidents for '91-'92 school year, 6,000 occurring directly on school property, and in that November, the issue of school violence hit the front pages when a young student from Southern High School, Calvin Saunders, 8 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 was shot in a lunchroom by a classmate wielding a sawed-off shotgun. During the succeeding years that followed, violence has continued to be a major issue by parents and teachers who still were concerned about the reporting of all violence issues in school and what that criteria should be. So by mid '90s, the incidence of school violence appeared to be down sharply compared to the early '90s. In fact, in 1995-'96, the School District reported 1,213 serious incidents involving 1,211 offenders compared to over 7,000 in '91. During the '96-'97 school year, the District experienced a drop in serious incidents, 1,037 involving 1,032 offenders, but by 1997 -- during the 1996-'97 school year, the District experienced a drop in serious incidents, which I just said, 1,037 incidents involving 1,032 offenders, but by '97-'98, the number of incidents climbed to 2,782 involving some 3,138 offenders. 9 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 The number of incidents dropped slightly in '98 to '99, 2,738 incidents involving 3,122 offenders, but that did little to persuade parents and teachers that we were on top of the issue and that we were somehow able to stem the rising tide. In the year 2000, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Subcommittee on First Class Cities conducted an investigation and held hearings on violence in the Philadelphia public schools. House Resolution 303 introduced by then State Representative and current City Controller, Alan Butkovitz, emphasized that for school years '98-'99, the School District reported 2,738 serious incidents involving 3,122 offenders. Mr. Butkovitz will be here today to testify on that report and on that study. The School District reported that 1,566 of these incidents were 10 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 assaults on teachers and fellow students, and that compared to 1,041 during 1993-1994 school year. Also during the 1998-'99 school year, the District confiscated approximately 900 weapons, and many citizens believed that we needed to do more to try to make our schools safer. In particular, state legislators believed that the School District was not complying with Act 26, the Safe Schools Act passed in 1995, which requires the expulsion of students caught bringing a weapon to school. As many of you know, we've also had many hearings about what is a weapon, and there have been many debates about where we've been too hard and where we've not been hard enough. The Subcommittee found that during the '98-'99 school year, 842 incidents involving weapons, 12 children were ultimately expelled. Recent statistics and headlines 11 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 that we read every day continue to affect us at an alarming rate. During '01-'02, the School District reported 3,261 incidents involving 4,243 offenders. The incidents included more than 1,300 assaults on students and a horrifying 1,143 assaults on school staff, including teachers. During the '02-'03 school year, the District reported a whopping 5,495 incidents involving 5,998 individual offenders. There were 2,398 assaults on students, 1,533 assaults on teachers and school staff. This resulted in more than 2,000 arrests and 6,700 suspensions. During '03-'04, the District reported 5,334 serious incidents and 5,858 offenders. Between 2000 and 2003, the District classified 27 schools even as persistently dangerous. It is my hope that through these hearings, the collective efforts of parents, teachers, students, school officials, community leaders and social 12 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES.

051205 service providers, as well as elected officials, can be brought to bear to improve the incidence of violence in schools and in our society. And we would like you to know that the goal of this Committee is certainly not to alarm you, but to let you know that there is hope. There are many, many programs in our communities, in our schools, pre school, during school and after school, that our communities, our children, our parents and everyone interested can take advantage of, and that out of this report that the Committee will compile, it is our hope that we can form a document that can be used not only in our City but for many across the country. We certainly support our school CEO 1,000 percent, the head of crime, our wonderful Police Commissioner, Sylvester Johnson. We support all who are involved in the issue of trying to give people in our City hope that we are doing all we 13 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 can to reduce the incidence of violence, and we want you also to feel free to testify openly. It is our goal to only try to provide some positive solutions to these alarming records, because certainly the problem is bigger than any of us individually, and collectively it is the only way that we can certainly reduce the numbers of violence. Having said that, I will call on my colleague, Donna Miller, the co-sponsor, the Chair of the Committee on Public Safety, co-sponsor of these hearings, for her statement.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, everyone. I too would like to thank everyone for coming out today. The purpose of our resolution 22 is to hold hearings and identify and record what comprehensive, holistic measures are being employed to reduce and prevent violence, particularly 14 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 gun-related violence, which include, in addition to anti-gun violence legislation, various educational, mental health, social, economical, cultural programs and strategies. No one can deny or ignore the Daily News and the statistical reports that illustrate the shocking cruelty, perpetual increase and devastating impact of violent crime, particularly gun-related violence and crime in our City, especially in terms of its deadly consequences for our youth and young adult populations. On May 12, 2005, more than 80 percent of Philadelphia voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot referendum calling on the state lawmakers of Pennsylvania to authorize our City to enact legislation that will reduce and prevent local gun-related violence and crime. And we all know that legislation is not the save-all, but it's a great big start. It can have a wonderful impact on 15 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 reducing the number of weapons that just seem to be pretty fairly available in our City. We were having a discussion the other day and someone said it was pretty easy for him to get a gun, but he can't find a job. So all of us have been reflecting on the recent rash of violence in our City, particularly in the year 2005 and already moving into the year 2006. Violence in general is a symptom of many societal problems. A large assortment of citizens, educators, activists, community, law enforcement and political leaders have been affected by and involved with this issue. We have convened meetings, forums, commissions, rallies, marches, prayer vigils and strategies to turn back and stem the tide of violence in our communities. Certainly we know that many factors have contributed to our current situation. 16 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Among them has been the availability of guns in the hands of our youth. This widespread availability also makes murder possible in a greater number of circumstances to anyone entertaining murderous thoughts. A gun makes it easier to attack larger people, multiple people, people from a distance, people from secrecy. Guns are weapons of choice when a person wants to kill, because they are not personal. A gun inspires confidence of success in a would-be killer allowing a crime to occur when it wouldn't have otherwise. Our children are dying in the streets, and we need the ability to do something for our citizens. Until we could stroll along the streets, congregate in parks free from fear, our families mingling, our children laughing, our hearts joined, until that day, we will have to endure the senseless blood shed. And everyone here is aware of the numbers in Philadelphia in 2005. We had 17 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 380 murders. And as of last night -- and I had to stop and ask my colleague were there any murders overnight, because I didn't hear the news this morning, but every morning when you wake up, your stomach turns because you hear of a new murder, but as of last night before I went to bed, there were 38 murders for this new year. I've been to many meetings with the Police Commissioner, Sylvester Johnson, and one statement that he made struck me. We were at a middle school in my district, and he said that he tries to tell young people that a 15-second act will cost them the rest of their life, 15 seconds that they use to pull the trigger on a gun. I believe it is our duty as public officials to provide a public forum around this critical issue, and that's the intention of today's hearing -- and certainly there will be more -- and to foster coordination and 18 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES.

051205 cooperation between the branches of government, as well as community institutions, organizations and our citizens. This is certainly an issue that we all have to be involved in, from all branches of government, the religious community, all of our community-based organizations, our block captains, and the main group that we all have to remember to reach out to are the parents and the children. I'm really glad to see so many children here this morning. So with that, I think that our goal is to hear from you, and we all know what the problem is, and I just, again, want to thank everyone for coming. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much. The Chair now recognizes Councilman O'Neill, who is here and who will make a statement. Thank you, Councilman.

Madam 19 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Chair, I'll be very brief, but I just want you to know I can't stay for the whole hearing, but both you, Councilwoman Miller and others, including Councilman Clarke, who have worked so hard with such frustration on this issue, that you have the complete support of the entire Council.

Thank you very, very much. We also have Councilman Darrell Clarke, who is a member of this Committee, who is also in the room. Youth. Beneath the willows of despair, weeping and wailing like nobody cares, with angry eyes and outstretched arms are our youth, our light, our brand new dawn. Let's teach them now where they belong so they can find their place and grow big and strong, to always see their warm and bright smiling faces that know no night, just endless joy and boundless hope, for we are caretakers of the rope that binds us all and keeps us 20 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 free and let's us know what we can be. If love and work join hand in hand and we, the keepers of the land, can make a change and do our part, create new dreams and fill some hearts, then we can proudly stand so tall, commend the Board, Mr. Vallas, parents, teachers, all, and bid them come again next year, not to rid the world of guns and fear but to celebrate a brand new day where children learn and jump and play, and hate and fear grow limp and fade, like God intended when man was made. Thank you. I got criticized for that back in '92, but I will say it again. Now we will call on students from the Jubilee School, after which we'll ask Mr. Paul Vallas and all of those whom he would like to bring. We invited certainly Dr. Shirl Gilbert, Vernard Trent, James Golden, Gwen Morris. And, Jerry Jordan, maybe we'll bring you with the next group so it won't be so 21 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 tight, but we invite you to bring all you would like to bring. Jubilee School first so they can go back to school. Is that okay, Mr. Vallas? And then we're ready. Thank you. AMIEL JEFFERSON: Dear City Council, the students of Jubilee and I are here today to talk about an issue that is destroying our community. This issue is gun violence. Guns have destroyed our neighborhood and have made many children scared to leave their houses. Our gun campaign started when a former student was killed. His name is Affan. Here's a picture.

Thank you. Would you give us your name, please. AMIEL JEFFERSON: My name is Amiel Jefferson.

Tell us where your school is. 22 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 AMIEL JEFFERSON: In Southwest Philly.

What's the street? AMIEL JEFFERSON: 42nd and Chester.

Right. Thank you. AMIEL JEFFERSON: His name was Affan. It is sad to know that this boy and many other children could have been the next Picasso or Einstein or even the President of the United States, but their lives were cut short because of some guy who needs a gun to be big and bad. So we made a petition and committed ourselves to make our environment a safer place to be. So with your help, we can get rid of guns and make a brighter future for many children. We will now be hearing from Aliyah Pressley. ALIYAH PRESSLEY: Good morning, 23 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 everyone. My name is Aliyah Pressley, and I want to explain to everyone here today what we have been doing to get other children to sign our petition. We have been going to different schools from different areas and spoken to four different schools. We asked the students to sign our petition, and at this point, we have over 200 signatures. We've come today to ask you for help to stop gun violence, because together we can make a difference. STUDENT 3: The reason we are speaking is that we want to show the grown-ups that children can make a difference. We want to be heroes. Heroes help people who are in danger. We want people to put away their guns forever, and then our neighborhoods would be safe. We want people who use guns to think about how they will feel if they were little kids and somebody in their family got shot. This is what is happening right now. People are getting 24 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 shot and people are losing their family members. We are trying to help children to stand up for themselves. Will you be our partners and friends so that we can help other people and make our neighborhoods safe so that babies will see how our neighborhoods should be. ASHA JACKSON: Good morning. My name is Asha Jackson. I came here to tell you lawmakers that if we do not get guns off the street, then more kids could die. I feel that life is very precious. For the wonderful children and grandchildren, how would you feel if your children or grandchildren got shot or were in a crossfire. If we all work together, I'm sure we can get guns off the street. And now here is our petition we've made. JUBILEE STUDENTS: We, the children of Pennsylvania, are asking you to let kids live their future. We want 25 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 our neighborhoods to be gun free. Please change the law so we can grow up and experience life in a safe environment. You should make the right choice and help us get rid of guns and drugs. We want to grow up with dignity and power instead of being scared. (Applause.)

Thank you, Ms. Paul. Thank you. You've done a wonderful job. And let me say to all who are here, that these young people have been concerned. We've been communicating for quite some time, and they really, really wanted to come to let us know how they feel. And for the record, we will also have recorded all of the names and all the petitions that we received from their walks through the neighborhood for support. So we say thank you again. Job well done. Thank you. (Applause.)

Mr. 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Vallas. Good morning. Thank you for your patience. Thank you all for being here and for all that you do and for your commitment.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for those kind words. I'm joined by Jim Golden, my Director of Safety and Security. Vern Trent. I don't even give Vern Trent a title anymore. He's our intervention person, because as you know, he is everywhere hours, seven days a week. 16 Any time there's a crisis impacting any 17 of our children, he's there on site, and 18 he's just really done a marvelous job. 19 And the gentle woman to the back of me, 20 Claudia Everett, who is the orchestrator 21 of all of our testimony today. Don't let 22 her second-role status fool you. She's 23 sometimes on a day-to-day basis -- 24

Oh, my goodness. 27 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205

-- she'll do more than advise. She'll kind of run the show.

Thank you. Mr. Vallas, may I ask you if you would permit our Mayor to precede you in your statement.

Yes, ma'am.

We promised him that whenever he came up, he would have the opportunity to speak and go back.

Would you like us to move to the side?

Yes, please. Mr. Mayor, we welcome you, and we've cleared the way for your statement. We thank you so much. And I will tell you, anyone who was at that chamber and luncheon yesterday and saw the Mayor do a tour through the City on his bicycle really would have been impressed, to talk about 28 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 businesses, neighborhoods and to really talk about the history of our City and its future. It was just the most exciting film that I've seen, Mr. Mayor, and we thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilwoman.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Good morning.

It's been a long time since I've been here. I've actually done this before. I was in the neighborhood and I knew that this hearing was going on, and I told the Councilwoman if I got a chance to stop by, I'd stop by and say just a couple of words. As most people know, the City of Philadelphia is concerned about safety, public safety. Public safety is probably the most important thing that we 29 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 do as a city, and our citizens look to us to make sure that they are safe in their neighborhoods. We can't have our world-class city, we can't attract people to work in our City, to live in our neighborhoods if we have communities that are not safe. And as you know, the Police Commissioner, who either has or will testify here today, has been working overtime to refine our deployment strategies to make sure that we are doing everything we can. We have constantly monitored the activity, the criminal activity and the other activity in our City, and on one level, we are very comfortable and we are confident and we are convinced that we are a safer city today in many ways than we've been in a long, long time. The thing that is troubling us right now more than anything else is the number of shootings that are taking place in our City and the fact that homicides are going up, when in 2002 we had 30 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 homicides at a 17-year low, and they're headed in the wrong direction, and that's a problem for us. Between 1990 -- and I don't have any prepared remarks, so I'll ramble along for a little bit. Between 1990 and 1997, in no 9 year did we have less than 400, maybe 410, 12, homicides in our City. So the fact that we had 380 homicides last year is a far cry from the 288 that we had in 2002, but it's still a whole lot lower than at other times in the recent history of our City. Police Commissioner Johnson and I say that one homicide is too many, and we certainly should do everything we can to minimize both the opportunity and the access that people have to weapons that lead to homicide. I've taken a cursory look at some of the homicide statistics from 2005, and it's interesting to note that 215, maybe 220 of 380 homicides were 31 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 arguments, arguments unrelated to drugs. There were about another that were 4 related to drugs. So if you add all of 5 those together and if you add the 6 domestic abuse homicides, then you have a 7 huge percentage of the homicides resulted 8 from interaction between family, friends 9 and acquaintances under circumstances 10 that's very difficult, if not impossible, 11 for the police to anticipate and deter. 12 And when thinking about homicides, you 13 don't want to -- the clearance rate is 14 almost irrelevant, because when you have 15 a homicide, you obviously incur a lot of expense on the City and then you have two families that are both devastated. So our impression is that many of these homicides are homicides that would be difficult for the Police Department to deter, but the Police Commissioner has created a new form of deployment, which he'll talk about, that has us putting significantly more resources in certain areas where there is 32 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 gun violence and other activities that lead us to believe that we need more police presence. In the budget that you will consider, I guess, starting next week, I project an additional $10 million for police overtime. And I've been asked the question why police overtime. Actually, the cost of providing benefits to uniform workers in this city has escalated to the point where under many circumstances you get actually more police hours on the street by using overtime than you do if you have to pick up the cost of all of the benefits. And our analysis showed that we actually can get more flexibility and more time on the street if we use overtime than if we hired additional police officers.

But we do believe that we should be spending a little more money, although we believe that the number of police officers that we have is probably right. 33 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Now, we announced our program last week and we went to about six churches in neighborhoods throughout the City, and I emphasized four points. We are committed to deploying or redeploying our Police Department in a way that gives us maximum potential for creating the kind of environment that's important for our City. We are committed to providing an enhanced quality of services in our City so that people in neighborhoods can have the services that they need as a form of eliminating the problems and the conditions that lead to violence. We are committed to providing an enhanced group of neighborhood activities that will help people in neighborhoods get more actively involved, town watch, organization of block committees and clubs and all of the activities that neighborhoods have, so that neighborhoods can be stronger partners with us. And we're very candid 34 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 that neighborhoods have to be very aggressive in cooperating with the Police Department in a lot of different ways, and we think we can do better to make our communities safe. We've also challenged the faith-based communities to be a lot more aggressive in working to improve the level of civility in our community. It's shocking and stunning and very unfortunate when you have in many places today, and not just in our City, people who shoot each other down over parking spots. They get into disputes in places of entertainment, and it seems as though even the slightest indignity has to be remedied with the use of a weapon. We are convinced that fewer weapons in our City would be a big help in minimizing the violence and certainly the homicides. We get concerned not just with the homicides, but with the number of shootings that you have, because every 35 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 time a person draws a weapon, aims it at another person and pulls the trigger, you have a potential homicide, and many of the shootings could very well have been homicides. And so we will continue to advocate very strongly that we have much tougher gun laws in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. And I know Councilman Clarke and Councilwoman Miller and others in this Council have consistently supported that, for which we are all grateful, but we will continue to press for more gun laws. Having said that, we do believe that our City is fundamentally safe, but we will never ever be satisfied as long as there's violence in our community, and we certainly don't appreciate the fact that the homicides are headed in the wrong direction. They need to be going down, and they're not, and we're going to do everything we can to make that happen.

Thank 36 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 you very much, Mr. Mayor. We were at the faith-based churches on Saturday. The community received all the suggestions that you and certainly Commissioner Johnson made with regard to safer streets, and we do believe that we've made a solid beginning and -- that we've made a solid appeal, not a beginning but a solid appeal, for all of us to unite and be together. Thank you. Any questions for our Mayor? (No response.)

Thank you, Mayor, for taking time from your busy day.

Thank you. (Applause.)

Thank you again for your patience.

That's quite all right. It's my pleasure. It's great to be here again, and I'd like to thank the City Council for their support and their courtesies on so many occasions. I'd 37 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 also like to also praise and thank the Mayor and his terrific Police Commissioner for their strong support for the schools and for their consistent support for these school initiatives. We've worked very closely together on so many issues, I think the most important of which have been issues related to students' safety and school security, and I just want to extend my thanks to him. Madam Chairwoman, what I was going to do was to focus my testimony on school and school-related issues. There are numerous other individuals here who will comment about community climate and community issues, issues of changes to gun laws, et cetera, and they will do that as well, if not better, than me, and I certainly don't want to take away their time. But given the fact that I'm the school Superintendent, I should probably limit my comments to school-related issues. Also, rather than have separate 38 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 testimony, we're going to kind of combine our testimony and hopefully combine our minutes so that we can cover the subjects and the topics that the Council requested us to cover, and then obviously answer whatever questions that you may have. I do want to just once again recognize our marvelous children who once again continue to impress us, as well as their wonderful teacher, and, of course, the teachers' union is represented here today by Jerry Jordan, and they've been a great partner in all of our efforts. It's the reason that I think we've been as successful as we have been. Let me say that I want to focus on really six areas, and very quickly and very briefly, six categories that impact and have a direct impact on school safety and school security, and talk about what the District is doing in these areas and then talk about what needs to be done to further improve our efforts in these areas. 39 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 I want to talk about physical security. I want to talk about discipline policies. I want to talk about intervention efforts. I want to talk about extracurricular and after-school and extended-day and summer school activities. I want to talk briefly about reorganization, and, finally, and most importantly, I want to talk about education and the impact that the quality of education has on student discipline and student behavior. First of all, physical security. At the end of the day, you need to make sure that your buildings are physically secure. I think over the last four years, you've seen a dramatic improvement in the physical security of school buildings, from installing thousands of additional safety and security and surveillance cameras, to the stationing of a school police officer in each and every one of our schools, from the expansion of school climate teams. 40 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 All of our K-to-8 schools now have school climate managers if they do not have a freed-up assistant principal. So there is somebody in those schools who is responsible for managing school climate and managing school discipline. We have upwards to 650, 660 school police, either two-thirds full time, one-third part time, working in the schools on a daily basis. So each of the schools is covered by a professional school police officer, not to mention the other support staff in schools. And more and more of our schools are complying with the School District's mandate that they establish parent and community help desks so that there's a permanent parent and community presence in the schools. So I think the schools have made a lot of progress towards improving the physical security of the campus, so to speak. As you know, we have high-rise schools. We have seven-story-high high schools and five-story-high middle 41 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES.

051205 schools and four-story-high and sometimes higher elementary schools, and we have schools where if you ever wanted to play a game of hide and go seek, you could be extraordinarily successful. I always say if you took me to the center of Edison High School and put a blindfold around me and twirled me around and then took the blindfold off, I would have a hard time navigating my way. I know Councilman Ramos knows what I'm talking about. Our schools are cavernous. They are cavernous, and that creates our own safety and security problems. The new construction, I might add, very few of our buildings will be higher than two stories and most of the schools will have clear site lines, and obviously the schools will be a lot smaller. But we have taken steps to improve the physical security of our schools. It also includes limiting access to specific doors that are 42 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 overseen by surveillance cameras, most of which have already been installed, not to mention the buzzers, not to mention our efforts to cover as many blind spots in a school with our cameras. This past year, we designated 60 schools as schools we considered to be persistently disruptive. You have the state persistently dangerous schools list. It's based on the No Child Left Behind standards. Let me point out that we're one of maybe two larger urban districts that actually complies with that list. By persistently dangerous schools definition, there was no 17 persistently dangerous schools in Illinois and California and there's only two persistently dangerous schools in New York. Of course, we have 14 persistently dangerous schools. So I guess they don't have those problems in New York or Illinois or California. I was Superintendent of public schools in Chicago and, believe me, even when I 43 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 left, we still had some persistently dangerous schools. The bottom line is, we have been aggressive about complying, but we actually expanded that list to 60 schools, and we publicized those schools. And in those schools, we installed an additional 900 security cameras so that we could cover as many so-called secluded spots in those schools as possible. If you have more security cameras, you can have more coverage with the limited personnel you have. So we're going to continue on those efforts. We're always going to be seeking additional support so we can continue to upgrade the technology resources to improve the security in our schools. And obviously we would like to make all of our school police officers full time. About 230 of our officers are per diem, and we would like to make them full time. Budget constraints currently preclude us from doing that. 44 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 But the bottom line is, I think there has been an upgrade in the physical security of the school system, both from a person power standpoint, a human resources standpoint and from a technology resources standpoint. We're going to continue to do that. In the budget that I will present to the City Council in about a month and a half, we will be talking about an additional investment in school safety and security. Even with the mid-year adjustments we've made in our budget, we have not been making any adjustments on the safety and security side. In fact, we will probably spend 2 million or more on safety and security this year than we originally budgeted for, if I am to cover Jim's deficits here, I just might add, which of course I am. Let me talk about the discipline policy. I don't think you can trust any of the statistics prior to 45 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 1992, quite frankly, other than the statistics put out by the Police Department. There was lack of effective enforcement -- prior to 2002. I'm sorry. Prior to 2002. And I think it really has taken a couple years for the schools to get serious about enforcement.

There's always debate about some principals being more aggressive than others, but the bottom line is, I think the statistics or the big sudden spike in numbers that you saw, I think, between 2002-2003 was a reflection of the fact that people were getting more serious about reporting. And, of course, we have clear reporting guidelines. Let me also point out that our definitions of serious incidents are comprehensive. In other words, if a kindergartner kicks a teacher and it's reported, it shows up on the serious incident report. If a first-grader brings a squirt gun to school, it shows up on the weapons report. If a 46 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 second-grader brings one of those little blunt scissors to school, it shows up on the weapons report. I'm not sure what the percentage was. I think about one-fourth of the serious incident reports were actually primary-grade children. And, again, serious incidents include verbal threats. An assault is not only the physical act of an assault; it's also verbal assaults. It's also threats and intimidations. So we have pretty broad definitions. I'll also tell you, we arrest at about -- for every four incidents we have, we make one arrest. In Allegheny County, for every 95 incidents, they make one arrest. And in some of these suburban counties, the ratios range from one out of every 15 to one out of every 115. So the bottom line is, we're aggressive, and that's why we have persistently dangerous schools on the list and why no one else seems to have 47 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 persistently dangerous schools. So the discipline policy continues to -- I think it's strong. It's hours a day. 6 Also, about one-fourth of our 7 incidents occur off campus. We report 8 incidents 24 hours a day, just as we do 9 crisis intervention 24 hours a day. So 10 if there's a weapon found off school 11 grounds, we record it to that school. If 12 someone is assaulted on a Saturday by a 13 student from Gratz and it is reported and 14 that student is identified, that assault 15 will be associated with the student from 16 Gratz. 17 Recently, when Washington High 18 School got their school off the 19 persistently dangerous schools list, it 20 was because they were actually able to 21 attribute two or three off-campus 22 incidents to another school and not their 23 own. 24 So we try to be as aggressive as possible. And reporting is going to 48 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 be uneven, but nevertheless, I think reporting is much more comprehensive and the principals do take it seriously, and we have made personnel changes based on lack of responsiveness. I'll cite the Overbrook and Audenreid cases where we made widespread personnel changes the first year just as evidence of that. The third thing, interventions. We partner with just about everybody, from Mothers in Charge to Men United to community-based organizations, to assist us in our intervention efforts. The objective here is to be proactive and to do intervention hours a day to try to 17 anticipate problems and to try to 18 basically respond to those problems. In 19 fact, we have actually 12 what we call 20 rapid response teams, police officers, 21 teams of school police, who will be 22 deployed to hot spots using data trying 23 to determine where those hot spots are, 24 anticipating hot spots. Those teams will be deployed. 49 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 In addition, personnel throughout the School District have what we call secondary MLSs. That means secondary missions. So support staff, non-teaching support staff, can be pulled and deployed if you have a school where you have a melee or if you have a school in meltdown. Kelly Barton from Northeast heads one of those teams. Isaac Wright from the Leeds Military Academy has another one of those teams. It's like voluntary firefighters. You drop what you're doing and you go to where there's a fire.

So, again, in a district with limited resources, we really give people secondary missions so we can put 10, 15, men and women on the ground to 20 stabilize the situation when we have problems. And I'll point out that in contrast to the past years, we haven't had our lunchroom melees and we haven't had our lunchroom riots and some of the escalating fights that we've had in past 50 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 years, and I think that has a lot to do with it. But the intervention is 5 hours a day. And it's just not 6 intervention to prevent an action; it's 7 intervention to respond to an action. So 8 any time a child is a victim of violence, 9 we will send intervention teams not only 10 out to the schools but out to the child's 11 home, and it doesn't matter if the 12 violence occurred on the weekend or over 13 the summer. 14 I don't know how many homes 15 Vern has visited in the past four years. 16 Probably hundreds, I will just tell you 17 this. Not to mention how many times 18 we've provided financial support for 19 medical treatment or, for that matter, 20 even paid for funerals. But, again, we 21 provide that coverage and those 22 comprehensive services 24 hours a day. 23 And when we send our intervention teams 24 to the homes and to the schools, they are not only school police officers, they are 51 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 counselors, they are psychologists, they are faith based, because our faith-based partners are also part of our intervention teams. We can always improve upon those intervention teams, but improvement means more partnerships with more community-based organizations. Let me talk about extracurricular activities and extended days. As you know, working in partnership with the Mayor's Office of Safe and Sound and Beacons, we now have the largest after-school, extended-day, summer school programs in the country. On any given day, we have well over 60,000 kids involved in after-school, extended-day. During the summer, we have in schools alone well over 60,000 kids involved in summer programs. We have now dramatically expanded our Saturday programs. So there's been a consistent effort to get the kids involved in extended-day, extracurricular activities 52 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 so they're engaged in constructive activities. And those constructive activities are just not, in effect, baby-sitting. All of our after-school, extended-day programs are predominantly academic, but they're also enrichment. This past year we've added 300 clubs to our high schools. We now have 660 athletic teams up from 440. Next year there will be over 800 athletic teams in the school system. There are now over 200 athletic teams at the middle grades level. So there's been a dramatic expansion of extracurricular activities, sports, et cetera. Our goal here, incidentally, is to create 600 new clubs by the end of the school year next year in the high schools alone. So in addition to traditional after-school, extended-day programs, which helps us from an academic standpoint and serves the dual benefit of helping us academically but also getting the kids off the street, in school, 53 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 involved in constructive activities, the dramatic expansion of clubs and the dramatic expansion of sports programs. The core programs, of which are going to be unaffected by our mid-year attempt to do some budgetary savings, we think getting our kids more involved and more engaged in constructive activities. Let me point out, though, that our ability to continue to expand these programs in partnership with Safe and Sound and other community-based organizations is constricted by our ability to secure additional funds.

For example, as you know, the federal government just introduced its budget, which actually is going to cut public education funding by well over a billion dollars and, of course, they've wiped out all earmarks, including the Specter grant, which we've used for the last three years to fund our summer school programs. We will have summer school next year, but there will have to be some 54 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 offset somewhere else. And that's $14 million a year to the District. So it's not like people are lining up to help us. With the federal government's funding of defense and funding of the war in Iraq and funding of the tax cuts at the expense of education and other social programs, we continue to be asked to do more with less. We'll continue to make progress, but that progress is going to be slowed by obviously our fiscal constraints, something this Council has been well aware of over the years. Despite that fact, I'll point out that last year when the rec centers were closed, we transferred many of those programs to the schools. Over 180 of our schools have community-based after-school and extended-day programs in addition to the school-based programs. So I think we've been very aggressive about opening our doors and inviting community groups in, partnering 55 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 with the Mayor's dynamic programs so that we can get more and more kids involved and engaged in those activities and off the street. Reorganization: The reorganization of the School District I think is beginning to have a positive impact on school climate. Smaller is better. Middle schools can be a tragedy. By 2008, the District will be a K-to-8, 9-to-12 system. We are converting 67 K-to-5 schools to K-to-8 schools -- these are all schools with additional space -- adding sixth, seventh and eighth grade. The number of middle schools, which used to be 46, by '08 will be eight, and four of the remaining middle schools will be the magnet feeders for magnet high schools. In the process, we believe in the process, we're going to improve the school climate. Our most violent grade in 2002 was sixth-graders. We had 136 teacher assaults among sixth-graders. They 56 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 included verbal assaults. They're not all physical assaults. We had eight assaults among twelfth-graders. Sixth-graders, that number has begun to change. Our poorest performing academic class in 2002 was sixth-graders. That has changed. In fact, with the phase-out of the middle schools and the adding of sixth, seventh and eighth grade to the K-to-5 schools, we've seen a dramatic increase in sixth grade academic performance. So we think that the phase-out of the middle schools and the phase-in of the K-to-8 schools is going to help improve the elementary school climate. And let me point out that in all the schools that are going to K-to-8, we have assigned either a climate manager or a freed-up assistant principal to focus exclusively on discipline and school management to free up that principal to focus on academics, with great success, I might add, but we think that 57 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 reorganization is going to have a positive impact. Likewise, the reorganization has a benefit in the high schools. It has given us many buildings that we can convert into high schools. By 2008, we will have virtually 100 high schools, including all of our disciplinary schools and charter high schools, up from about 45 six, seven years ago. The average size of the high schools will be 800 as opposed to 1,700 three, four years ago. Half the high schools will have fewer than 500 kids. We just do not get the melees, do not get the lunchroom fights. We do not see the tension in the small schools that we see in the large behemoth high schools. And it should be no coincidence that my two headache high schools this year have been South Philly and Olney, two of our larger high schools.

We think the South Philly problem -- we've moved aggressively to address both issues this year, but we 58 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 think ultimately the opening up of the new Audenreid will ultimately solve a lot of the disciplinary problems in South Philly by, first of all, reducing the size of South Philly by about 600 students. But the bottom line is, the movement to a K-to-8, 9-to-12 small high school system we think is going to create an environment more conducive to learning and create an environment that is much improved from a school climate standpoint. All the research, while questioning the academic advantages of small schools, does not question the school climate advantages of small schools. What many of the small schools miss nationally is rigorous accountability. We have rigorous accountability in our small schools. So we're going to benefit from a school climate standpoint and from a classroom management standpoint. 59 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 One more point, too, is, when you dramatically increase the number of sports and clubs and dramatically decrease the size of the high schools, then you have opportunities to have maybe 60, 70 percent of your kids involved in constructive extracurricular activities, where if they're part of a high school of 2,500, 3,000, 3,500 kids, I mean, there's still only one boys' basketball team and one girls' basketball team. The likelihood of them being involved in constructive activities is limited. So we feel with the dramatic increase in sports and extracurricular activities and the downsizing of our high schools, we're going to have many more kids involved in constructive activities. So smaller is better, and the K-to-8, 9-to-12 model is preferable. Finally, education. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what we do on the physical securities side. It doesn't matter how tough our discipline 60 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 policy is. It doesn't matter how tough our intervention policy is. It doesn't matter how many after-school extracurricular activities we have or, for that matter, the K-to-8, 9-to-12 system, if there's not quality education going on. And if the gap is not closing and if children are not learning, you're going to have disruptive behavior. Over 90 percent of our disruptive behavior comes from children who are academically underachieving, and over 60 percent of our disruptive behavior occurs in kids who are overage, overage underachievers. So the focusing on the overage underachievers and closing that learning gap and improving academic performance ultimately I think is going to contribute to much better behavior on the part of the student. This is going to be the ultimate change agent, keeping kids in school, keeping kids off the street, 61 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 improving the graduation rate, getting kids into college, having kids engaged, getting kids to grade levels so they're not just feeling that they're marking time. We think that that ultimately is going to contribute to success. I'll point out that there's not a school district in this country since 2002 that had more significant increases in elementary school test scores. I think New York is a distant second. Obviously, though, we have to continue to improve. We need to see the same academic growth over the next four years that we've seen in the last four years. Our graduation rates have improved by almost ten percent. Our math scores at the fifth grade level have tripled. We have literally led the state in academic growth the last three years. But that's just getting us back into the game. It's getting us back into the ballpark. We're going to have to do much better. We're going to have to see the 62 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 same pace of growth over the next four years that we've seen over the last four years if we're going to ultimately get where we need to be on the academic side.

And if we get to where we need to be on the academic side, I think a lot of the disruptive behavior issues will take care of themselves. Let me make a couple comments, if I may, when we are talking about issues and recommendations. I'm strongly supportive of expansion of the Mayor's initiative, particularly the Youth Violence Reduction initiative and the Mayor's new initiatives. Also, the comprehensive package of gun control laws, long overdue, particularly in this state. It's disappointing that Philadelphia cannot even have even more autonomy to be aggressive on these issues. So we strongly support that agenda, but being able to access additional dollars, wherever they may 63 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 come, so that we can increase the number of full-time School District police in the schools and so that we can begin to transition our per diem officers to full-time status is critically needed. We've hired as many per diems as we've had, in large part, because we've wanted to have at least one trained officer in every single school, something that we did not have two years prior. Most of the officers were in the high schools. Very few of the officers were actually in the elementary schools or, for that matter, the middle schools. So that's something that's critically needed. On the discipline policy, there are a number of changes that we'll be submitting to the Committee, legislative changes that we've been pushing for the last three years in Harrisburg, most without a lot of success. The most important one is giving the School District the capacity to expel for more 64 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 than a single year. By state law, students who are expelled by more than a year have the right to return to their school. Now, we've tried to get around that by returning them to neighborhood schools -- by returning them to disciplinary schools and alternative schools and transition schools, but they have a right to return to their school. We can only expel for one year. We have been expelling to alternative schools. We've been expelling -- we expel about 2,000 students a year, and most of our alternative schools are filling up rather rapidly. But the bottom line is, we need more flexibility to be able to do permanent expulsions and to do permanent alternative placements. The third thing is getting funding, getting permanent state funding for alternative schools and for transition schools. Transition schools are schools for overage underachieving students who are at risk and likely to 65 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 get in trouble or drop out or be involved in disruptive behavior. We've opened up three pilot schools these past two years. They've been cited in newspaper articles as being enormously successful, being able to bring those schools to scale, so we can get the 17-year-old freshman or repeating freshman who should be with other 17-year-olds, their same age, you know, comparable academic status, so that we can put them into smaller schools, smaller class sizes, provide them with more intensive support. What we found is that when we move children from the general high school to a transitional high school status, the kids do significantly better. Their attendance dramatically improves. We've also been re-enrolling into our alternative schools network about -- we've been able to successfully re-enroll about 85 percent of students, former students, juveniles who have been released from correctional facilities, 66 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 where in the past, only about half the students released from correctional facilities were re-enrolled in schools. Most of them are re-enrolled in alternative schools or disciplinary schools. But, again, when you have juveniles who are 17, 18, years old 10 released from correctional facilities, 11 where do they go if you don't get them 12 back into schools? Then those juveniles 13 are on the street.

14 But having the ability to have 15 the spot so that we can put them in 16 alternative placements, schools that 17 specialize in high risk, schools that 18 specialize on young adults who are 19 academically struggling, is much preferable than re-enrolling those individuals in the neighborhood schools. So the expansion of the alternative schools network is critically important. Consistently that is not a part of the Harrisburg budget. Normally 67 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 that money needs to be put back in. The Speaker of the House has consistently used his Members Initiative line to, in effect, put the funding in for alternative schools. And so we've been arguing, we've been lobbying that it become part of the permanent state budget so we can seek increases rather than just a restoration of the funds that were there the previous year. Likewise, we're going to have to lobby to have it put back in this year, too. But, again, alternative schools, funding for transitional schools, critical. Because if we have the alternatives, then we can get more and more kids -- not only the kids who are violating the Zero Tolerance policy, who are the serious offenders, the serious offenders, I'm not talking about the kids who are bringing the butter knife -- the kindergartner who brings the butter knife to school or a kindergartner or a first-grader, second-grader who 68 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 brings a cap gun to school or something. I'm talking about the serious offenders. Not only do we need the space for the serious offenders, but we need to get the consistently and persistently disruptive kids into alternative placements, and not only alternative disciplinary schools but transition schools, transition schools for overage underachievers and for persistently disruptive kids. These pilots have demonstrated great success, and being able to get funding for them I think is absolutely critical. Then we can expel more readily, but we can expel to specific permanent placements. Right now our biggest struggle among our younger kids is, there's no place for younger kids. Where is the alternative schools for a first-grader, second-grader, third-grader or fourth-grader or even a fifth-grader? We expel readily from sixth grade on through high school, kids who are 12, 11, sometimes 10-year-olds and above, but 69 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 when you have younger kids who are involved in dangerous activities or commit violent acts, where do you put them? There is not that alternative placement. So alternative placements is something we need to be lobbying for. It's a big priority. The next thing is the expansion of funding for after-school, extended-day. We're going to take another run at getting earmarks put back in the budget, but the bottom line here is, we can't continue to take the hits that we're going to take this year with the loss of the Specter grant, although the Senator is going to continue to try to get those educational earmarks restored. We're going to continue to struggle. I also want to add that Michael Fitzpatrick actually voted against his caucus in support of sustaining the educational earmarks for the state of Pennsylvania, and he did that -- he was 70 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 one of the few to defy the caucus, but we want to also praise him and acknowledge him for his daring in accomplishing that. The reorganization is going to happen, and we really need no additional help on that. But these are some fundamental recommendations that I think that we're going to be pushing and we're going to be presenting in more detail when we come before the City Council. And, of course, this is going to be part of our legislative agenda as we respond to the Governor's budget proposals and his budget message, which is being made today.

Thank you very much. That is, of course, why more of our state officials are not here. If the Committee will permit -- and let me acknowledge the presence of Councilman Juan Ramos, who is also here. We would like to take testimony and hold our many questions until the end of the day or at least this afternoon so that we 71 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 may respect all of our guests who are here, if that is all right. Having said that, I'll call on Councilman Goode.

I'll be very quick. Mr. Vallas, thank you for your testimony. I found it interesting. It was sort of a disconnect between what I thought you might say and what you actually offered, so I'd like to pose a few questions to you.

Sure.

You've been here how many years?

It will be my fourth year in July.

Do you view public school children as being more violent than when you came?

I think the neighborhood challenges are much greater. Do I think they're more violent? No. I think the school -- I believe that the 72 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 school climate in the schools are better than they were four, five years ago.

That's not the question I asked. The question I asked was, do you view public school children as being more violent than when you came?

No. 10

Do you view public school children in Philadelphia as being more violent than children in Chicago?

No. 15

How are you measuring that? Are you measuring that by the number of incidents? Are you measuring it by the number of persistently dangerous schools? How do you measure violence?

By all those things. Maybe the number of funerals I've attended. I mean, in Chicago --

I'm asking you specifically. I listened to a lot of 73 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 your testimony. It did not talk about children. It talked about programs. I'm asking about the children in the School District and the state of their minds. Do you view them as being more violent, and how are you measuring it? Are you measuring it strictly by the number of incidents, the number of persistently dangerous schools? How are you measuring it?

I'm measuring it by all of the above, the number of incidents, the number of persistently dangerous schools, the number of children who have been the victims of violence.

You made a statement that 90 percent of the persistently dangerous children are underachievers. Is that the statement you made?

Yes. The number of kids -- I believe it's roughly about 90 percent of the number of kids who show up on persistently dangerous or show up 74 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 on the serious incident reports are academically struggling. They are not at grade level.

But achievement is up and violence is up. So how do you reconcile that?

Well, I submit that -- well, the number of violent incidents in the schools are down and academic achievement is up. The number of violent incidents in the schools are about down ten and a half percent, and the academic achievement in the schools are up.

I promised to be quick, so I'll just ask one more question.

Go ahead.

Maybe just offer some perspective on where I'm coming from. In your testimony, you also stated that the most violent grade is sixth grade, which was perplexing to me 75 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 in terms of a matter of perspective. How can a grade be violent? Can you explain why sixth grade is the most violent grade?

Very simple. Because prior to 2002, 84 percent of the kids in the School District went through a middle school system, which means suddenly you go from being one of 50 fifth-graders to one of 300 sixth-graders. You make that change at a time when you're undergoing social, physical, emotional, psychological changes. So you go from an environment -- you suddenly transfer from a school that's right down the block to a school that's maybe a mile and a half away or maybe two miles away. You suddenly go from a class where you know everybody, where you're one of 50 and you know everyone and you know the teachers and the teachers know you to a building where you're now one of 300, most of the kids you don't know and, of course, the 76 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 teachers don't know you. So the response is predictable. The survival instincts take over. The kids become less secure. The kids are much more on the defensive. Kids begin to seek out cliques or seek out associations. The second most violent class has been ninth grade for, once again, obvious reasons, because suddenly you're transferring from sometimes a relatively small eighth grade or, for that matter, if you're in a middle school, maybe a larger eighth grade to a much larger high school. So it's obvious, yeah.

I thank you for your answer. I do believe in some ways it was obvious, but I'm glad you actually talked about the children and their experiences in sixth grade.

Well, let me point out that my directive by the Chairperson was to talk about specific programs and specific initiatives that the District 77 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 was undertaking in the categories identified, what the status of those initiatives were and what some of our recommendations were. But as someone who has probably made 100 hospital visits in the last two years, as someone who has attended well over 40 funerals, as somebody who has set up crises funds so that we're responding to crises that occur in the District every day, seven days a week, hours a 13 day, I am about the children, and every 14 program that we've talked about, from 15 reorganizing the School District going to 16 K-to-8, 9-to-12, doing the after-school, 17 extended-day interventions, focusing on 18 academics, modernizing our curriculum, 19 making our curriculum more 20 multi-cultural, even some of the things 21 that I did not have the opportunity to 22 get into because time will not permit, is 23 student centered. 24 So I think my entire testimony has been, in effect, about the kids and 78 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 about the things that we're doing in the School District to affect the kids. Thank you.

Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you. The Chair also notes we have specific testimony from Mr. Golden, Mr. Trent. So all of the testimony that we have will be made part of the record as if you presented it, and we thank you very much. We see Dr. Ed Robinson inside the gate, and certainly we will ask him as he is here, and Minister Rodney Muhammad, you are here. So while you're inside the gate, you're certainly on our list, we'll ask you to come forward and please make your testimony at this time. And we're going to hear very shortly from Commissioner Sylvester Johnson and also our Controller, Mr. Butkovitz. We thank you. Many of you know that Dr. Ed Robinson is the architect of black history in schools. He's been 79 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 doing this for as long as I've known him. He's the uncle of State Representative David T. Richardson. So we've all been involved with his commitment certainly with young people, knowing who they are, his interest in black history in school and as the author of one who wrote the curriculum. So we thank him for coming. He readily accepted our invitation, and we say thank you. Thank you. Please identify yourself for the record.

Thank you very much, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell. I'm honored to be here. I'm honored that the Committee on Education of City Council invited me to speak on this very, very important subject. I took the liberty of bringing with me Mr. Ali Salahu-Din, who is the head of an organization of young people between 10 and 14 of over 2,000, which have a tremendous, beautiful record in academics and in behavior. It's called 80 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the D-Zert Club. He is taking over 1,500 of them to the Motherland free of charge of them, and he is my star witness on what I'm about to explain to you. You have before you, ladies and gentlemen, a picture that I took from the National Geographic in 1984 of Scottish children who were doing the same thing in Glasgow what the Philadelphia children are doing here in the public schools. And I would like to relate to you that as you read that, where they show that these children committed high crimes against each other -- these are white children. These are Scottish children in Glasgow, Scotland. There's no black children there at all that we know of. And they were at wit's end what to do, until somebody said to them, Teach them the greatness of their ancestry. Teach them the greatness of their Scottish ancestry. And that was in 1984. But for years, they had tried all kinds of methods to try to bring 81 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 these young people under control, to know avail. And with teaching the children their beauty and the grandeur and sophistication of their ancestry, they solved the problem, and the children's academic proficiency soared and their behavior became exemplary. So taking a tip from that, we embarked on a program to teach our children, black children, the beauty and grandeur and sophistication of their Sung-Hi and ancient Egyptian ancestry. Now, I'm aware that violence in the schools is not limited to only predominantly black schools, but I make no apologies in saying my mission is to reduce violence in the predominantly black schools. That's my mission. That's been my mission since 1945; that is, to introduce as part of the history and science that is going to be taught to everybody the contributions of our West African ancestry and our African Egyptian ancestry. So that will be part and 82 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 infused within the so-called white history, the Europeanized history. Happily, the solution is theoretically solved. If you look at the next page, in the Genesis Corrective History Program, you'll find that not only on that page that the quality of their education soared when the African Genesis was -- I'm not talking about African-American history. I'm not talking about George Washington, Carver, Booker T. Washington, Martin Luther King. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about Imhotep. I'm talking about Imenhotep. I'm talking about Queen Tihe that these little girls can identify with. I'm talking about our African history. When I'm saying African, I'm limiting it to the Sung-Hi, which is West African history, a thousand-year-old empire, larger than all of Europe, from which 95 percent of African-Americans' ancestors came or were brought. And I'm 83 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 talking about the cultural mother of the world, which is ancient Egypt. And if you look on the next page of the three-page take-away I gave you, you'll see that the year before we introduced the African Genesis Program the number of offenses committed by these 300 children were 328, with assaults on school personnel, assaults on school personnel with weapons, robbery, extortion, assaults on students with weapons. And you'll find that there was a total of 328 offenses. We introduced the program in September. By December, 65 offenses had been committed. And from December to June, zero. So, therefore, the behavior became exemplary with these same children.

But not only that, we have a program here in the City and in other cities called the D-Zert Club that was created by Mr. Ali Salahu-Din and his wife, Helen Salahu-Din, in which children were taught the beauty and grandeur and 84 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 sophistication, just like the Scottish children were, ages between and 14, of 4 the greatness of their African ancestors, 5 our ancestors who gave mathematics to the 6 worlds, who gave algebra to the world, 7 the three astronomer priests who gave 8 calculus, trigonometry and geometry to 9 the world 4,700 years ago. 10 They learned all about that in two years that he taught them from a curriculum that he commissioned me to create. And then he took them to the Motherland to see with their own eyes that beauty and grandeur and sophistication. And in all that time, in seven years, I think there's been one offense committed, one pregnancy of a girl in 1997.

Since 1997. That's correct.

So we have the solution that we're just saying as far as the violence is concerned in the schools. We're saying give to these 85 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 black children what we've been saying since '94 the same thing that you give to the white children, the greatness of their ancestral home. We've been saying that for 60 years. And, finally, we're happy that Dr. Mark Shed 30 years ago heard me, but then he was fired before he could implement it. And now Mr. Paul Vallas last June made it mandatory that children be taught the total history, not just the Europeanized history, but the African history also from kindergarten to 12. And I was very fortunate to have been given the job of infusing the history book; that is, the black and white history and sciences in the same book. Yes, ma'am. Did you have your hand up?

No. 22 Thank you very much. I didn't want to interrupt you. No. I was just waving to folks who can't stay. Thank you and thank you all for coming. Thank you, 86 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Dr. Robinson.

So I'd be glad to entertain any questions that you may have on this. There's a lot of things, but what I'm asking you to do, you see, having it mandatorily be taught is just half the problem. We need the help of the Education Committee, of you, to cooperate in seeing that it's implemented. This is a brand new thing for the teachers. We taught some 800 teachers last July, and this is brand new. They never even heard of Sung-Hi. They never heard of Imhotep, because that had been denied all of us during our -- them, too -- during our school years. Never heard of Patahotep and his great book that's 4,400 years old, 1,500 years before the first book in Europe was written by Homer. Never heard of that. So these teachers need to be helped by you by publicizing what we're talking about so that they know that 87 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 they're not by themselves. There are 12,000 teachers who have no idea of African history, of Sung-Hi history. So we need your help so that the children can get it. They accepted my teaching of them very graciously this past summer, but we have a long ways to go if I only taught 800 teachers this past July. So we need your help in a number of other things, and, that is, to not only be a catalyst with all the various organizations there are out there to help with school violence, to be a catalyst in getting them together, to give direction to them. I'd be glad to talk with any of them. We'd be glad if you would help us to have included questions in all standardized tests equal to or exceeding those of Europeanized questions, Europeanized questions in the standardized tests, in the SATs. There's a huge number of questions in the tests that the children 88 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 take between kindergarten, and very tiny few have to do with their African background. So, naturally, it wouldn't be any point in studying it since if they didn't answer any of them, they still would pass the test. So we're asking for fairness in the questions, in the number of questions, that Princeton gives out, that the state. We need this Education Committee to see to it that there's fairness in the questions that are going to be taken by the children in the schools. Would you have any questions for Mr. Salahu-Din and the greatness of his organization? He's now in how many cities now are you?

Six.

In six cities. And he's expanding so fast, where our children are doing so well learning about that which had been denied 89 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 them learning in the schools, about the beauty and the grandeur and sophistication of their African background, of their Sung-Hi background.

Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Robinson. Thank you. The D-Zert Club absolutely does a wonderful job in making trips to Africa and taking youngsters who have never been, for all of your commitment, both of you. Minister Muhammad, we thank you for your commitment. We thank you for coming here today, and certainly we pledge this Committee's support to you in any way we can. I always have to thank you for Ms. Delores Muhammad who heard your call during the Civil Rights era and went back to Africa, where she's been some 35 years teaching in school, Essence International School, on whose Board I serve of 2,000, her own school in Nigeria. So I thank you very, very much. Thank you. 90 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205

Ms. Chairman, I had a statement. He asked me to stick with him, but I have a statement.

That will be fine.

I've been looking forward to this hearing, if that's okay.

Thank you. Put your mike on or pull your microphone closer, Minister, please.

In the name of the law, the magnificent, the merciful, I bear witness to the one God, his prophets, and I thank him for the most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Honorable Louis Farakan, my teacher. To this City Council on these hearings I believe on gun violence, I would first like to thank City Council for bringing us together; that is, the City Council and the City citizenship, over this crisis. There's not one of us that lives here that is without a stake 91 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 in seeing some remedy to this problem. I personally thank Mayor John Street for marshaling together various stakeholders in Philadelphia, and I'm equally thankful to Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson for the sensitivity that he brings to community life in the way he is combatting the growing homicide rate. According to the Library of Congress, 1555 was the year our people were first brought to the Americas. History records this as one of the most violent orientations known in the history of man. Subsequently, we endured a culture of violence, with no escape from hatred, lynchings, police abuses, mob attacks and the like. Social scientists agree that one suffering prolonged abuse will more than likely begin to internalize this social systemic disease. This, along with political, economic and institutional deprivation, aids in 92 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 breeding a culture of desperation. Escalating tensions can easily translate into escalating homicides. We have learned that 56 percent of the reported 380 deaths by guns in Philadelphia in the year 2005 were arguments among people acquainted with each other. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad understood us because he was thoroughly taught in the work of evil that took place in us from our oppressors. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was in full knowledge of the science that produced in us fears, distrust, low self-esteem, docility, self-hatred and a disconnection from our members through individualism. The fact that we have been made disagreeable is evidenced in our spending patterns, low levels of cooperation to better our standard of life in many areas. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad knew that deep changes inside of us were needed if our condition as a people was 93 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 to be bettered. However, even though right teaching and training can bring better results, Mr. Muhammad made us discard of all carnal weapons on our person and in our homes. He cut off our access to guns by forbidding us ownership of these weapons if we desired to walk with him. For 76 years now, we have been in your midst carrying no weapons of destruction because Minister Louis Farakan demands the same as his teacher. We believe access to guns must be curtailed in the greatest sense of the word. This measure taken up by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad and continued by his servant, the Honorable Minister Louis Farakan, plays a role that's essential in the nation of Islam's ability to build a peaceful and relatively crime-free community throughout America and the world. In this City, Top of the Clock 94 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Securities Company has proven to be a stabilizing force, as it stabilized violence in the Abbotsford homes in the early 1990s, according to a national report studying housing developments. Just recently, Top of the Clock Securities, having contracted with the public school system of Philadelphia, has reduced in one of the schools that has a reported 500 or more suspensions in a school year, they have reduced suspension rates among students at West Philadelphia High by 55 percent already. I believe if we are serious, clearly this company should play a greater role in removing this growing scourge from our great City. We offer the City of Philadelphia the Honorable Louis Farakan's method for peaceful change. We offer a chance for our City to really stem the tide of violence in this year of 2006. And that concludes my remarks that were prepared.

95 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205

Thank you very much.

I thank you all.

We thank you all for your patience. And we call our Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson forward, and we realize -- (Applause.)

We realize we're holding you all very long, but we're trying to rush through without asking a lot of questions so that we may give you every respect and have your testimony come forward. We know our Commissioner, Cheryl Garner-Ransom, has to catch a plane. We'll get you on. We see our Controller, Alan Butkovitz, who we referenced initially in our opening remarks. When he was the State Rep, they did a report on violence. We see Mr. Tom Knox, who is a health professional and CEO and President of his company. 96 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Thank you, Commissioner, for your patience again. We're sorry to hold you. We appreciate all the work. We think you're the best in the country, so we appreciate all your work in our City and your commitment to trying to help in this regard so that people know there's safety and they need not fear. Thank you, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Thank you. Good morning, Councilwoman Blackwell and other City Council members of the Committee of Education and Public Safety. I am Police Commissioner Johnson, and I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today on the topic of violence in the City of Philadelphia and the plan that myself, the Mayor and the Managing Director has developed to stop the violence. In Philadelphia, most of this violence of homicides are males under the age of 25. Most of the killers are under 97 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the age of 25. I have seen the innocent victim, the not so innocent victim and the offender. What scares me the most is that violence has become an accepted way of life. Apart from innocent children, it seems that it has become okay to shoot someone over a disagreement. Well, it's not okay, and I, along with the Mayor and the Managing Director, have developed a comprehensive plan that addresses not only the police but also the social service and the faith-based community, and it's called Operation Safer Streets. As I have always said, the police alone will never solve the problem of violence. While drug-related violence can be directly reduced by strong police presence, aggressive policing will not reduce the violence which happens from an argument or that occurs indoors, like domestic abuse. So to deal with violence as a whole, we need to develop a plan that 98 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 addresses not only drug violence but all violence. Making arrests is not the overall goal of this plan, but to stop the violence from occurring in the first place. We need to stop the tragedies from occurring both in our schools and in the City as a whole. Operation Safer Streets intends to do just that by attacking violence on four fronts. First, the Police Department has designated hot spots throughout the City, based on criminal intelligence, where street violence is likely to occur. We will flood these areas with police and use every legal tool to intercede before the violence can occur. Second, we have begun recruiting both religious and community leaders to talk to their people about violence, to get involved and to offer other ways to solve disagreements than with a gun. Next, our social services, 99 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 through the Youth Violence Reduction Partnership, the new Adolescent Violence Reduction Partnership, are being expanded to target more of our at-risk victims and offenders. This will work directly with the Police Department's existing Juvenile Intelligence Unit created under Operation Safe Schools. And, finally, we'll also continue to fight for stronger gun laws in Harrisburg to take illegal guns and the availability of guns off our streets. This concludes my testimony, and, once again, I truly appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today on the topic of violence in the City of Philadelphia and the plan that myself, the Mayor and the Managing Director have developed to stop the violence. At this time, I would be willing to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Commissioner. I'm asking my colleagues not to ask questions. 100 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Certainly I recognize their right to do so, because we really want to hear our testimony. Councilman Rizzo.

Do you want me to hold?

Well, we'll have one question and then we'll ask if we can hold, because Commissioner Ransom, if she's ready, if she and Controller Butkovitz comes up, I know she's got a plane to reach.

Commissioner, I attended a couple of the presentations this past weekend and appreciate your effort, along with the Mayor, to step up the enforcement and maybe the crime rate -- there will be an effect. Commissioner, one of the things I wanted to ask the School District, but maybe the statistics could help, when we hear the word kids being suspended from school, young people being suspended from 101 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 school, I wonder if the Police Department has any statistics. Because I don't really understand. When a child is suspended, does that mean they have a pass, they just go out and hang out, or does the School District send them someplace else? I wonder if we have any statistics that would show how many crimes are committed by young people that are suspended from school. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: We don't have any of the statistics, Councilman. I'm sorry. But what we basically do when we have a child right now who is suspended from school -- matter of fact, the person is even truant -- we would pick them back up, take them to school, and what happened, they would suspend him and put him right back on the street. So it really serves no purpose of even taking him back to the school.

That's why once we get to some questions, I want to ask the School District, because I think 102 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 I better need to understand what happens when a young person is suspended. Maybe some of them look forward to being suspended so they get out of school, but what's the ramification for suspension. And I would guess that they would know if any of those young people got in trouble during their suspended state. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Yes, sir.

Thank you, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Thank you.

Thank you so much, Commissioner. We appreciate all you do. And if it is okay with members of the Committee, we'll excuse our Commissioner. Thank you. COMMISSIONER JOHNSON: Thank you very much.

103 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Commissioner Ransom and Controller Butkovitz, please come forward. I know you have to catch a plane. Thank you for waiting. Again, we thank you all for your patience. I know we're trying to push it along as quickly as we can so we respect you all and have all of you have an opportunity to speak. We would also note that Kenneth Gamble was here, Universal Homes, who also has a charter school, but he had to leave to do his own radio show and will return, if possible. Thank you, Commissioner Ransom. This is our DHS Commissioner, Department of Human Services Commissioner. COMMISSIONER RANSOM-GARNER: Good morning. Thank you so much for allowing me to read my testimony now. I do have to catch a flight to go out of town to Urban Leaders Child Welfare quarterly meeting. Good morning, Madam Chairperson 104 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 and members of the Committee on Education. I'm Cheryl Ransom-Garner, Commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, known as DHS. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to address the Committee on Resolution No. 051205 calling on the Committee on Education to conduct hearings on the incidence of violence in Philadelphia schools and explore ways in which violence in schools can be reduced. At the Department of Human Services, we're confronted every day with the violence affecting Philadelphia's neighborhoods as we work to protect children from abuse, neglect and delinquency. In fact, the young man referenced in the resolution, Terrell Pough, was involved in a DHS Parenting class offered through our Parenting Collaborative. Sadly, this inspiring young father became a statistic when he was determined to be so much more. Even more upsetting is the fact 105 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 that there are countless others like Terrell in our City who have been struck down in their childhood before they have ever even had a chance to really live. At DHS, we work hard every day to help children and families address the stresses and challenges that so often lead to this senseless violence. As you can imagine, many of the clients we work with struggle with multiple issues, including truancy, drug and alcohol problems, mental health issues, unemployment, homelessness and others. Just as the violence affecting Philadelphia has changed, the demographics of our client population have shifted as well. Today, nearly 50 percent of the children entering foster care are teenagers, often referred to DHS by their own caretaker or parent who feels they are unable to handle their child. To address the changing face of child welfare, our focus of service 106 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 delivery has shifted and we are working to address the issues complicating and tearing apart the parent/child relationship, while keeping the child at home, whenever possible. Often centered on education and behavioral issues, numerous caretakers are seeking help with children for whom they feel they have no 10 control. Through enhanced Community-Based Prevention Services, DHS works to support children and parents to develop positive connections to their schools and prevent these young people from disconnecting from their community, its residents and resources. Youth that are disconnected from their community and family are more likely to seek a violent resolution to challenges without care of the consequences to themselves or others. Our division of Community-Based Prevention Services works to provide families with a safety net of services and supports that can help them before 107 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 their situation results or leads to violence, abuse or neglect. Since schools have always served as a centerpiece for the community, we have strategically placed programs in neighborhood schools that can identify youth at risk and provide them with the help they need.

Through these evidence-based programs, we work to strengthen the families' ability to handle challenges while working to provide the youth with productive activities and safe environments. This is being done in a number of ways through public and private partnerships and collaborations with community and neighborhood groups. These programs include the Beacon Programs, school-based community centers designed to provide safe havens for hundreds of children and families. There are currently 23 school-based Beacon programs in operation throughout the City providing quality after-school programming. We plan to 108 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 expand the Beacon programs in Fiscal Year 2007. After-school programs: During the past several years, we have dramatically expanded prevention services by investing approximately $80 million to create, among other things, a network of over 150 new after-school programs located at schools, churches and recreation centers, serving approximately 40,000 children. Consultation and education program known as C&Es: These are preventative short-term school-based case management services for children experiencing barriers to learning. C&E staff facilitate a school behavior management team to develop a school-wide behavior management plan to enable children to learn skills, to manage their behavior and to help the school create and maintain a cooperative learning environment for students, staff and parents. This process draws on the 109 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 skills and expertise of principals, teachers, school psychologists counselors, special education staff, as well as family members and community leaders. Adolescent Violence Reduction Partnership, AVRP: This is a violence prevention partnership aimed to prevent repeat offenses by high-risk adolescents and divert them from placement, victimization, delinquent and criminal behavior. This is a partnership of the Police Department, DHS, Behavioral Health Services, Juvenile Probation, schools and community organizations such as the Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Organization and the Youth Aid Panels. In the first six months, our expectation is to provide services and supports to 330 youth and their families. Modeled after the Youth Violence Reduction Partnership, YVRP, for older youth, 15 to 24, this program, the AVRP, works with younger youth, ages 10 110 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 to 15, who are at high risk of being involved in violence either as a perpetrator or a victim. AVRP launches this month and will begin in the 12th and 25th Police Districts, covering North Philadelphia, Kensington and Southwest Philadelphia, areas of chronically high incidence of youth violence. The partnership component includes 24-hour monitoring, crisis intervention support for designated youth, life skills training, family counseling and parenting education, community outreach, partnerships with key community groups, work with faith-based groups and community organizations to assist in responding to critical situations impacting youth, schools, families and communities, and training to providers of these supportive services to assist them in the needs of an often older population, the grandparents, of caretakers for these youth. 111 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Truancy: As mentioned earlier, truancy is often a symptom of other issues. In fact, truancy is the leading indicator of other issues within the homes of families known to DHS. To that end, we are working to address truancy as early as possible by lowering the threshold of school absences, activating the designation of truancy and the program of interventions. We can address the problem before the youth irreparably regresses because of countless missed days of school. DHS links chronically truant youth to neighborhood-based services that offer tutoring, literacy enhancement, case management and perhaps the most important component, mentoring.

This is also a collaborative partnership, bringing together with DHS the School District of Philadelphia, Family Court and a network of community-based agencies and individuals with a focus on resolving issues before they evolve into situations requiring 112 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 placement in a dependent or delinquent facility. These services break down into two categories. For children to 13, 6 the program engages the array of community-based youth and family services available to support families of younger children. Intensive services, including the Regional Truancy Courts, to support older youth, to 16, whose truancy and 12 individual and family challenges are 13 likely to be more severe. Then there's the reintegration initiative for delinquent youth. Any time DHS brings a child into our custody, whether for dependent or delinquent services, we begin planning for their eventual exit from our care on day one. For youth adjudicated delinquent, we have developed a reintegration initiative which recognizes the need to prepare the youth and the family for their return. Through the Reintegration Collaborative comprised of DHS, Juvenile Probation, the 113 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 District Attorney's office, the Defender Association, Philadelphia School District and the Office of Behavioral Health, Juvenile Justice providers, the Workforce Investment Board's Youth Council and the Philadelphia Youth Network, we work to provide resources and skills to assist the family to function as a unit, the youth to maintain in the educational system and ensure a strong connection to community resources and supports. Services are offered in a three-tiered fashion, based on assessed needs of the youth, strong community supports for returning youth and intensive work with the families while the youth is in placement and after the youth returns home. A unique component of the model is the inclusion of opportunities for some delinquent youth to attend the E3 Centers, which stands for education, employment and empowerment, where they receive education, counseling, employment 114 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 assistance, life skills, et cetera, to reduce recidivism. As you can see, we believe the key to helping our families lies in our ability to surround them with a network of community supports and assistance. The Mayor's recently introduced Operation Safer Streets focuses on this sort of coordination and collaboration to address the spike in violence in our City. Philadelphia Division of Social Services, DSS, will serve a crucial role in this effort through the above-mentioned programs, AVRP and YVRP, as well as helping families to address the many contributing issues such as truancy, unemployment and mental health issues. Through cross agency and systems collaboration, we can collectively provide Philadelphia's children and families with the safety net of support needed to keep violence out of our homes, neighborhoods and schools. I thank you for the opportunity 115 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 to speak on this topic today and I look forward to working with you to address this complex issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. We realize you have a plane to catch.

It's not a question. I just want to commend Commissioner Ransom for all the work that you do. It's a very, very, very difficult job, because things unexpectedly, it's almost like police work, happens and you're on the spot. So keep up the good work. We will do all that we can in our power to help you get this information out to the public of all these fine programs that are available to the people of Philadelphia. So have a safe trip. COMMISSIONER RANSOM-GARNER: Thank you so much.

Thank you. And maybe you can bring this testimony back during budget, your budget 116 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 time before us, so that those who are not part of this Committee will have an opportunity to know some of these fine programs that you're implementing. COMMISSIONER RANSOM-GARNER: Yes, definitely. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner. Controller Alan Butkovitz. This is our new Controller. We referenced him in our opening remarks because he's involved in this issue and involved on a state level, and he was a part of the State House during our youth study and report on this issue. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Councilwoman Blackwell, Councilman Ramos. I have with me today Harvey Rice, who is my First Deputy Controller and was the first safe school advocate actually in the country in the Philadelphia School District, and Roslyn Jackson, who is in the PAL program, who is the shadow 117 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Controller for the day. We have presented prepared testimony. I'm just going to submit that in writing and digress from that. I just want to --

Thank you.

-- give you the perspective of where I'm coming from. I was produced by the Philadelphia public school system, and I'm the parent of two kids who came through the public school system. When I got through the schools, it was back in the '60s, and what we're talking about in terms of bullying and violence back in those days, it was actually the golden age. I went to Overbrook High School. I spent the entire twelfth grade in physics sandwiched between two kids who punched me straight through the physics class. And since the issue of race came up, the fact of the matter is, they were two white kids at Overbrook High School 118 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 pummeled me straight through physics class. The end result is that if it wasn't for the charity of my twelfth grade physics teacher, Mr. Beicher, in giving make a D, I probably would still be at Overbrook High School. When we did the violence hearings on the Philadelphia School District, the stories, the individual stories, of what were happening to children every day in the Philadelphia schools were tragic, and they are the kind of things that do not come across in the numbers. A statistical analysis in this area -- of course, statistics are always useful, but in the Vietnam War, the body count became a numbing device rather than something that served as a useful instrument of what was going on. We developed stories during those hearings. There was a girl who had her face slashed who required something like 23 stitches because a knife had been 119 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 pulled on her by another girl over a story that originated over somebody insulting somebody else. We had a child with brain damage that had a desk -- beat on the head with the desk. And the story that really sticks with me was a family in North Philadelphia. It was a little 12-year-old kid who was a really smart kid, but he was small. And they dangled him upside down by his ankles over the stairwell by the third floor. He was just tortured by those kids. He came in. He testified at a hearing like this. He sat in the Council President's chair. He was really impressed by this. And he had a sister who was sexually harassed in the school. And we developed that that was a pattern of conduct in the schools. And the practice back in those days was a three-day suspension was the worst that you got for anything. So when she reported the culprit, he was suspended for three days. They came back into 120 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 swimming class -- or he had friends in the swimming class, and they dunked her head over the water and they played around like they were going to drown her there. She took martial arts. That was her response. What the School District people told our 12-year-old kid was, You got to learn how to protect yourself, you got to learn how to fight. Well, I kind of visualize that he would -- it was kind of the picture of Bill Clinton and John Kennedy, that this kid -- the baton was being passed and he was thinking of being the Council President or the Mayor or something. I checked with Harvey a few years later, because this kid went from 12 to 17, and I asked him, What was the rest of the story with that kid. And he said, Oh, I ran into him again, he said, but the sad part is, he became a perpetrator. Because the lesson that we taught him by the failure to 121 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 protect him and the failure of the authorities to react with passion on this issue was that it's a dog eat dog world, that it's a jungle, and if you're going to survive in that system, you just got to be physical and you got to be tough. And I would say that the penalty of violence is not just the amount of carnage and pain that is being inflicted every day.

It's the fact that these kids have to dedicate all of their best wits and intelligence just to figuring out how to get in and out of school every day alive and safe, and, secondly, that the lesson that we are teaching them about the way the world survives is that you just have to be brutal and physically be able to fend for yourself. And those are not the lessons that we should be presenting. It's not a question of how many programs. It's not a question of what percentage of reduction in X classification of violence. I applaud 122 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the fact that when Paul Vallas came here, the School District stopped denying that this was a problem and embraced, on an administrative level, a goal of not tolerating this systemic violence in the schools. And I think what we need at every level of elected official, media, school administration is that passion, because the details of how to handle the problem will vary on a case-by-case basis. But you have to remember what one kid went through today -- and it doesn't have to be a shooting, it doesn't have to be a knifing, it can be just the chronic brutalization, it can be the chronic acceptance of sexual molestation and harassment -- has changed that child's world view in a way that we lose that soul. So I applaud Councilwoman Blackwell and this Committee for refocusing the City's attention on this very serious problem, and we commit the resources of our office to continue to be 123 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 an independent voice for these victims. If Roz, if you want to say anything about your school. Because Roslyn, who attends a charter school, has had a pretty good experience in terms of discipline process in her school, and I thought maybe she could just make a few comments. This is her debut as a public speaker.

Welcome. Give us your name again, please.

My name is Roslyn Jackson. Not in this school that I'm in now, but when I was in fifth grade in West Oak Lane Charter School, we had a really bad problem with the children in my classroom, and like they were so misbehaved, that my teacher had a nervous breakdown. And like I do think in order to change that, that we should be a smaller amount of children in a class, and I think that that will help.

Well, you 124 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 talked about the charter school you're at also, what goes on there.

I know that they don't let -- like if a child is so bad, that they will expel that child, but they'll just send them to a school called CEP, which is for like a lot of bad children. And I don't think I like that idea, because it's like it's not bettering those children. Because I know like when they go to school, they can't take certain things to school, like pencils and book bags and stuff.

But you were telling me earlier, though, that you felt the environment for you, which is the Communication Charter School, is so much better than the neighborhood school, Martin Luther King, because of that policy of using CEP.

Yeah. It's really good for the children that's still in the school, though. It's a better environment for us and we can learn 125 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 better, with not a lot of distractions.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your work in Harrisburg on this issue. Nothing could be more important. We know it was an issue that you didn't have to consider and you were not having neighborhood problems, but it was a City-wide issue you saw an interest in. Perhaps that's why you're a City-wide official now, but we thank you for your work and thank you for coming.

Thank you.

We note that we have Miller, which is a CEP, meaning Community Education Partners, Charter School, in my district, and we work well. We've gone to their proms and we try to work well with the school, and we think that the model can be a great success and do appreciate the work that they do. 126 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Mr. Tom Knox, President and CEO of United Healthcare, would you come forward. After that, Jerry Jordan, we love you, we thank you for your patience. Would you come forward next. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. Please identify yourself for the record. You may give us all your titles, if you would like, and we certainly welcome you.

Well, Ms. Chairman, unfortunately, I am no longer the CEO of United Healthcare. I gave that position up last Friday, and now I'm a full-time -- I'm considering running for Mayor full time. I haven't made that decision yet, but will do it shortly. As a result of my anticipation to run for Mayor, I've been visiting schools throughout the Philadelphia area, and I'm only going to take a minute to give you some of my observations there. One thing that's always resonated to the top and each time I talked to a principal or leadership in these various schools is 127 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the fact that their security detail on any day of the week would be 40 percent short. In other words, 40 percent of their people don't show up every day. If you don't have the adequate security in the schools, you're going to get the results that we've been seeing and that these people here before me have been talking about. I asked our Police Commissioner why he felt that 40 percent of these security officers weren't showing up for work. We do pay them, and we don't pay them if they don't show up. He told me that these people do not have a career path to look forward to. There's no 18 career path outlined for them, that they're underpaid and receive no benefits or very minimal benefits. And what I'd like to do is suggest that your Committee look into setting up an organization where these people could actually have a career path; that there be corporals, sergeants, lieutenants, captains, et 128 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 cetera; that they would have benefits; they'd have adequate compensation for what they're doing. And if we set up an infrastructure like that, I believe that you can get your truancy of your security force down to a proper level so that these kids when they come to school get the security that they believe that they're entitled to and that you want to make available to them.

Thank you very much. That's an excellent observation. We do thank Mr. Knox and appreciate his coming to our hearing to show that he does have an interest in all of these issues that affect our City. Best wishes. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mrs. Chairman.

Thank you. Now we're very happy to welcome him, and let me apologize. We don't try to hold you up each time, Jerry Jordan. 129 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 You always come whenever we ask you to come, whenever we invite you, and you do such a wonderful job. Jerry Jordan is Director of Staff, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and certainly has represented me many times in the past. Many of you know in my first life I was a school teacher. Thank you, welcome, and we invite your testimony.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Councilwoman and Chairperson Blackwell, Education Committee members and City Council members. I am Jerry Jordan, Vice-President of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, and I appreciate this opportunity to speak to you about school violence. If there was one thing we could make happen just by wishing, I believe parents, students, teachers and school staff would make schools safer. That isn't because every school is unsafe. 130 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Statistically, children are safer from violence in school than anywhere else. But our schools aren't as safe and orderly as we would like them to be. 5 percent during the first half of the school year. That's good news, but the number of crimes committed in Philadelphia schools is still unacceptably high. From September to December, schools reported 2,604 serious incidents, assaults, substance abuse or sales, arsons, weapons possession, robberies, rapes and other sex crimes. If the current crime rate continues, students and staff would be victims of 6,300 serious crimes this school year, one offense for every 29 students in the District. And that doesn't include hundreds of smaller incidents, often less criminal in nature, such as thefts, vandalism of personal and school 131 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 property, threats of bodily injury and fights that are not considered serious or are not reported. We cannot move quickly enough to ensure that students and staff are free from the threat of harm in our schools. James Joyce wrote in Ulysses, "I am a part of all that I've met," and nowhere is this more true than with our children. School violence is a reflection of the larger community. At school, students' behaviors mirror what they've seen at home sometimes and also in the community. Children today learn about violence at an early age. As a result, hardly a day goes by without a heart-breaking headline, a six-year-old shot in the head and paralyzed, a teenage girl burned to death in her home or a student pummeled into unconsciousness while walking home from school. It is unrealistic to expect to eradicate school 132 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 violence without eliminating violence in homes, families and communities as well. But there is a difference between what happens on the streets and in our schools. We have more ways to control the environment in schools, and it is our job to do so, through sound planning, with well-trained personnel, effective programs and consistent expectations. There are three approaches to making schools safe and secure. There are hard responses, such as surveillance cameras, metal detectors, personnel, tough disciplinary policies and alternative placements. There are soft solutions, including counseling, conflict resolution programs and community involvement. And there are systemic approaches that involve improving academic success with research-based education programs and practices. We need a combination of these approaches to make our schools safe. 133 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 I'd like to outline a few initiatives in each area. First, schools must be at the forefront of using state-of-the-art technology to protect students and staff. But technology cannot replace well-trained and equipped personnel who interact with students daily to prevent disruption and violence. The School District has done a good job in deploying technology to improve safety. Metal detectors, surveillance cameras, better communications devices and identity cards have helped to improve safety. However, we cannot be lulled into a false sense of security by technology. Technology may discourage some behaviors and catch some culprits, but it cannot replace properly trained and well-equipped adult supervision with clear rules and expectations. Over the last several years, the District has eliminated many non-teaching assistants, or NTAs, school 134 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES.

051205 employees hired and trained to control students in corridors, stairwells and other places where misconduct is most likely to occur. As NTAs were cut, violence became more pervasive, particularly in middle and high schools where large areas of schools lack proper adult supervision. We must restore funding for NTAs and provide them with high-quality training and state-of-the-art equipment so they can work proactively to prevent disruption and crime. We must establish fair and uniform disciplinary policies at every school. Last week, I received a copy of an e-mail to Paul Vallas sent by a third-grade teacher, stating, I quote, "With the budget for the 2006-2007 around the corner, I urge you to allow the new school budgets to include enough money so that we can effectively institute a discipline policy in the schools," end quote. 135 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Trying to curb school violence without a discipline policy is like trying to build a school without cement. A fair and consistently enforced code of conduct with real consequences for violations is the foundation for improving the learning environment. Recently, a teacher asked for PFT help when an out-of-control student who had attacked her with scissors was returned to her classroom. No student or teacher should have to endure the threat of bodily injury from a chronically violent child. Yet, our members are hip deep in pink slips and other paperwork required to remove disruptive students from classrooms. We need to reduce the paperwork burden so that students who are chronically disruptive can be moved to an alternative setting. In addition, school principals and regional administrators must provide consistent support to teachers working with disruptive or violent children, 136 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 instead of disciplining teachers who need help with classroom management. Finally, we should not allow the pressure to show "Adequate Yearly Progress" under the federal No Child Left Behind law to discourage school staff from suspending or transferring students with severe disciplinary problems. Such a case was documented in the Philadelphia Daily News last week. There must be an effective disciplinary policy at every school that supports teachers and staff and provides a range of interventions for violent or chronically disruptive students. Conduct codes should be fair and uniformly enforced and communicated clearly to students and parents. Students who are violent or disruptive and whose behavior does not change after intervention should be required to move to an alternative school where they remain until their behavior and academic performance improve. We 137 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 support due process for every student, but we cannot support a process that is so cumbersome that unruly students poison the learning environment for others. We must provide sufficient counselors, nurses, psychologists and social workers to connect troubled students and their families with community services and institutions. Children today cope with many serious issues. Poverty, single-parent families, crime and other factors put urban children at serious risk. Many face serious health issues, from lead exposure and lack of health insurance for health, vision and dental care. Critics often say that schools take on too much, but because schools play such a large role in the lives of children, school staff, particularly counselors, nurses and other health professionals, are in the best position to access and organize resources for children and their families. This is another area where 138 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 budget constraints have resulted in the elimination of school employees in positions to help students, particularly counselors and nurses. The PFT contract requires one counselor in every school, and state law mandates one nurse for every 1,500 students. Neither is sufficient to meet students' needs.

The workload for many counselors is staggering, and principals often assign counselors to other duties, including teaching several classes a day or filling in when substitutes cannot be found. The PFT believes we need one counselor for every 300 students, and we support a law proposed by State Senator Joe Conti currently under consideration that would lower the school-nurse-to-student ratio from one to 1,500 to one nurse for every 750 students. To reduce violence, we need health and mental health professionals in 139 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 schools to address underlying issues. Finally, I want to address the overarching education issues that are the heart of the disruptive and violent behavior, low academic achievement, frustration and failure. S. prisons are filled with illiterate adults. S. cities, as many as 60 percent of the adults are functionally illiterate. Teachers know all too well that students who do not perform well academically become frustrated and behave inappropriately. Research shows that there are steps we can take to break this cycle of frustration and failure for the kids. We should provide a high-quality early education program. We should make kindergarten attendance compulsory by no later than age 6, and we should reduce class size so that no child 140 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 leaves third grade without learning to read. The PFT has advocated for these reforms for three decades. Still, Philadelphia's students have the biggest class sizes in the state, and our once enviable early childhood education program is about to shut down entirely. Philadelphia's Comprehensive Early Learning Center Program, which for 50 years provided high-quality infant and toddler daycare and after-school care, is being eliminated in June. This decision is short-sighted and undermines academic success. Studies show that well-designed early childhood education programs are wise investments. They help children improve their thinking, social and learning skills, which improves school performance and behavior. Access to high-quality pre-school and full-day infant and toddler childcare makes it possible for parents to work, and 141 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 children who participate in pre-school are more likely to graduate from high school on time, attend college and hold good-paying jobs. Small class sizes in kindergarten through third grade produce similar, positive effects. Research shows that children in classes of 10 students in kindergarten through third 11 grade are more likely to perform at grade 12 level, not only when they are in small 13 classes but throughout their school 14 years. Children in small classes perform 15 a grade level above their peers by eighth 16 grade and are more likely to take 17 advanced placement courses, college entrance examinations and graduate on time. Finally, Pennsylvania is one of only a handful of states that does not mandate school attendance by age 6, and legislative proposals to change the age of compulsory education from age 8 to 6 have not moved out of the committee. 142 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 If we had high-quality early childhood care and education programs for every child from birth to kindergarten, compulsory kindergarten and small class sizes through at least grade three, we would have fewer children failing academically and fewer disruptive and violent students. Even students agree there is an urgent need to address school violence. A national survey by the Public Agenda stated that 48 percent of students said drugs and violence were serious problems in their schools, 71 percent said there were too many disruptive students in their classes, and 82 percent said the disruptive students should be removed from regular classes to improve learning conditions for the remainder. The best way to stop school violence is to be proactive from birth to build strong bonds between schools, families and communities.

Where families and community institutions thrive, 143 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 security improves as well. Creating a safe and secure learning environment is a community responsibility. " Thank you, Councilwoman.

Let me say to Mr. Jordan that this is by far -- (Applause.)

Absolutely -- (continued) some of the most important testimony that we've heard today, with specific recommendations. Certainly we do want to have a discussion with the schools on counselors and nurses, and we can't deal with violence without dealing with that, with the issues that are in -- absolutely. With issues you mention that concern legislation on various levels. And I will say before this Committee and for the record, this is the 144 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 most important testimony that we have. We appreciate your commitment, and it is our goal and our intention that we make this the primary focus of our recommendations in this report.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you. And, Senator Hardy Williams, would you come forward. Then I know, Dr. Harkavy, you have to leave. We'll get you next. And we will bring the Penn family, Glenn. We're sorry we lost Dr. Gelles already. So we'll bring you all up next. Is that okay?

Fine.

Thank you. Senator Hardy Williams and Benny Swan. What year is this? Is this 2006 or is this 1972? Some of you who have been around a while will appreciate that. 145 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Thank you. Thank you for your patience. Benny, I didn't know you were in town, but welcome. Welcome to you both. Hey, listen, we're just hitting 40 and we've been around for 30 years. Welcome. Please identify yourself and begin your testimony. SENATOR WILLIAMS: My name is Hardy Williams. I used to be a legislator, and I sat in this seat on the same subject. I invited Benny to Philadelphia today to help us in the group called OACCN. That's the Organized Anti-Crime Community Network, which has existed for about four or five years now. And aside from helping groups and cities too in policy matters, we also do hands-on activities in the street, such as counseling, intervention and the like. But, moreover, we believe that the most important thing in government, both locally and state-wide, are those matters that deal with the children. 146 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 And, therefore, they are forced to go to school by law and they have faced violence because they have to go there. That's a weird but compelling contradiction. I say that to remind us that often times this issue of simply going to school and getting shot are things that the children face every day, and they're lucky if they make it at home. And so on this issue, we felt compelled to come to you today to make a brief statement. Hopefully it has a place in improving things. The Mayor, I read, has begun going to the churches in an effort to alleviate some of these bad problems. Well, I want to say my hat goes off to him to do that, because now we have something to rally around. And if his efforts are effective or his connecting is effective, then the City, its people, all of its people, may begin to feel somewhat better. Because on something 147 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 this big, we really need our best weapons and our best tools. And every time we want another football field or baseball stadium, anything, that we get those bonds. Anything that big business and some owners are going to make a lot of money, we find the will to twist arms and make the last vote come. They always come. And so one mayor will brag about having this football stadium, another mayor will brag about some other thing, but it's always something that must be done. Well, the Constitution in this state also says that children are entitled to things, and they are compelled to go to school. And some of the people in public office, if not all of us, are obligated to protect them and to educate them. And so this is no 22 matter of choice. We feel that it's been too long, that we've had a lot of concern, a lot of people, a lot of police officers 148 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 and the like doing things, and yet we seem like we still don't have it. It seems like we still have a lot of children injured and/or killed and others as well, and yet we wake up the next day and we seem to have our heads down because we see something wrong overnight, but we really haven't had any relief in the morning. It's our opinion that probably some of the old tools have worn out. A police force, which tries hard and does a great job, but doesn't have all the tools or all the personnel it needs. And you have legislation always on the table, but it doesn't seem to effect too much. Benny and I have talked about this matter as a matter of the bigness of the problem and all that. And, therefore, we need to get together our best armor to fight this fight on whatever level, whether that be rehabilitation of ex-inmates or whether that is direct intervention in the 149 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 streets or whether that's doing some proactive and extremely strategic things that make a difference and outwit the people who would do us crime and damage and hurt.

It seems to us that in the final analysis, there are a lot of people in communities today who are still working on the problem doing all the different things that they do, but, frankly, it's not their job to solve the crime situation. It doesn't mean that they can't do a lot, because we've seen neighborhoods make a difference in the final result in and around the mid '70s, both Benny and I and thousands of other people in the City of Philadelphia, but what happened then was the kind of thing I'm talking about, and, that is, maybe we have to change some of the effecting things, and, that is to say, Madam Chairman, the combination of money, other kind of aids, policies that connect the police with the schools with some of the 150 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 social groups and indeed those who are business people. All of us in one way or another all have a stake in a safe and viable city, and yet we have a city which is threatening. We're saying that some of the groupings that are sitting on the sidewalk, really perhaps no one is saying to them, You have a stake and you should help either get up the ante or participate in some other way that can in the end result be like a village. People talk about the village all the time and they talk about partnerships. The way we see it, this is a partnership among groups who really pretty much are either isolated or segregated from each other. That is to say, if you take the poor people in the areas of the City, they work hard on these matters, but you don't see them in any roles with these groups who are able to do what I said as far as a major issue in the City is concerned. And it is our belief that because of the 151 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 future of the City being the same children who may not make it if we can't deliver solutions that have some power and some policy behind a good program. And so we believe that it could be very, very different as to whether or not we would have a city who would feel it's in a partnership with some of the people on the ground, some of the people who are just hard-working citizens who are not necessarily in bad circumstances. Some wealthy people have a right to take part in a long range -- a long line of these activities, too, whatever they may be. And, indeed, a village that's spoken about or a partnership council for our region, that means the Philadelphia area, has quite a few groups that we are presently talking to to say if we think about it, we all have such a great stake, that the end result could be very impactful if we somehow can legislate, or whatever way it might come about, that because of the mixture of both people in 152 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 their situation, whether it's residency or whether it's the bank president or something like that, people who already put themselves with others like mayors who appoint them in those roles, that that can make a difference in everybody sharing the burden, first of all; coordinating, second of all, and the things that have to happen to make more safety come; and, finally, it's exactly the kind of rhythm and results that you want to get in order to continue to grow an already outstanding city among the country. There are a number of basic and strategic things that we would like to talk about because they affect the resolution of this issue, but we wanted to say first that we think there's a fundamental policy thing that could run throughout -- it's almost like at one time we set up commissions or groups or whatever it is that they do and they never change, it seems, and before you 153 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 know it, it cuts off some of the talent, it cuts off some of the talent or some of the people who have resources from the whole thing that can be used for the whole partnership council to give the benefit to the rest of our citizens. Ms. Chairman, I'm going to get off now. That's our main thrust.

We want to get a policy kind of thing so that when certain choices come in this City, that people who are working in the neighborhoods also are part of those things and part of the input on what happens to those resources and those procedures in order to make them more effectively available for the people who are working on the issues that we're talking about for the children in this instance. Having said that, that's the main thing we want to do, and we're certainly glad to put that on the record here and to follow up with you, because we know if it has value of any real 154 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 sense, you will do it, give it that, and we'd certainly like to follow up with you. On the other hand, there are some issues that we've talked about that need to go on the table as well. Of course, the whole idea of a village really. We're talking about if we're in trouble with this violence, we need to have places where we can think about new ways to go at the problem, new information to get by staying on the case, knowing each other in terms of what we're doing as part of the partnership well enough that we get new information, new devices to apprehend criminals and prosecute them, as well as to help grow the youngster who is on his way to something good, if he can just take care of his business without interruption with his safety. All those things touch each other, touch each Philadelphian, and we would hope that an outgrowth of this kind 155 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 of a central gathering would affect a lot of people and their children in the City in a positive way. And now I give you the man from South Carolina presently, Benny Swan.

Thank you very much. As many of you know, during the Rizzo Administration under Hillel Levinson, the Managing Director, crisis intervention was formed. Lucien was a member of the State House in those days, and he and Senator Hardy Williams fought long and hard, and he was the first head of crisis intervention, and as they say, the rest is history. Welcome.

Thank you, Councilwoman Blackwell. It is indeed a pleasure to have the opportunity to come from the great state of South Carolina to share with you some experiences that we had in the streets of Philadelphia. I brought two colleagues from 156 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 South Carolina, Reverend Jesse Marshall that grew up in South Philadelphia, now a Pastor at Pawleys Island, and the Chief, which is the Chief of Police in Pawleys Island, formerly a Philadelphia police officer. I asked them to join us today because -- and they wanted to join today just to say thank you for having an opportunity to have grown up in such a great city. It's great because of the leadership, such as the leadership displayed by your husband, Lucien Blackwell, Dave Richardson, Hardy Williams, that demanded legislative hearings in this community. Because the death toll was going up. It was rising daily. There was a death watch that was posted by the Daily News, 43, 47, 48, 49 kids. People almost forgot that they were human beings. They almost forgot that they had a life, that they had a family. And there's a fellow, 157 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Councilwoman Blackwell, by the name of Ron Bloomberg that tied in with Hardy and Lucien and Dave, and he did an ad that said, Hell, hell, the gang's all here. What the hell do we care? And for the first time, it begins to depict a child as a real human being, with a family and mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and people that cared. And something strange happened. People began to respond to the media as these mothers that sit here today -- and we want to commend you for being here and being on the forefront. Thank God for you. They send a message that we care. We've got to send a message that we care. We can't solve school violence unless we tackle community violence. Let me just say that once again. You may want it, but you can't have it. You may want safe schools, but you can't have safe schools in violent neighborhoods where young people run rampant and there's cross-peer affiliation. And, 158 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 therefore, unfortunately, the death toll rings in the neighborhoods, it will ring in the schools. So I wanted to make that a cornerstone, if I could, of our argument here today, that if you want safe schools, then you've got to create safe neighborhoods. And you've got to ensure that several things happen. You've got to have cooperation, coordination and communications. You must have it at several levels. You must have it at a neighborhood level, where poor parents that are struggling every day to try to make life better for the children are not forced out of the picture. They've got to be a part of the very essence of any planning activity that takes place. We called it then -- and I seen Dave Fattah here earlier. We called it then the City-Wide Parent Council. What was it? It was just simply a group of mothers who had an opportunity to fight for their children, knowing that their children 159 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 were doing wrong and wanting them to do better. If we alienate them, as the Senator often pointed out, if you just talk about how bad they are and you don't provide any supports for them to get better, then they'll continue to be bad, and, unfortunately, their children will continue to be bad. Let's provide supports for those parents, involve them in the planning process. Secondly, there are multiple mental health issues, as well as health issues. I am a Vietnam veteran, as many may know, several Civil Stars, Brown Stars, Purple Hearts, and a mental illness called PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, one that finally took its toll when my time was not as occupied as it should have been. The question I raise to you very quickly today is, how does PTSD affect our children today that are caught up in a constant web of violence? 160 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 In Vietnam, I faced violence for seven months.

There's children in the City of Philadelphia that face violence every waking moment of their lives. Every waking moment of their lives they're caught up in the web of mental health illness, and we're not dealing with that issue. Either you pay now or you pay later. I'd suggest that we should concentrate on how we pay now so we don't have to hurt and pay later. Thirdly, we've got to look at strategies for impacting on the problem, and I'd suggest that as we look at it, we look at a three-prong strategy, one that speaks to prevention, intervention and suppression. You can't just lock them up, because, Lord knows, they're going to come home one day. You can't just always -- when are we going to start concentrating on the kids in the earlier stages of life so they don't have to become victims or statistics? I want to leave that there in terms of a 161 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 three-pronged approach. I also want to take -- it's amazing how things change but how often they remain the same. There's something called Mayor Street's plan Safer Streets. There was once a Safe Streets. There were Safe Street centers funded through the federal government LEA funds, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration. And they set up centers in various sections of the City of Philadelphia. I think that was done, Senator, by -- I'm sorry. SENATOR WILLIAMS: Specter.

By Senator Specter I believe at that point. And these centers were operational. And here we are today talking about Safe Streets again, 45 years later, 40 years later. Boy, the more things change, the more they remain the same. But maybe there's a place for Safe Streets but with a different staffing pattern. Maybe the staffing 162 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 pattern of the Safe Streets, first of all, looks like a community advisory board made up of parents that have children that are involved in the system. Maybe it talks about a community board where all agencies and institutions that operate in that area are forced to work together, where there is cooperation, where there's coordination, where there's communications. Maybe those offices are staffed in such a way that you have county, state, juvenile probation officers, mental health experts and intervention specialists. Maybe. Maybe it's the kind of operation that lends itself to having a hotline where people can call in and share information. But I tell you the thing that I think, Councilwoman Blackwell, that's most critical about this kind of operation is, it has to have community support. It must involve everyday regular parents, some that we may not like, some whose life-styles are not that 163 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 which we approve, but there's got to be a way where they can play a role in the scheme of things, because they've got children and they're vested as well. And I want to say that if it could happen then -- and I see Frannie, Councilman, good seeing you. He goes back a long way with his dad Frank Rizzo. If it happened in an environment -- if it happened then, I don't understand why it can't happen now, Councilwoman. We've got the talent. We've got the information. We've got the education, and according to a recent report I reviewed, while $160 million is coming to the state and they suggest that the bulk of it comes to Philadelphia, then I suggest that we have the dollars to provide the services that are needed. The worst thing that could happen, and I think it would be a critical issue, was as hard as you've worked and as hard as so many others have worked, it's for the message from these hearings as the 164 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 rhetoric of the day do not meet the needs for tomorrow, that all of the dialogue, all of the hard work, all of the time that people have taken simply does not meet the needs of those young folks tomorrow. So I pray and trust in God, which has been my salvation. And I'm so glad that I've got a father of multiple chances. Lord knows, as all of you may know here, I've had multiple chances. I pray that we don't lose sight of the goal of reaching out and making things available to these young people. What is that thing? Safety, where they don't have to fear every waking moment if their brother, if their mother, if their cousin is going to be shot down in the streets. I pray to God that we don't blow this opportunity, Councilwoman. Because when I talked with the Senator and he mentioned coming here, I had to give a great deal of thought about your husband and you. I mean, you guys worked 165 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 hard. Lex Street. Where they had their own little gang that they looked at, they cared for them, they treated them as their children, they loved them. Senator Williams, Woodland Avenue, they loved them, they cared for them. That made the difference in lives of so many. We now have an opportunity as a result of what you're doing, Councilwoman, to create a marriage between communities and schools. Because, remember, we may want safe schools, but we can't have safe schools without having safe communities. I look forward to working with you. It is so good seeing you and other Councilmembers. Councilman Rizzo, good seeing you. There's a lot to be done, and I'm more than certain we can do it. I think OACCN is a key. It really speaks to organization.

It speaks to defining 166 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 policies that lend itself to cooperation. Hardy said poor people. I say to you, mothers can make the difference. Mothers historically have made the difference. And as I look at these mothers here that have been here since I got here this morning, they've got a loss like no other loss. And, honey, our hearts go out to you and your courage. We appreciate the courage that you display. And I think I'm speaking for both Senator Williams as well as myself and Councilmembers, we respect and we care for you and love you. Councilwoman, thank you so very much.

Thank you very much. And while Penn is coming forward, Judge Dumas, would you come. I know you're on your way. They're waiting for you on the bench. Then we will pull University of Pennsylvania up and UCD, and then we will do our Health 167 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Commissioners. Don't leave me, because I need you. Without you, we can't do the effect that taking behavior-altering drugs, the effect that that takes. And, Malik Aziz, I've been seeing you all day. Please, you will forgive me. We love you, we need your testimony, we appreciate you. Back in those days in 1972, Lou had stickers made and they said, Give you something to do, something to love and something to look forward to. We put them out all over the City, and I'm reminded of that today and the struggle. And I'm also reminded, Benny, of Theodore, who you know, lives in Baltimore, has a Master's degree, has his own organization to work with kids who don't have places to live and who don't have families, and he married another woman also, because he has a Master's from Lincoln University, and he married a woman also with a Master's, who is a probation officer. So some of the 168 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 struggling works. Thank you. Thank you. Judge Dumas, thank you so much. Please identify yourself and make your testimony. Thank you so much for taking time. JUDGE DUMAS: Yes. Good afternoon, Councilwoman Blackwell and Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, who just came back in, and also Councilman Rizzo. Good afternoon. My name is Judge Lori Dumas. I am a Court of Common Pleas judge who sits in juvenile court, the juvenile division, and although I am not here to advocate one way or another for anything, because that's not what we do, I did want to at least come to show the willingness of our court system to get involved in the community and to provide any assistance that the courts can provide with regard to this issue of school violence, because we do see on a daily basis several cases involving school violence and other types of violence, which sometimes originates in 169 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the school atmosphere, and it is very troubling to us as judges who have to consistently sit and watch our communities be torn down, starting with the schools. I'm from an old-schooled mother who believed that school was a place to learn. Yet, still today so many other things are going on that prevents our children from learning. And we, the judges over at 1801, actually have the task of hearing these cases on a daily basis and having to make decisions as to whether these young people either remain in the community or are placed outside of their homes. And what I will say that we do see is, we see an educational system that is not necessarily supportive of the progress of our children. And when the educational systems are lacking, the behavior deteriorates and so do our children. And we're losing them, as we all know, day by day to the streets, and our cases are getting not only larger in 170 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 number but they're getting more significant in nature. And we have, as I said before, the task of deciding what to do with our children. We, just like the police, cannot solve the problem. We can't solve the problem by placing children out of their homes. We don't have enough placements to place children. And then when we do place a child out of the home and it's successful, we bring them right back to the same neighborhoods and the same homes that they came out of and we place them back into the same failing schools, and so we've wasted energy, time, money, resources that maybe if we could have placed them more so on the front end, then we could have a better result in saving our children. As Mr. Swan said, as I listened to his testimony, we do face a lot of mental health issues that are unresolved. A lot of home issues, lack of supports for parents who are struggling because of 171 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES.

051205 their economic situations, because of their own mental illness, because of their drug issues, because of the fact that they just have so many responsibilities, that they cannot do what it takes to really significantly parent their children. We have an obligation as a community to help these people, and the courts do get involved in more than just sending children away. You know, the judges do take the time to find out what is going on in the homes and how it is that we can use the resources that are available to place into the homes that will support the parents and support the positive growth of not only the child that's standing in front of us but all the children that are in the home. And we all know that all of this takes money, the programs, the resources, whatever DHS is going to do. All of that takes money. And so that our hope is that we continue to find the 172 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 resources necessary to not necessarily bring about new programs but at least to strengthen the ones that we have. Accountability is the key. The adults that we place in these children's lives through advocate programs and DHS programs, they need to have adults that really believe in what they are doing. Our Probation Department as well, we need to make sure that these adults are accountable and that they're not a part of the problem. So I would just ask that we continue as a community to strengthen the resources that we have in the homes, in the schools, in the communities. Because if one of those elements, if you will, is missing or is lacking, whether it be the school or the situation in the home or something in the community, if one of those pieces is missing, then, unfortunately, we're going to have a harder time trying to build up our children. 173 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 We don't like to have to make the decisions that we make on a daily basis with regard to our children in determining whether or not it would be within their best interest to remove them from their homes or not, but, unfortunately, after looking at some of the things that are going on in the schools and in the homes, being away is sometimes the best decision that we can ever make for some of these children. It's the first time that they ever have an opportunity to get a hot meal. I mean, something as basic as water and clothing. And we have to take that child out of his or her environment and place them with strangers. We're not there, so we don't know exactly what's going on, but just imagine being taken out of your home and being placed with strangers because that seems to be a better situation than home. Home is supposed to be where a child is safe. Our homes are not safe. And so as 174 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 a result sometimes of the adults' behavior, we have to take children out of the homes and place them with other people in order to try to give them another shot at life. And so I would hope that through the community's collaboration with the groups that are either trying to get funding or the groups that are already receiving funding, that we, as adults, just step up to the plate, be accountable and mean what we say, when we say that we want to change our children's lives and to make life better for our children, because they're taking the direction a lot of times from us. And so I would just ask that -- I would just thank you for giving me the opportunity to come and just provide a little insight about the fact that the judges are not far removed. You don't hear from us because we're not allowed to really speak out, but we see it every single day. And as a parent myself, 175 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 having to take that tragedy of what goes on in my courtroom every day home, it's not a good thing. So we do care.

We do the best that we can in trying to make situations better, and we just want the community to know and Council to know that the courts are very willing and able and want to participate and to partner with you in making life better for our children. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Your Honor. I know we talk many times about the problems that our youth endure, and I think you made people realize how much they are suffering and they are themselves victims of all the societal ills we see, and we thank you for your commitment. We know you didn't have to be here and take time from the bench. Judges are elected for ten years, so you could sit and sit and sit, and we know it is your commitment to our youth that brings you here, and we thank you. 176 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 JUDGE DUMAS: Thank you very much for having me.

Councilwoman Miller.

Good afternoon. JUDGE DUMAS: Good afternoon, Councilwoman.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming in today. And in your testimony, you actually touched on something that I know is a real need, and that's follow-up after placement. JUDGE DUMAS: Yes.

We have many constituents whose children have been placed in good really placement institutions, and as you said, no one really wants to place a child. However, sometimes we think that that is the best way to go. And they seem to do so well, and then when they come home initially, they're still doing well, and then all of 177 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the sudden, what I had found with some of the parents that I've dealt with personally is that once the child is no 5 longer on probation, once they're no 6 longer under court supervision, then they go right out and they're getting back involved with the wrong things and the wrong behavior. So I know that resources is important, and maybe that is how we can continue to provide. I just wish they could actually stay on probation. Because it seems that once they're on probation, they know that the courts are looking at them and they don't want to be placed again. I guess we'd be breaking the law to keep them on probation? JUDGE DUMAS: Well, actually, Councilwoman, because we have so many cases coming in, it would just create a tremendous backlog, but the beauty of the juvenile system is, there are no limits on how long. And a judge can keep a 178 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 juvenile up to the age of if he or she wanted to. It's an untruth that once a child turns 18, then he's automatically out of the juvenile system. That is not correct. And it really depends on the individual judge, and if a judge feels that a young person needs to remain on probation until he or she is 21, that judge has the authority to do that. Now, has it been done? Probably not. It's not likely, but it's not against the law. And, you know, if a probation officer does what he or she is supposed to do, then we shouldn't need a child that's on probation until they're 21. But if the parent is constantly given the skills necessary to act like a probation officer in the home, we don't need a probation officer. We really shouldn't have to do the things that we do if we can give the parents the strength that they need, the skills that they need, sometimes through a simple 179 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 parenting class sometimes.

Right. And sometimes it's a good parent who has those skills, but for some reason -- I know a parent that raised three sons. One is an engineer, one is a teacher, the third youngest son is on probation. She raised them the identical way. Children are different. But at some point, maybe we can have a discussion about life after probation. JUDGE DUMAS: Absolutely.

It really distresses a lot of parents and they're reaching out for help. JUDGE DUMAS: Absolutely. As I said before, we are available. We have a new administrative judge, Judge Kevin Dougherty, who is very committed. I'm sure that -- I know that both of you know his commitment to our children, and he actually sent me here, gave me permission to come today to let you know that we are there. 180 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 I mean, I take calls from parents that I have never ever seen, never met, who just say, Can you please help me. That is part of the responsibility of our court system. It is not just to send away and to say guilty or not guilty. We have an obligation in 1801 to serve children even when they're not a part of our system to help ensure that they don't become a part of our system. So the community needs to know that they do have a friend in the court. I mean, there are rules and regulations. However, we are there to at least provide direction for parents so that they can get help for their children.

Okay. Thank you. JUDGE DUMAS: You're welcome.

Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you very, very much. University of Pennsylvania. 181 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Glenn Bryan, we'll have you introduce who you -- we know you're a Vice-President of Government and Community Affairs. Dr. Richard Gelles, Dean for the School of Social Policy and Practice, had to leave, but we'll make his testimony part of our record. Dr. Ira Harkavy, Associate Vice-President and Director at the University of Pennsylvania, Director of Center for Community Partnerships, where I serve with him. Certainly Mark Dorsey, Chief of Police of Public Safety. And, Glenn, you can reintroduce everybody. Maureen Rush, our friend, Vice-President for Public Safety. I see Lewis Wendell. We might as well bring you all up. You can be on the next -- you can sit in the chairs behind and come up next. I'm sorry Lieutenant Carbonara had to go and I'm sorry John Fenton had to go. Is that our Penn family, Glenn? I'll let you make that decision. And I 182 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 do apologize. It's very, very difficult. And don't think -- My friends from CHOP, we'll get you next. And certainly Stan Straughter, Executive Director of the Mayor's Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrant Affairs and all of those who are here. The Consul General of Jamaica, Alston Meade, we will get you after that. Is that okay? Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Councilwoman Blackwell, Councilman Rizzo and Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller. I'm Assistant Vice-President of the University of Pennsylvania for Community Relations, and I'd like to thank you for having us and know this is an important -- this can be talked about all day, all week. This needs that attention. We want to thank you for allowing us to present testimony regarding this growing epidemic. My 183 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 colleagues from Penn -- and one had to leave, as you indicated, Dean of our School of Social Policy and Practice, Dean Gelles, but he had some parting words for me to give to you. And all of our testimonies are made available on that table in the front of this Chamber. But I just wanted to say listening -- I'm not going to read what I have prepared. That's already over there, but listening to some of the previous testimonies and knowing the issues and the problems that we all face as a city, we face as a university and we face as a total community, violence has become the epidemic that we don't want to really talk about that much. We'd like to get rid of it. But the University and Dr. Gelles -- and you'll hear from Dr. Ira Harkavy following me and Vice-President Rush to talk about strategies and approaches that we are implementing and using, both from an academic and practical sense. 184 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 I think we need to study as the City of Philadelphia, we need to look at research that exists in a more critical way and models and strategies that have worked in other parts of the country and also have worked in Philadelphia. As Benny Swan said a little bit earlier, it's not going to just -- violence in the schools can't be remedied by itself. We have to look at violence in the community, which it all stems from. One of my personal examples, references, that I will use is, as I've been spending a lot of time in our health system in the emergency room, and those folks that have spent a lot of time in the emergency room, you see the end results of violence. I believe that amount -- and we have a trauma unit in the emergency room at the University of Pennsylvania that actually goes out to schools and actually shows what happens in a pretty -- not that graphic but 185 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 graphic enough to give folks an understanding of what the end results are. But we know that shocking students or giving students or members of the community an up-front idea of what violence can do is an effective tool. But as Vice-President Rush will talk about other enforcement and also engagement, that's another area that we work a lot in. And Ira Harkavy, who works a lot with the community schools and the development of that and academic resources and helping our youth in the community to see hope for the future I think is a very, very -- the most important thing that we can do, and it's a multi-faceted approach. Dr. Gelles talked about in conclusions -- he wanted me to let all of you know that the problem of school-based violence is a direct consequence of the general problem of violence in the community. I guess he must have read Benny 186 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Swan's testimony. Programs aimed at only addressing violence in schools are doomed to fail. So too are programs based on conventional wisdoms and anecdotes and political ideology. Neither words nor money alone will effectively prevent or reduce violence. The good news is that there is a robust blueprint of effective promising programs that can be implemented to address violence in various settings and with varying degrees of seriousness. A logical first step is to inventory the wide range of programs and activities currently in place in the City of Philadelphia. There are surprising arrays of programs, efforts and initiatives that are already currently underway.

A logical, but often neglected, second step is to match what we are currently doing in schools and the community against the known effectiveness 187 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 of violence prevention and intervention programs. A blueprint of violence prevention must be evidence-driven, and fortunately, such evidence already does exist. In the testimony in the packages, there are strategies that we're sending forth to your committee for you to evaluate in terms of approaching school violence and violence in the community. I would like to say that the University under President Gutmann, as you know, Councilwoman Blackwell, is looking closely at local engagement and has made this a hallmark of her administration, and my colleagues here at the table with me will be able to speak about that and how that can impact and how we can work with community organizations, faith-based institutions, all of the components of the community, including yourself as we're doing, to create a collaborative effort to address 188 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 these issues working with schools, working with communities and the like. So I'll turn to Ira Harkavy, who is Associate Vice-President and also Director of the Center for Community Partnerships, for his testimony.

Thank you very much, Glenn. I want to thank you, Councilwoman Blackwell. It is a pleasure to be here today and to help in any way we can with the important work that you're doing, and also thank the other members of Council, Councilwoman Miller and Councilman Rizzo. I'm going to apologize at the outset. I have a class I'm supposed to be teaching now, so --

Sorry, Dr. Harkavy.

-- what I'm going to be doing is, I'm going to certainly present the testimony and then leave, if I might, while my colleagues then 189 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 continue their testimony. Let me just note in the first instance that what I'm going to be chatting about, talking about, are three things. The first is an overall approach that I think makes a great deal of sense. It would engage the universities. Specific example, briefly stated, from work that we're doing with the Sayre High School in West Philadelphia, and, third, a few recommendations to note. Let me note the overall sense of this. The overall sense is that partnerships, democratic partnerships, between universities, communities and schools are powerful strategies for changing communities and schools and reducing youth violence. The partnerships I'm going to be discussing, which actually began in 1985 with Councilman Lucien Blackwell at the time, and we've worked together on these issues since that period, that in fact this work focuses on creating university-assisted 190 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 community schools engaging the University of Pennsylvania, the community organizations and public schools in West Philadelphia. The idea here is that you bring together a range of resources from multiple agencies working at the school as a hub of a neighborhood with the University engaging deeply with its students, its faculty and its staff. This approach looks to tapping and galvanizing the rich resources of our neighborhoods to help solve this crucial problem of youth violence and community building. The core assumption you've heard about from Jerry Jordan, from Paul Vallas is that schools are the hubs of our community. The notion is just like universities can be environment-changing institutions, schools appropriately functioning can in fact be neighborhood institutions par-excellon, central community institutions that involve all people in the community in a democratic 191 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 community response to change. Since 1985, as I noted, begun that period following the catastrophe of MOVE, the University of Pennsylvania has been deeply involved in the issue of helping to develop these schools. Currently, we work with six schools deeply in West Philadelphia, serving 5,000 parents and children and other community members in six primary sites and work simultaneously with a whole set of other sites with thousands of other young people and communities involved. And the young people in these schools are involved in helping to solve the problems of the community, and this is the notion that young people can in fact take the lead appropriately supported to making a difference. The young people, as I will describe, are involved in creative work designed to advance their own skills and ability while they help solve crucial problems of poor health, underfunded 192 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 housing, poor schooling. Their own academic work is designed to help the community. And at Penn, we are engaging currently this year alone some 1,650 students in courses connected to the schools and communities of West Philadelphia, helping to operate and support these university-assisted community schools so that they are open evening, weekends and early before the school day and have an academic program to help the neighborhood and school. Let me just summarize the three components. During the school day, the young people are involved in curriculum of peer education, of teaching and learning from each other. At the end of the school day, young people, as I will describe more specifically momentarily, are involved in projects to improve neighborhood health and learn math, English and science that way. There are after-school projects for adults, recreation programs, GED programs, health 193 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 clinics, involvement of social workers in those programs, and young people helping to serve.

And, finally, there are summer activities that are run for youth training, youth development, and college access runs across these programs. The example I'm just going to touch on very briefly before giving a few recommendations is an example that the Councilwoman knows well and was visiting there just two Fridays ago when she co-teaches with me on Friday mornings in a class focused precisely on these issues, and that's the Sayre High School in West Philadelphia. In 1996, the principal and community of Sayre came to the University of Pennsylvania and asked us to work with them, and we've been working with them since that time. But the community asked for something else. They said, Can we have health programs and make a difference in the health of our community, that if we're going to improve 194 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the academic work of the young people in our school, their health had to be provided and the health of their parents and children. And what began to develop as recently as the spring of 2003, actually January 2003, is they began to bring together 700 students, now high school students, focusing their curriculum on improving the health of the community and working with the University of Pennsylvania in developing this idea of a university-assisted community school. Just think of the idea of these issues that we're facing, violence, poor health. They are precisely the kind of issues that we all need to work together, and they're precisely the kind of issues that the University can come together around. And what these students did was now develop courses in medicine where healthcare is being delivered as physicians, young medical students, are learning to be doctors. Nurses are 195 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 providing care. As Councilwoman knows, Penn's Smiles van, which she helped initiate in West Philadelphia, delivers dental care. Undergraduates at that school at the University of Pennsylvania are running nutrition projects selling fruits and vegetables, working with the young people to learn about nutrition. People in our school of design are designing murals and art projects around issues and health. So literally hundreds of Penn students and 30 or so, to 30 Penn 15 faculty, are learning while they work, benefiting, sharing and helping to develop the school as a center. And in the spring of 2005, the community came together with Penn academics and school children and they applied to develop a school-based community health center, so deeply supported by the President of Penn, that she kicked off her inauguration as President in the fall of 2004, with the Councilwoman also attended 196 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 that, at the Sayre School. 5 million to set up the first school-based community health center for school and community linked to the curriculum of a university, linked to the schools, the schools at Penn and 11 linked to the curriculum of students at 12 the Sayre School. Now, what does that mean? It means that Sayre students will be learning medical, math, English, science, social studies taught to eleventh grade students in a class, an intake medical procedure in which they are learning to perform the basis of medical intake, blood pressure, height and weight measurement, hypertension, and learning their subjects through that approach. Sayre, the prominent community health concern is hypertension, and with that emphasis, the students are opening 197 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 with the medical school a hypertension monitoring program, again, where the young people are learning their curriculum. And interestingly enough, the University has a program called Access Science in which faculty from math, biology, physics and chemistry go in the schools with Penn undergraduates and the Penn undergraduates are learning by teaching. So there's courses on learning neuroscience by teaching neuroscience, where college students are learning it by teaching it to Sayre High School students.

And what we've heard from the faculty of Sayre and the faculty from Penn is, these Sayre students are not only learning neuroscience, they're learning concepts way beyond the high school year. So that's the academic program, but beyond that, there are after-school, evening and Saturday programs. There are projects for young people that are open 198 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 K-to-5, projects based for after school for young people. There's grade 6-to-8 after-school programs, and there is a 9-to-12 after-school program focusing on the core issue that our President has identified of the University of Pennsylvania, college access. So that young people are learning with Penn tutors and Penn faculty and staff college access. And for family members, there are family fitness nights in which adults learn about fitness and nutrition and work with the Senior Associate Dean for Diversity and Community Outreach from our medical center, Dr. Burnett Johnson, one of the great medical figures in the United States, who is focusing on issues of health and nutrition and fitness. Saturday basketball leagues, summer camp, job readiness programs, peer sexual health program, all supported by programs such as the Beacon School. And then there's the health center itself. 199 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 What is occurring is precisely the kind of vehicle that Benny Swan spoke about, the school helping to transform the community, and the community and the school working together to help transform the school. Let me conclude as follows: My judgment and the position of our President of the University of Pennsylvania is that higher education can be a permanent anchor for revitalizing schools and communities and advancing student learning and development. It can do that, universities, if the vast resources of the university, particularly its faculty and students and staff, are brought together in a coordinated fashion. The Penn-Sayre project demonstrates that when universities such as Penn give a high priority to actively solving real problems in the community with the community, a greater likelihood exists for universities to contribute to 200 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the public good and realize their own potential. In summary, university-assisted community schools serve, educate and activate students, their family and other local residents. Students not only learn by doing, but the students at Sayre learn by and for service. They are valued. They are not just being served; they are helping others. Simultaneously, the University benefits from the unique critical opportunities community schools provide for learning, research, civic consciousness, outreach and program development. Putting this theory into practice, the Sayre project, I believe, and all the other community schools that the Councilwoman is so involved with hold great promise for West Philadelphia, Penn and for other communities and universities throughout the City. So let me now conclude with suggestions and recommendations. To 201 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 speed and advance the development of university-assisted community schools as a vehicle to make our schools and communities safer for students, teachers, parents, neighborhoods, businesses, I would encourage this Committee and Philadelphia City Council to think of the following: To develop and apply innovative funding strategies that provide support for broad-based local coalitions designed to develop and sustain university-assisted community schools; bringing resources together of multiple City programs and departments to have university-assisted community schools function with the great resources of the communities of our City. And the Councilwoman and I are actually working on that issue as I present this today. We've been working on this for a while.

And, secondly, to create a multi-agency commission designed to advance and implement university-assisted community schools that would combine the 202 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 multiple City agencies to work together to transform every school into a university-assisted community school so that every school in this City and every community and every university can help provide our young people with a fair, decent, just life and future. I thank you very much, and I applaud this Committee and Councilwoman Blackwell for holding these most important hearings. Thank you.

Thank you, Dr. Ira Harkavy. It is your enthusiasm and commitment that always keeps us motivated in trying to do our best.

Thank you so much, Councilwoman.

Thank you. Thank you for your patience, too, and I'm sorry I made you late for your class.

I'm off to teach 203 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 those young people who are working out at Sayre.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Councilwoman Blackwell.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for inviting me to speak. Also good afternoon, Councilwoman Miller. My name is Maureen Rush. I'm Vice-President for Public Safety at the University of Pennsylvania. I've worked at Penn for the past 11 years, and prior to coming to Penn, I had an exciting 18-year career with the Philadelphia Police Department. I am still a sworn police officer. And I speak to you from two angles today, as a police officer who has worked the streets of Philadelphia and been in law enforcement for over 30 years and also as an officer of the University of 204 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Pennsylvania who deals a lot with students, parents, prospective parents and students, alumni and faculty and staff. I can say that this year has been a very challenging year in regards to violent crime. Again, having been at Penn years, we've had these spurts 10 before in the '90s and I have to say that 11 this year it's been unmatched. We are seeing not only violence, but we are seeing violence perpetrated by children who are as young as 11 years of age, some armed with firearms, some armed with bee bee guns that look very much like firearms and, in many cases, creating fear and distress to victims that they are perpetrating crimes against. Every year we have approximately 18,000 students who apply to come to the University of Pennsylvania. They come from across the country. They come from international countries. And one of the things that 205 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 they always look at before they choose to apply to the University of Pennsylvania is, they, especially their parents, look at the safety and security for their children. And they also want to come to the University of Pennsylvania not only because it's Penn, but they want to come because it's the City of Philadelphia and because they've heard such great things about the City of Philadelphia. m. at a diner at 3925 Walnut Street. It had nothing to do with the Penn affiliates, but two individuals who 206 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 decided to take an argument outside and shoot -- one individual was shot and killed. The second incident occurred after the students returned from their Christmas break in January where one of our students was shot in her thigh as she was coming out of a residence at the area of 38th and Sansom. And, again, she was just a victim of a drive-by bullet between two individuals who were fighting with one another. Our response to that, President Gutmann has always had the safety and security as one of her priorities for the community, and as my colleagues have discussed in advance of me, that does not mean that we close off the community. In fact, it's the opposite. We embrace the community from every level, including public safety. We are involved in meeting with community members in West Philadelphia, about 10 to 12 a month. We are also very involved in the University City District and we're also very 207 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 involved in the Police Athletic League, which I'd like to talk about in a moment. President Gutmann has allocated $5 million to target public safety needs. We already have a very hard network of CCTB cameras. That's expanding. We're also expanding our Police Department by 15, which will give us 116 sworn police officers, same powers of arrest as the Philadelphia Police. We're also working with PECO and the City of Philadelphia on a lighting strategy from the area of 30th to 43rd, Market to Baltimore. We also understand, however, that having more police, having lighting and having CCTB cameras is not the answer. And I've been enjoying hearing everyone speak today, because, clearly, it starts, as Mr. Swan said, it starts with education and it starts with the community. And regardless of everything that we're doing, we know ultimately that the real test, as the judge spoke also, is what happens in the home. 208 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES.

051205 So as to that issue, we, in addition to doing all of the public safety measures that I spoke about, we have embraced one such program, and, that is, the Police Athletic League. I am actually Secretary of the Police Athletic League, and we have a police officer who has been assigned to the Tucker PAL Center at 42nd and Chester since 1997. We believe that PAL, cops helping kids, and as we saw the children that are here today for the PAL day at City Hall, they get some meaningful and productive activities that assist them if they're not able to get that from home or school. They're getting it through the PAL center. m. m. We had an experience like that on Drexel's campus where when the University City High School let out early several weeks 209 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. m. up on Lancaster Avenue, a group of males armed with a videotape, video cam, actually beat a graduate student from Haiti from Drexel University and videotaped it while they were beating him. This was shocking enough that it actually made the headlines in the newspapers. And you wonder if in fact these children had somewhere to go after school, would they have found it entertaining to have done what they did on Lancaster Avenue to a gentleman who now is not sure he's even staying in the United States. PAL offers 13 types of sports. They also have computer lessons, homework assistance, literacy and self-esteem programs, special entertainment, like PAL Night at the Phillies, live theatre. All of it is free of charge for the boys and girls, ages 6 to 18 years of age. Today, many people spoke about the fact that children -- the Commissioner of the Department of Human 210 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Services mentioned that they have programs that are affecting children who are younger, and so PAL and the other programs that are affecting children who are starting at the age of 6, 5 and 6 years old, is absolutely the way to go, because by the time children are 12 years of age, unfortunately, they may have already found their way into a more violent existence. We believe that PAL and other organizations like this are needed, need the support of the City, need the support of entities like Penn to continue to bring hope to the children of our City. It's a huge problem I think not only for the City but for organizations, for universities, because we are, unfortunately, making headlines across the country. That is not going to help the universities, it's not going to help the City, and it's certainly not helping the image of our children who are our future. 211 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 So in closing, I would just say that we need to figure out ways in which, through programs such as PAL, through programs such as what Dr. Harkavy outlined, to bring hope, to bring promise, to show our children that they have a future, that they can come to Drexel, Penn, Temple, that they can come as students. And we have to do whatever it takes to give back to the children of Philadelphia their childhood that's been stolen from them by many people who want to perpetrate crime on them so that they end up becoming perpetrators of crime. I thank you very much for making this a focus of Council. Councilwoman Blackwell, I know you're out there in the community always doing what you can, as your colleagues do, to make sure that the citizens are safe, and on behalf of President Gutmann and all of us at Penn, I thank you very much.

Thank you so much for your testimony. I'm 212 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 always embarrassed to hold people up and appreciate your commitment to our community. We appreciate your realizing that when a university is in a community, we are all connected. So we thank you for coming and thank you for your testimony.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Health Department, we're going to get you next. And you know I'm embarrassed. We'll have Lewis Wendell and then we'll have Dr. Godley and Dr. Lawrence Robinson. They're invaluable to what they bring to us.

Chairwoman Blackwell, members of the City Council Committee on Education, my name is Lewis Wendell, and I am the Executive Director of the University City District, a special services district in West Philadelphia. Our mission is to provide supplemental cleaning, safety, marketing, 213 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 planning and neighborhood initiatives in a 2.2 square mile area of University City. I had brought with me John Fenton, who is our Senior Director of Operations, and Lieutenant Fred Carbonara of the Philadelphia Police Department. They both apologize to you, Councilwoman, for not staying, but they needed to attend to other commitments. Lieutenant Carbonara is the commander of the University City District Police Substation where police 15 officers from the City of Philadelphia 16 are stationed, and those officers conduct 17 joint roll calls with our UCD safety 18 ambassadors to coordinate our efforts in 19 public safety. UCD safety ambassadors 20 act as extra eyes and ears on the street 21 for the City police officers, the 22 University of Pennsylvania police and the 23 Drexel Public Safety operations. 24 Number one, what are we doing 25 to deal with school violence in 214 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 University City? As you may know, we've had considerable trouble in University City with kids getting out of school and creating violent disturbances in areas near the schools. You've heard some of the details about that. We're not responsible for what happens inside the schools, but we do have to contend with the issues when they leave the confines of the school grounds. Whether it's students having fights outside the school boundaries, students taking disagreements to a violent level on the trip back home or students committing crimes in local businesses or on nearby streets, it's a big issue for us. UCD has two ambassadors that patrol near University City High School at dismissal. We also station an ambassador outside the Penn Alexander School and one near West Philadelphia School at dismissal. The police substation under Lieutenant Carbonara has 215 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 two police officers and one 16th District police officer at University City High School every day. Number two, what should be done to deal with school violence in University City to protect students, teachers, neighbors, parents and businesses? Our public safety experts, Lieutenant Carbonara and John Fenton, recommend that the Philadelphia School Police, the Philadelphia City Police, Penn Police, Drexel Public Safety and UCD Ambassadors have a safety orientation at each school at the beginning of each school year. In addition, since it's our intent to be part of the solution at UCD, we are working on two other areas. One, we're developing a summer jobs program for high school-age kids from the neighborhood, and that will be put into place this summer. We are seeking to create jobs that pay above the minimum wage, carry some real responsibility and 216 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 provide opportunities for training and education, as well as mentoring. Secondly, we are investigating the progress made by the Center City District's Schools Initiative, and we'd like to see if there's some things they have accomplished that we can replicate in University City. We know that much of the recent crime in University City is committed by younger kids beating and robbing students, residents and visitors in University City. I personally do not think that more punishment and more enforcement is the only answer, and so it is in that spirit that UCD will try to find other solutions. So I thank you for the time and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Thank you for coming in. The Health Department. Thank you for coming in. Please proceed with your testimony. 217 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 COMMISSIONER GODLEY: Thank you. Good afternoon, Councilwoman Reed Miller. I'm Dr. Joanne Godley, Acting Health Commissioner, and with me today is Dr. Larry Robinson, Deputy Health Commissioner. Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to offer testimony on this very important issue regarding violence in the public schools and our aspect of public health's role in this. The Health Department feels strongly that violence is a public health issue and that it is something that is amenable to a public health strategy. What I'd like to do is to detail our outline what the public health strategy would involve in terms of youth violence. Using a public health model, we know that the nature of the specific problem must be known before the problem can be addressed. In order to know the problem, we would first develop a workable surveillance system for morbidity and mortality associated with 218 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 interpersonal violence. We would then identify those persons at risk, those most at risk, for violence-related events. We would then apply case control methods to the exploration of modifiable risk factors for victims and perpetrators, and then we would continue to do surveillance to evaluate whether or not those control methods had been effective. This model is obviously not a quick fix that any one entity can expect to successfully put into place, but rather it is an approach that could be supported in part at all three levels of government and by community leaders and members, social service agencies, students, teachers, parents, extended family members, neighbors, peers, behavioral and medical health providers and by the business community. Youth violence has been a persistent problem in Philadelphia and in Philadelphia schools, but schools 219 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 represent only one setting where violence takes place. Because communities and schools are intrinsically interrelated, to reduce violence in schools, we must decrease violence in the community and tensions and interpersonal problems that carry over into the community. Violence in schools is a reflection of violence in the community. School-related violence takes place within the peer group and occurs for a variety of reasons, usually involving factors such as bullying, territory fights, money and/or drugs and, in many cases, taking in innocent victims who happen to be nearby. Violence also crosses peer and age groups, within a range much broader than just schools and school-age children. The peer age range intervention cohort might extend from 13 to 30 years and often includes school-age youth both in and out of school, young adults and media and sports role models. 220 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Bullying prevention and aggression management activities are appropriate interventions. Many of the factors associated with violence are also associated with the incidence of other diseases. Where we see high rates of violence and homicide, we also find high rates of HIV/AIDS, cancer, infant mortality, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, to name a few. These are public health diseases and conditions that can be addressed through strong public health interventions, and some of the same strategies that can reduce high rates of disease and conditions can reduce the incidence of youth violence. And just as an aside, the root cause of a lot of what are essentially risk-taking behaviors have to do with lack of self-esteem and lack of sense of self-worth, and I think that some of our other presenters have addressed that as well. 221 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Presently, the Health Department is in the process of implementing a state-funded pilot program, the Pennsylvania Injury Reporting and Intervention System, or otherwise called PIRIS.

This will report information on weapons-related injuries from three trauma centers in Philadelphia to the Department of Public Health. Studies show that youth who are victims of weapons-related injury are at high risk for repeat injury and/or death or for becoming perpetrators for violent acts themselves. The program has strong surveillance and intervention components, with an emphasis on population-based activities to increase awareness of the effects of firearm-related injuries among the target population. Youth who require social service intervention and who meet the criteria for Youth Violence Reduction Program, or YVRP, or AVRP will be referred into those programs, and DHS has 222 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 committed to assisting in the coordination of all of the social service referrals within PIRIS. I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify on this very important and timely issue. I would like to ask Dr. Robinson to address the issue of attention deficit disorder, or ADD, and hyperactivity-related conditions in children and how they are often associated with the risk of school violence.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Thank you both again for your patience.

This seems almost like deja vu, because it was almost, I guess, about ten years ago that I was before this Committee.

Very sad that these same problems exist, only crime is up. Those numbers are up, and 223 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 children on behavior-altering drugs is still a big issue. It always has been. People thought we were kind of nuts then because we mentioned this as an issue, but now after all the nationwide attention to Chadd, the organization that produces these drugs, and now people accept the fact that some children become suicidal when they hit puberty and teenage years, you don't take them off or change it. But we would still like to know and maybe you all can -- I read ahead and looked at your testimony, but maybe you can tell us who does have the records. We wouldn't put the Health Department on the spot. We have Children's Hospital coming next. Where do we find out maybe who is taking it or who do we -- we're not trying to embarrass anyone. We're only trying to assess the issue and what we can do to help.

Well, I can give you some insight on it. 224 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Actually, there has been some changes that have taken place since the last time I gave the testimony. First of all, there's a statistical manual called the DSM-IV, which is the latest edition. This is what psychiatrists use to give the definition of what attention deficit disorder is. And it's changed now. It used to be called attention deficit disorder hyperactivity, but the hyperactivity is gone now and basically what we're looking at is, it can be with or without hyperactivity. The situation is defined as a persistent and frequent pattern of developmentally inappropriate attention, inattention, and impulsivity, with or without hyperactivity. I spoke with the psychiatrists from the schools and the school nurses, and they think it is a real phenomena, that there are children who have this in the schools. And some of the children do benefit from the medicines that's given 225 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 to them. Other children, they say, they wonder why they're even on this medicine. When I looked at the signs and symptoms that were associated with this problem, I started thinking, boy, I have most of these signs and symptoms myself, you know. And I guess I was the type of child when I was in school that really had all of the symptoms of attention deficit disorder. And I can indulge you for just a second to go through a few of those signs. They have nine signs of inattention, six signs of hyperactivity and three signs of impulsivity. Here are some of them: Failure to pay close attention, difficulty sustaining attention, does not seem to listen when spoken to, does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish tasks, has difficulty organizing activities, avoid dislikes or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort, often loses things, is easily 226 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 distracted and often forgetful. The hyperactivity signs are fidgets with hands and feet, often leaves seats in class, often runs or climbs about excessively, has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly, or always on the go and talks excessively. The impulsivity is, blurts out answers before question is completed, difficult to wait turn, often interrupts or intrudes on others. Now, these are symptoms that I'm sure you've seen in -- all of the kids have these things. And the issue is that with the large classroom size, it's very difficult for children that are in this situation to actually sit there, because they need special attention in terms of trained teachers, direction of their activities, channeling their energies into things, and that's very difficult to do when you have 40 children that are in the classroom. 227 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 One of the things that's really alarming about this is that between five and ten percent of school-age children are affected by this disorder, and it's responsible for half of the referrals to psychiatric or diagnostic clinics. We don't know what causes it. The etiology is unknown, but we do know that there doesn't seem to be any neurological signs or symptoms for the disease. You can do a CAT scan, all of that. You don't see anything organically wrong with the child. In fact, the new thinking is that children with this disorder are just different than other children. They have a different way of learning and they have a different way to acting. So we're not even thinking of it now as a disease, but a disorder. And so these children need a different environment in order to learn than the one that other children need, and this is the thinking that we're going for. But one of the interesting 228 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 things is that we know there is a connection to this disease and to violence. The Center for Disease Control did an article that listed it as one of the risk factors.

Some of the things that we believe -- we don't know this, but this is hypothesized -- may result in this condition. Exposure to lead and other toxins. When I first came to the Council many years ago, I told you about a study that was done in the Juvenile Justice in the Youth Study Center where they found that a lot of the children had high lead levels. Another one of the things also is neurological immaturity. This is, of course, a result of premature birth, low birth weight infants, infections, fetal alcohol exposure, people drinking alcohol, the use of drugs while the baby is still in utero. I know many people have heard about the so-called crack 229 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 babies and so forth, but this is a real phenomena where these toxins can have an impact on the neurological development of the child even before they're born. Maternal smoking during pregnancy, head injuries, and, of course, post traumatic stress syndrome, which you've heard about that Benny Swan talked about, and other environmental factors. These diseases or conditions are also health issues that can be addressed through the public health measures that we just got finished talking about. So this really is a public health issue. Studies have shown that children with ADD do not outgrow their difficulties, and the problems continue throughout adolescence and adulthood. Later in life, these persons continue to exhibit low self-esteem, learning difficulties, aggressiveness, personality trait disorders, anti-social behavior, frequent and severe inattention and 230 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 impulsivity, depression and suicide attempts. Also, they have a higher propensity to use drugs and illegal substances, which is their own way of doing self-medication. It's really very interesting. When you look at Ritalin, Ritalin is a dopamine agonist and it's very similar to cocaine or to crack, because cocaine is also a dopamine agonist. So there are really many similarities there when you look at that. And many people because they are started with these drugs and don't have the proper attention counseling or things that are needed, then they might use drugs as a way of medicating themselves without a prescription. ADD with hyperactivity can be diagnosed when the signs of overactivity and behavioral impulsiveness are obvious and the child has recently been identified as having a deficiency in response inhibition. Although the onset 231 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 of ADD occurs typically before the age of and invariably before the age of 7, the 4 peak age for referral has been between 8 and 10 years, and children with primary ADD often are not diagnosed until or after adolescence, allowing a substantial period of time that many causes are undiagnosed and untreated. ADD symptoms and their expressions are related, of course, to tasks and the environments that they have, but also sustained attention causes increases in ratio of activity and reluctance to participate or respond. A child with ADD and without hyperactivity may manifest high activity levels, may also be restless, while some may be passive or lethargic. Symptoms impair social or academic functioning, and because of the symptoms, traditional classrooms and most academic activities can exacerbate the condition. So what I'm saying is that the school system that we have now, that's a 232 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 wrong situation for those children. One of the issues I was looking at is the whole activity level and how there's no 5 physical fitness or gyms. All those things are gone in the school now. I was really surprised when I looked at my children and they said there's not even a basketball team. And many times this hyperactivity could be directed toward exercise or some activity, and then that would make it better for the child to learn in those situations.

Of course, we always look for an easy way to fix the situation, and sometimes it is appropriate to give the Ritalin or those -- there's also other classes of drugs that they have now, and it does help the children to sit and to be more attentive in that particular environment. Parental counseling should be used here, because by behavioral and cognitive therapy the parents use, they can also have an impact on the child. 233 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 It is also critical that children receiving drug therapy for these conditions receive counseling and other psychiatric support and not just the medication, because we know that the medication in and of itself is not the answer. They need a host of other types of services. As I said, the School District doesn't keep records on this. I actually tried to get the information. I called Behavioral Health and the divisions in the school. What they told me is that some of the kids take medicine during the school day, so they will know those children, but other children, since it's a twice-a-day dosage, some children take it before they come in and then they take it at nighttime. So those children would not be on the record. So they don't really have an idea of how many children are on the medication, but even more importantly, whether it's been increasing or not, more children are on it. And, of 234 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 course, the thing that I asked is, is it effective. Do we know that the children who are taking the medicine, are they really better. And I know that in talking anecdotally, I get mixed results. Some people say it helps children; others it doesn't. Our knowledge of the extent of the use of these prescribed medications is limited, and it would not be accurate to imply that there is any connection with their use and the incidence of violence. What is much clearer to us at this time is that the symptoms associated with ADD-related conditions, particularly in undiagnosed or untreated cases, are all individual risk factors for future violent-related events. This is of utmost significance and it is extremely important in this regard that efforts be made to identify these conditions in children as early as possible, even before the child enters schools. It is critical that affected 235 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 children be treated, not only with appropriate medications but with psychotherapy, external behavior modification, and this should minimize the likelihood that the affected person will be involved in future violent-related events. Thank you so much for your attention.

Thank you very much. Thank you both. It's very, very important, and as you know, it's one of the issues that I'm so concerned about. We thank you for your patience. I'm always embarrassed when I hold anyone up, and I appreciate your years of study on the subject. We've been doing this since the early '90s. But thank you. And thank you, Commissioner. COMMISSIONER GODLEY: Thank you.

Children's Hospital, and then we want to 236 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 get Stan Straughter and Alston Meade, the Consul General, if he's still here. Thank you again. Again, I see Roosevelt Hairston coming. Thank you. And thank you for your help and support in so many ways. Many of you do not know how many times we have to call on Children's Hospital for many issues. I'm involved now in a case with a youngster who has become an adult who needs help, and we're going back there, and Children's Hospital is still taking care of them. We're going to have to take about a three-minute break for our

Thank you. We're back on the record. Our stenographer is here. We will now ask Roosevelt Hairston to introduce our guests from CHOP. And, again, thank you for all that 237 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 you do, not only in our City, but across the country, to make a difference.

Thank you very much, Councilwoman. Thank you for allowing us to participate at this hearing. We appreciate the opportunity. My name is Roosevelt Hairston. I'm the Vice-President of Government Affairs and Community Relations and I'm Deputy General Counsel at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. I'm going to be very, very brief because we have two clinicians here who need to get back and take care of children at the hospital. So let me just say one or two words. As the Committee knows, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, or CHOP as we're affectionately known as, was the nation's first children's hospital. We have been around for 150 years, and we've been ranked in the last few years by Child Magazine and U.S. News and World Report as the best children's 238 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 hospital in our country. Our mission is to eradicate childhood disease through cutting-edge research and highest possible clinical care. We believe that partnering with community leaders, public officials, civic organizations on public health and public advocacy issues is important, not only for what we do but for who we are. The two individuals that we have here today are Dr. Jerilynn Radcliffe, who is a co-investigator for the MOM Program and Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology in Pediatrics at Children's Hospital. Dr. Radcliffe will focus on school-based violence reduction programs currently in place in elementary schools in Philadelphia. We also have Dr. Cindy Christian, who is a pediatrician and co-director of Safe Place. Dr. Christian will speak firsthand about the effects of abuse and neglect and how these factors can contribute to violent behavior among 239 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 youth. Dr. Christian will also highlight a program that has been successful in improving the lives of children from a very early age, even before birth. With that, Dr. Radcliffe.

Honorable Councilwoman Blackwell and Honorable Councilmembers, thank you for the opportunity to give testimony on work being done at the Behavioral Health Center at CHOP towards ending violence among children in schools. I applaud your sincere efforts to create a safer environment for all our children to grow up into. Violent behavior starts very early in children's lives. The MOM program, which I work with with Dr. Donald Schwarz, is a research program funded through the William Penn Foundation aiming to have young children living in poverty receive regular pediatric care, developmental screenings, early intervention if they need it and 240 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 attend Head Start. We believe that early education will teach the children and their families effective ways to solve problems without resorting to violence. We are proud that 57 percent of the children in the intervention group are now attending either Head Start or pre-school. Dr. Judy Silver has developed a program to promote the health and development of young children in foster care. These children are highly vulnerable, as many of them have already firsthand experienced violence. Dr. Silver and her group are working actively with them to provide needed services to enhance mental and physical health in an effort to break the cycle of violence. We have some nationally recognized school programs to reduce violence in schools that are now being researched and implemented. Dr. Steve Leff has developed two promising programs 241 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 for violence prevention in the schools: Friend-to-Friend and PRAISE. Both programs are being developed in elementary schools in West Philadelphia to reduce aggressive behavior among girls in particular on the playgrounds and in the lunchrooms. Dr. Riccardo Eiraldi and his group are implementing programs to reduce aggression among children attending predominantly Hispanic schools in North Philadelphia. Our previous speaker spoke about ADHD as a community problem, as a public health issue. Kids with ADHD do act without thinking and are very much at risk for violence. We have a program for children for ADHD at CHOP. We offer evaluations and various types of treatments, including programs for parents and kids around homework completion, consultation with schools and, for some children, medication. The medication is carefully monitored to make sure that it's actually helpful. 242 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Finally, sadly, some of our doctors work with children who are badly injured through violent acts. They lead rehabilitative efforts for children who have experienced terrible injuries and require inpatient treatment for rehab. They also work with local schools around reentry programs for children who are able to return to school. I am hopeful that as a result of the initiatives of City Council around preventing violence among children in Philadelphia that these rehab efforts may become a thing of the past. As you move forward, I respectively offer these recommendations: One, implement empirically-validated programs to reduce violence in a thoughtful way, not just a good idea but programs already tested and found to be effective. When you choose a program, make sure that the program is a good fit for our community and the specific goals you have. Be sure to allocate enough 243 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 resources so that the job can be done right. Allow time and personnel to ensure adequate planning and buy-in from the key people in the process, school administrative staff, teachers, parents, youth and other stakeholders. Rethink the role of the school psychologists in Philadelphia to include more opportunity for doing preventative work with children and youth to reduce violent behavior. And, finally, strengthen existing early childhood programs that work with very young children and parents to promote healthy behaviors and good parenting from the start.

We at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia are your partners. We look forward to continuing to work together to end violence affecting our children. Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak today.

Thank 244 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, and thank you for having me. My name is Cindy Christian, and I'm a pediatrician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia where I co-direct Safe Place: The Center for Child Protection and Health. I've spent a large part of my pediatric career at Children's Hospital caring for abused and neglected children, and I speak to you today not as an expert in school violence but as an expert in child maltreatment. As you know, child maltreatment is often a precursor of violence later on in a child's life. Every day at the hospital I see children who sustained head trauma at the hands of their parents, children who are burned, children who are battered, children who are sexually assaulted by their parents, by their relatives, by their schoolmates, by their teachers, by members of the clergy. I see this day in 245 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 and day out for the past years. I've also sat month after month at Philadelphia Child Fatality Review Committee meetings listening to the statistics about Philadelphia youth that have been murdered, obviously the most severe form and tragic form of youth violence. The stories are often the same. It's like a broken record. They are often young, minority adolescents, who have a long history of truancy from the School District and who have been known to the Department of Human Services for many, many years. So that when we trace back these children's histories, they are the children who I saw when they were infants, when they were toddlers, when they were young school children. And although exceptions to these characteristic types exist, the story is really too often the same. I've seen it. I've sat around the table discussing it. So my work in caring for maltreated children is closely linked to 246 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 the problem of school and community violence, but I'd like to focus the few minutes that I have on prevention, because there are prevention strategies that have the potential for making real change in the lives of Philadelphia children, Philadelphia mothers, their fathers, when they're available, and have the potential for solving some of the problems that we have with youth violence in the future and years to come. I recently attended a talk given by a friend and a colleague, David Olds, about a prevention program that he developed more than years ago to improve child health and development, to improve pregnancy outcomes for young, poor, first-time pregnant women, and to improve the economic self-sufficiency for families. This prevention program has nothing specifically to do with child abuse and neglect and nothing specifically to do with community and school violence. 247 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 When I listened to Dr. Olds talk, he recalled that he started his career as a pre-school teacher and thought that providing excellent early education would be extremely beneficial to the children that he taught, but he quickly realized from many of the children that he was teaching in the inner city, he was already too late, that at age 4 and age 5 years of age, they already had too many problems to overcome. We also know that when we look at adolescent violence and school violence, it comes in two generic forms. There are children who start their violence as adolescents and there's another group who are violent very early in life, and it is the second group, children who are violent early in their lives, who are often the victims of maltreatment, of child abuse and child neglect. So Dr. Olds dedicated himself 248 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 to developing a rigorously researched and replicated program that could possibly make a difference. This program is now known as the Nurse-Family Partnership, and I want you to know about it because there are three Nurse-Family Partnership sites already in Philadelphia and there are approximately others around the 10 state of Pennsylvania.

11 This program pairs a nurse with 12 a first-time, poor pregnant woman and 13 follows that woman throughout her 14 pregnancy and through the child's second 15 birthday. And there's a very rigorous 16 curriculum that focuses on maternal 17 health during pregnancy, reducing rates 18 of smoking, reducing rates of drinking, 19 improving maternal health, so that 20 there's less prematurity, there's 21 healthier newborns. And then when the 22 baby is born, the focus is on the 23 development and the health of that baby. And that program ends at a child's second birthday. 249 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 If Dr. Gelles was here, I heard remarks that he would talk to you about the Blueprint programs. There are a number of prevention programs -- there are not many of them, but there are some -- that have been scientifically researched, shown to be effective and have been replicated around the country and are really premier models of prevention, and the Nurse-Family Partnership is one of them. You may ask why I'm highlighting this program. I highlight it because it works. It works to improve pregnancy outcomes, decrease infant mortality, improve maternal and child health, and it pays for itself within four years of participation. But, additionally, the program has been shown to decrease rates of child abuse and neglect even 15 years after the completion of the program, and has a positive effect on adolescent anti-social behavior. 250 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 In a paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association -- and I have a copy of the paper for your review -- that was published in 1998, Dr. Olds and his team reported that adolescents who were enrolled as infants and toddlers in the Nurse-Family Partnership Program had fewer arrests, fewer convictions and violations of probation. They had less alcohol and less cigarette use and fewer life-time sexual partners than controls, and that, again, even years after 15 participation has ended, this program can reduce serious anti-social behavior. Although there are many worthy programs that are focused on school-age children, the Nurse-Family Partnership is a true prevention program and one of the few that has been nationally researched, replicated and shown to be effective. During my career, I've had the opportunity to work with the state government to bring the Nurse-Family 251 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Partnership to Pennsylvania. I believe it is a program that is strongly supported by the Commonwealth, by the Department of Public Welfare, by the Department of Health, and I think that you should be aware of its far-ranging benefits for women and children. While I can talk about some of the secondary prevention efforts I've been involved in on behalf of maltreated children, and others who are speaking today will focus on school programs that are effective in curbing youth violence, I wanted to focus my remarks on the early years, on supporting young women and their babies to send them off on a trajectory of success. Because I see lots of women in the newborn nursery and I don't think that they look at their newborn babies and think, I'm going to raise a juvenile delinquent, I'd like to raise a child who is going to be shot before their 21st birthday. And I think that programs that start in infancy, and 252 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 even before that, can really have long-ranging effects in the way we would like to see them work. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. That's so very, very, very important. Your testimony was on point and very, very important to this issue. Thank you very, very much. Stan Straughter, Dr. Alston Meade. Thank you. Thank you for your patience. I guess we couldn't survive if you weren't patient. This is the Executive Director of the Mayor's Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrant Affairs, Dr. Stan Straughter. He travels far and wide from here to Africa and many parts thereof. I met him through my late husband, Lucien Blackwell, and they worked hard on the African continent and here, and his work is known throughout our world. 253 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Dr. Alston Meade is the honorary Consulate to Jamaica. He's a member of the Mayor's Commission on African and Caribbean Immigrant Affairs, committed in this area, and they have been working hard to help us in the area of violence, especially with youngsters affected in the African community who need connects with our system and in our community, and we revere them, respect them and say thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilwoman Blackwell. We want to thank you for your leadership and your interest in this issue on behalf of our community in Philadelphia in general, but in particular, the issues affecting the African-Caribbean immigrant community.

Thank you.

I should also say without your help and leadership, we probably would not have a commission. So we want to thank you publicly for that 254 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 also.

Thank you.

I know this is the broadest subject about violence in the School District in and of itself, but I need to be able to speak to the issues of the immigrant community, because they are unique from a number of prospects. Recently, we heard about the violence perpetrated against some African youth in the City and also on Drexel University. You had a Drexel student from Haiti who was beat up. Unfortunately, it gets presented as they're a crime against African-Americans having perpetrating crime against blacks from other parts of the world. I personally have a problem with that, because I think it may just be bad children or children with nothing to occupy them in a very positive way and they're just out to beat someone up, and it can happen like that. 255 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 The problem is, at the end of the day, people are abused and suffering badly. As you mentioned, the young child from Guinea that will be an invalid the rest of his life due to a recent attack on him. One of the critical things about this violence in the School District relates to our ability in the School District to understand the issues that many immigrant African children in particular come to the School District with. First of all, they come from a different culture. They may not speak the same language or they may not speak the language as clearly as we would like them to, and so it creates a double problem with the child, with his peers, as well as a child being educated -- attempting to be educated by the teacher. A teacher has 30, 35 children in the room 23 and then you got a child that doesn't speak English clearly. It creates a lot of frustration even for the teacher. So 256 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 that's an issue there. Also, once these immigrant children get acclimated to the school system, they soon find out -- and even some teachers I understand say this to them. If you have a problem with your parents, you can call the Department of Human Services or call 9-1-1. And in the African community in particular, we have a number of cases where children, because they're being chastised by their parents, called the Department of Human Services. And that whole scenario happens in a very negative way for the parent. The child is saying that the parent is abusing them. And these cultural differences are -- these parents tend to be very strict, not only in the African community, in many communities, immigrant community, you can go to the Asian community. There's a culture of the way these children are brought up. And so that becomes a conflict. And the possible solution to that is having some 257 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 of the School District, even Health and Human Services, work with some of these immigrant parents to learn a little more about the culture practices. Yes, some children may be suffering from some various aspects, but it would be helpful if we could reach out, bring them together to have a greater understanding in the school system, in the Department of Human Services to know what's going on for them. I think that would be one of the very important parts of that. One thing that could help us, I think, a lot in this is the opportunity to look at expanding international education. I know we have some elite and wonderful schools in Philadelphia, like Central High School, the Girls High, the William Bodine International High School, that do a good job, but we need them at Sayre. We need to understand the international education at Sayre. We need international understanding at 258 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 Strawberry Mansion in North Philadelphia, all of those schools. I mean, isn't it inevitable that the children that are in school today will invariably be involved, their entire work life and growing up, will be engaged in the global economy in some way? And our children are not being prepared for that in some way.

This doesn't solve a problem of the violence, but it really deals with the issue of helping them to understand who they are, where they come from, have a more positive image of themselves, because they're relating with Africans, Afro-Latinos, Asians, Latinos and Europeans from around the world that's affecting our City. Philadelphia is a major international destination. People come from all over the world to be here, but they don't come to North Philadelphia, they don't go to Southwest Philadelphia. They come to downtown. So our economy is linked to the 259 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 global community, but our people, the citizenry, our children, are not linked to it. Maybe there's something we can do to link those together and to make them more positive and have a better impact upon our children and in the school system, as well as in our communities. It's something that we may need to give some consideration to. Finally, I just want to say that the whole notion of being global citizens -- and we are unique in Philadelphia because we have the opportunity to practice it. We see it practiced every day. We have maybe 50,000 or so immigrants from Africa here. We have Caribbean. We also have many immigrants from Russia and various other countries around the world. We have the rainbow. We're not practicing with that rainbow, and I think part of the solution is helping us to bring these various people into our City, welcoming them into 260 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 our City and, again, helping them to work with us in the classrooms. And if we have professional Africans that could go in the classroom or professional Russians that will go in to work with kids, our children would learn and have a better appreciation for this international dynamic, and it may be a way that will help at least the immigrant community be better received. We'll all have a better understanding, and it will be less of an opportunity for violence to be perpetrated against those children in the school system. So let me stop there and, again, say thank you and welcome my good friend, Donna Reed Miller, for being here. It's a pleasure to see her also. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Mr. Straughter. Dr. Meade.

Councilwomen, I did 261 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 submit a draft of my presentation yesterday. It might have been too late for distribution. I don't know.

That's fine. We have it, and we'll be happy to take --

Okay. Thank you very much. I consider it an honor and a privilege appearing before you today to share my thoughts on an issue which has the potential for doing great harm to our community - violence among youth. It is my opinion that the signs have long persisted, but largely ignored. It is now approaching staggering, epidemic proportion. The community is deeply indebted for your response to this crisis. I'm confident that much good will come from these efforts. In my presentation today, I will mention some aspect of my background which bears on this discussion. I'll 262 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 identify some of the principal players in this tragedy and, finally, suggest some remedial action. Being aware of time constraints, I will give my presentation in summary form. Supporting materials will be submitted later. First of all, I am from Jamaica. I grew up in the home of educators. My mother and my older sister were both school principals. Father of five children who have graduated from schools in Pennsylvania. I was elected twice to the Board of Directors of the West Chester Area School District, during which time I served some years as Vice-President. I did represent my Board on Intermediate Unit 24, which serves the 12 school districts of Chester County. I was Chairman of the Intermediate Unit 24's Joint Committee on Special Education. So I have some familiarity for matter of education in the United States, in Pennsylvania. 263 2/8/06 - EDUCATION - RES. 051205 I was a little stunned earlier today. You see, there's a publication, The History of the West Chester School District, by Florence Miller, and she has devoted some space to the contribution that I made in that school district, and I'll read one sentence, because I have the passion for this. The sentence goes like this: "External suspensions, he pointed out, made no sense. They exacerbated poor academic performance by removing a student from the classroom and encouraged anti-social or even criminal behavior by releasing the same troubled student on the streets." Twenty-five years later, I come to a meeting such as this and I hear that there is external suspension in Philadelphia. Are we crazy? (Applause.)