Committee Hearing, October 12, 2004

COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION - - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, October 12, 2004 10:30 a.m. - - - - RESOLUTION 040798 - a Resolution authorizing the Committee on Education to conduct hearings on the Emergency Response and Crisis Management Team's findings within the Philadelphia School District. PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL, Chair COUNCILWOMAN BLONDELL REYNOLDS BROWN COUNCILMAN MICHAEL NUTTER COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER - - - - 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 I N D E X RESOLUTION 040798 CLAUDIA EVERETT, Chief of Staff, Phila. School District........... 6 DEXTER GREEN, Chief Safety Executive, Phila. School District........... 7 VERN TRENT, Phila. School District... SANDY HOLLY, Phila. School District.. 8 DANIEL CASTRO, Phila. Police Dept.... 38 ROBERT TUCKER, Phila. Police Dept.... 42 9 WILLIAM SMITH, Phila. Police Dept.... 52 PERCY WHITE, Praxis Institute........ 54 10 VERGIS MUHAMMAD, Praxis Institute.... 55 ANTHONY MURPHY, Operation Town Watch 11 Integrated Services.............. 60 CALVIN IVORY GADSON, Jr., Praxis..... 61 12 PHYLLIS GIBSON, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell's Office............... 63 13 CAROL JOHNSON, Women Organized Against Rape (WOAR).............. 65 14 TERRY WHITE, WOAR.................... 68 JULIE GOODE, Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia (AVP)............ 74 PABLO MATTEO, Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network.. 79 CAROLYN ULMER, Office of Behavioral Health........................... 82 OFFICER DAVIS, Community Relations Officer.......................... 84 HORACE ARTHUR TRENT, III............. 87 3 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798

Good morning. We would like to thank everyone for your patience. We want to thank you for being here. Good morning to you all. I'm Jannie Blackwell, and this is the first Committee hearing of this session to deal with the resolution that was passed on Thursday, September 23rd, our first session back, dealing with a very, very important issue to me. I'll make remarks after we have the Clerk to read the title and number of the resolution.

Resolution 040798, a resolution authorizing the Committee on Education to conduct hearings on the Emergency Response and Crisis Management Team's findings within the Philadelphia School District.

Thank you very much. This is a very important issue because it goes back so far, and given the climate of what's happening in our streets today and in our schools, it's important that 4 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 we come together to talk about it. The Chair notes that this resolution 4 was passed. Councilman Nutter is here, Councilman Blondel Reynolds Brown will be here, and Councilman Rizzo wrote us a letter saying he was unable to be here. But it is fine because this a resolution that has passed. We've spoken to other Councilmembers who are in their chambers and who are available as we need them. Let me say that back on May 13, 1997, a youngster whose name was Kylan Tyler died at McMichael School, and that started all of this for me. At the time he passed away, he wasn't formally in school, but he had meningitis. And it started this whole battle for me. At that time, we went to the school and we found out that what the Board initiated and implemented at that point dealt with the principal making decisions. And, of course, we found out that in some schools some principals made decisions and other schools some principals did not make decisions. So we 5 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 realized we needed a hard, fast system to deal with health emergencies, whether they be a disease like this 7-year-old who died of bacterial meningitis, whether it be a shooting, whether it be in the school property or on the school grounds. After a two-year battle -- and we'll have Mr. Trent come forward. I didn't realize at the time that he was the one that I attacked so badly, so vociferously during those days. The School District came up with a chart called the Emergency Response Chart He can speak to that issue when he comes forward. We have copies of that initial chart that are with us. It took us really until October of '99 with hearings over the years to try to get the former superintendent of schools to issue a hard, fast system that is for emergency response. We're having these hearings today because we believe that out of that has come an excellent group of people who work together and who get the job done so that, albeit we may not be able to stop crime if someone has 6 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 it in his heart to commit a crime, we certainly have a system, a process, that is tight, that is positive, and that works on dealing with health emergencies that come out of public schools. That's a lot to say. We thank Paul Vallas for his leadership. We hope that all will note it's taken us a long time to get here, but we have, we feel, a well-oiled machine in dealing with emergency response as it relates to students and as it relates to schools. Having said that, we would now like to ask Paul Vallas -- I understand he was called this morning for emergency negotiations. So we will certainly ask his representative to come forward, to identify yourself for the record and to begin your testimony. We also see Mr. Dexter Green, Chief of Safety Executive for the School District, and we thank you as well. We thank you all for testifying, and we would like those others of you who you are here to just say who you are and what it 7 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 is your agency does so that everybody knows that out of this hearing, we want the world, the City, to know that we have a crisis response emergency team, and that we want it to be recognized as such and to be responded to in that manner. Thank you again for being here.

You're welcome. Good morning. Claudia Everett, Chief of Staff for the School District of Philadelphia. I'd like to first thank Chairwoman Blackwell and the distinguished Members of the Council and the Committee for the opportunity to appear before you today. We are here to discuss the issue of emergency response and crisis management within the School District of Philadelphia. Time and time again we have been told by behavioral experts and even our own members and students that children must feel safe before they can begin learning. Our Emergency Response Crisis Management and Recovery Operations are crucial to the success of our schools. We are committed to be 8 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Our efforts can only be accomplished with the help of a great number of City and community partners. There are over 30 of them that work closely with our teams and our schools. I cannot stress enough the importance of these partnerships. Each one of them, no matter how small, make it possible for us to be successful and to reach out in time of a crisis. Without them, our resources would not be completely accomplished. It would be extremely overwhelming. I would like to personally thank a few of those partners here today. The Philadelphia Police Department, SEPTA Police, Town Watch, Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network, Women Organized Against Rape, City Victim Assistance Organization, Anti-Violence Partners of Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia Department of Health. You will hear today from Dexter Green, our Chief Safety Executive, and his team who will begin to present to you the 9 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 District's overall response plan.

Thank you. Mr. Green, thank you for being here. Would you identify yourself for the record and begin your testimony?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Dexter Green, Chief Safety Executive for the School District of Philadelphia. Before I start my remarks, our school safety plan has to cover a large, vast array of issues that can occur, as you pointed out, from a child committing suicide or attempting to commit suicide to a major disaster. What you will hear and see today when Director Trent does our presentation is a plan that does just that. Part of our plan is to provide some prevention, intervention, recovery and post-vention which, again, Mr. Trent will talk about shortly. The District's Emergency Response Crisis Management and Recovery Operation is part of a comprehensive crisis and emergency response strategy. Part of the District's 10 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 strategy includes the School Safety Preparedness Multi-Incident Management and Response Plan that is developed and updated every year for the District's 273 schools. This is a comprehensive 50-page plan that assists schools to prepare, manage, and respond to emergencies in crisis. The Emergency Response Chart, which we will show you later on, was developed by the District for just that purpose. We'll talk about the 10 regions and how we create safety teams in those regions. We'll talk about who are the members of the 273 school safety teams. And finally, we will talk about how this plan is designed to give both parents, students, and staff confidence that we can improve and/or respond to any type of emergency that may occur within the School District of Philadelphia. At this time, Madam Chair, if you would permit, I'd like to introduce Mr. Vernon Trent, who is one of the directors in the Office of School Climate and Safety. And this is Sandy Holly, who is one of our crisis team 11 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 managers.

Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for being here. Please introduce yourselves again for our record and begin your testimony. Thank you again.

Good morning. My name is Vern Trent, and I'm a director in the Office of School Climate and Safety for the School District of Philadelphia.

Good morning. Sandy Holly, Crisis Team Manager for the School District of Philadelphia.

I would like to begin with the Emergency Response Chart that Councilwoman Blackwell mentioned. And indeed, the year 1997 or '98 during Council hearings, Councilwoman Blackwell indicated she wanted something in the schools. And I remember her words, and I quote, "Something as ubiquitous as the fire drill sign, because everyone knows what to do in a fire drill. They need to know what to do in an emergency." So we have come up with 12 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 this Emergency Response Chart. There are copies available for the Members. And I need to say that this chart is posted each year in every building, in every classroom in each building. So I would say to Council and all of our partners, whenever you go into any of our buildings, please look for these charts. If you don't see them, let us know because we keep additional copies to replenish during the school year. Having said that, I'm going to go right into emergency and crisis response. One of the things that also has come out of these proceedings and under the leadership of Paul Vallas and Mr. Green, we wanted to develop what we call a quasi-universal safety plan. So in addition to every school having one of these charts, every school in the district has a safety plan that has certain elements in it. So it does not matter what school you go into, that safety plan should be available. What we in turn direct the schools to do is complete the safety plans and send copies to us so that we keep them on file. This becomes important 13 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 in an emergency and crisis because the first responders, police, fire, rescue, they have to know what to do when they go into a building. Now, I'm going to ask Sandy to speak because we have numerous emergency situations. If you read the paper this weekend, you know that we had the fire where we -- meaning the School District of Philadelphia -- lost three students; a fifth grader, a sixth grader and a 10th grader. So as we speak, we are asking our teams and our community partners to be prepared for tomorrow when we go into the schools to work with the school family and the extended family. But to give you an idea of how the system works, you should know that our preparation began Saturday night. We received a call. And this goes to our relationship with Philly P.D. Throughout the City, whenever there is an incident that involves school-aged children, they contact our police commander. His name is Augie Pescatore. He in turn contacts Sandy or me so that we can activate the crisis team to respond. 14 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 I'm going to turn it over to Sandy. And then we do have a Power Point presentation that we presented last time at Council and we will go through that. Before we end, I would also like to acknowledge the community partners that are present this morning. Sandy.

Again, thank you for having us come before you to present to you how well we have worked together as a collaborative team to do our best to keep our arms around the children of Philadelphia. We're able to expand our capacity of service via training at a regional level where we're constantly with our regional staff, the superintendents and the lead directors in those offices, basically training them to be prepared, to be prepared. We also have in each of our schools what we call a safety team. That safety team is made up of a staff member that represent every intricate part of that school. Some of our schools have the benefit 15 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 of what we call a climate manager that were recently brought aboard. Their focus is definitely constantly keeping their hand on the pulse of the building. The building engineer is a part of that team because he knows the building better than anyone else. He can tell us where all of our vulnerable areas are of the building and how we might best prepare ourselves for any activity in the building. We have the school teachers around the table. We have our school police officers meeting on a monthly basis at the least. We're always talking about safety, always having ourselves in what we hope to be the best ready position that we can be in. In the time of an incident, as Mr. Trent spoke earlier, as soon as the Philadelphia Police Department is aware that something has occurred that might involve a school-aged student, they make contact with us and our telephone tree begins. Vern Trent calls me. I begin calling our team of lead crisis managers, and we begin calling on our community partners. All of us are watching 16 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 the news, always have our ear to the ground looking and listening to see whether anything is happening. We are on 24-hour call just based out of passion and concern when a child of any age, school age, has an incident that might impact just their family, possibly the entire school population. We have accepted that our children do suffer trauma, and trauma has a contagious aspect about it. So if one child is hurt in a school, there's always the potential of the entire school having some level of trauma. Sometimes it may -- to use Mr. Trent's word -- have a constellation effect. Our families have kids all over the City. We have a baby that goes to school in North Philadelphia but whose older brother or sister attends one of our more elite schools or special admit schools in South Philly. So we're always at the computer drawing the map to see how far one incident may take us. We have our teams on the telephone making contact. We're connected with our behavioral health agencies Our community partners are always ready to go. 17 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 That is how we are able to expand our capacity to cover the entire City at this point. If it's appropriate, we can go into our presentation to quickly take you through the step-by-step procedures that we follow just to keep ourselves on track.

Let me, for the sake of those who might be listening, ask a question so that they understand what happens. In the case of this Kylan Tyler, a 7-year-old who passed away over the night but who went to school and had a lot of siblings, he had brothers and sisters, in that case, it was a disease that is communicable. Nobody knew whether we should be meeting in the school, whether or not the brothers and sisters should stay home. Just what happens if a child may not even be in school when an emergency happens? How does the School District respond if you hear there's been some tragedy, whether it be an illness -- let's say, God forbid, a child was in a fire or a child was killed who goes to any particular 18 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 school, how do you respond on the first day of school thereafter?

I will start by saying our CEO, Mr. Paul Vallas, has indicated that we are responsible for school and community safety hours a day, 7 days a week. To that 8 end, we have a hotline. And I will repeat 9 that number again. It's 299-SAFE, S-A-F-E, or 10 215-299-7233. That can be the genesis. If 11 there's a listening audience, if they would 12 take that number down, they will get a person; 13 they will not get a recording. So they will 14 get a person and that starts our response. 15 One of the things I would like to 16 also tell them is that when they call, ask for 17 an incident or a control number because that 18 in turn allows us to track it. Once we get 19 that call, then the telephone tree begins. Of 20 course, all of the top administrators are 21 notified, but the Emergency Crisis Unit of the 22 School District is then activated. I'll let 23 Sandy comment on that. 24 But before I do that, you specifically mentioned a medical emergency or 19 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 a health emergency as it related to the student that has meningitis. I would like to refer everyone to that Emergency Response Chart. As Councilwoman Blackwell indicated, in that particular incident, often times people don't know what to do. And when they hear the term, communicable disease, everyone tends to panic. The District has a relationship with the Health Department, and it's clearly articulated what steps they are to take. But the issue is much broader than that, particularly when you think in terms of terrorism and safety and other acts of violence in the community because a response is required. If you look at the Emergency Response Chart, it will speak to the Yellow Book Protocol that they have. What we are trying to do is to get all schools and community members to understand that there is a process and protocol in place, and that in most instances, once we are notified, we are going to contact the first responders and/or other appropriate offices. It is then incumbent upon those in 20 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 charge to defer to the first responders or to the individual agencies or groups that have the expertise and knowledge and skills in addressing whatever issue is before them. Sandy.

If you want us to take you through how we become aware of an incident and act, I'll give the example of an incident at the McMichael School that we all may recall where the two young ladies took what they thought was candy that was inside of their lunch boxes and it turned out to be some type of drug. We found out, between the news and the Philadelphia Police Department -- our office has a pager. It's on hours. The 17 pager goes off. We read it and we find out 18 names, location. From that small information, 19 we go on to our computers to see whether or 20 not it actually is a Philadelphia School 21 District child. 22 Now, everything is moving very 23 quickly while this is happening. The 24 information comes across the pager. We're checking our computer to see whether or not 21 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 it's a child, what school that child may attend, his or her age, and whether or not they have siblings so we can see whether it's an incident that's going to go further than just one school building. We begin speaking to the administrators in that area to find out what they know. Is this a child that was well-known throughout the school? Is this something that's going to hit a very small population or do we need to do a full response, where we're taking some type of services to the entire school building and that community? We all have Nextels that are chirping and going off. Information is being shared with the teams. Our team is putting together paperwork so that when we get to the school we're ready to go. We have our speech together because we want to move with facts. The Philadelphia Police Department has shared with us all of the factual information. In order to respect their investigation, if it happens to be an incident they investigate, they make us real clear of 22 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 the do's and don't's, "This is what you can share. This is what you can't share. " We go into the school sharing the factual information that we have with the students and the staff. We believe that if we can squash the rumors within the building, we can maintain calm and provide direct services to the students as they show need. We come into the building with what we call a 10-step process, just so that people understand there's a structure. There's an order. There is no reason for any chaos. We come into the building, maybe four or five people that are directly from the School District. We have the top administrators there with us so that the principal is at ease. The principal is walking with us so that the teachers are at ease. The students are feeling better because there are more adults in the building. And again, we're all walking, using factual information, trying to keep everybody on the same page. We meet for what we call debriefing. 23 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 We come together very quickly, taking into consideration all the sensitivities of the incident, the cultural factors that may play, the religious factors that may play into the situation, and we put together a script. We hit every room in that building, giving the school teachers, the staff, the NTAs, the cafeteria folk, the building engineer all of the same facts. We're there with the Philadelphia Police beside us. The Victim Assistance Officers are with us. Our community partners are coming in to offer counseling. We scan every classroom looking for what we call red flag behaviors; students that are clearly demonstrating that there's trauma going on. On many incidents, we may be talking about a fire that happened Friday, but I have a baby that's in panic because it's taken him back to some old experience. So we go to the classrooms, asking them to talk to us because we want them to bring those feelings forward while we have all the support staff in the building that can help us. 24 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 We have WOAR there who may be known to assist you through sexual incidents, but they do more than that.

They're there as professional therapists. They're in those classrooms. They're working with the staff that work with the students, helping us to calm folks down. For a high-level incident, the more violent incidents, we strongly depend on AVP because their therapists are trained at a higher level or with more violent incidents. So all of our partners are there with us. We've gone through this procedure. They know ahead of time the expectation. We can usually cover an entire school, room by room, within an hour or two.

In terms of the community and a community response, we work closely not only with law enforcement but with Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network, PAAN, as well as Town Watch to provide us with community information. But more importantly, they also provide a community response for us where they are actually able to visit homes. 25 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 They are out in the community to bring information back to us to ensure that we, again, have school and community safety as well as school and community stability. Because often times some situations will originate in a community and then the kids will bring it to school or vice versa. It can start in school and go out to the community. We are really striving to have a true continuum of services that address school and community safety.

To go back to the incident where we had the young ladies with the drugs. While PAAN and Town Watch were scanning the area, they left staff behind us, because we always try to remember that we are an educational institution. So out of any traumatic situation, we try to bring out a learning experience. We had full assemblies in that school where PAAN and another organization called the Corporate Alliance for Drug Education, better known as CADE, was doing school-wide assemblies. Everybody came in and they learned those drug and alcohol 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 prevention skills. That was an opportunity when everybody was ready to stop and move away for a few minutes from the basic ABCs to safety. So we take true advantage of that learning opportunity into a school-wide presentation depending on what the incident may be. So again, we have people inside the auditorium. The parents are welcome to come in. Usually parents flow through the building. We have staff members there or the community partners there ready to assist parents. They're invited to the auditorium so they'll know the conversations we've started with the kids, and they'll have something to go on when they get those questions when they return home with their babies. We stay around. We've gone to every classroom. Everybody knows the facts. They know we're in the building. We stay there and we just have our hands on the pulse of the kids, waiting for things to return to the common noise of a school building that we're used to. 27 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 As our crisis team determines that things are now at a level where the school and the regional base team, the regional psychologists, the community partners that are tied directly to that one school can handle it, our team begins to pull out and another department of the School District will come in to do the long-term services. So the way that we respond is truly collaborative. Everybody's hands are on deck. It is a 24-hour operation as information comes in. It usually starts with the Philadelphia Police feeding us the facts. We put together the facts that we know from our experiences and our information coming out of schools and our database and trends from what happens in particular communities at particular times and old gang information we may have. All of our teams sit and we debrief at the end and figure out how we can, one, make this a learning opportunity. What is it is that the kids need to feel empowered again. We give them those things. Two, how much service we need to leave here before we can 28 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 walk away and feel like the school can take care of itself from then. We're giving each of the team members the information they need so they know what pieces they have to continue as we all go back to our specific role that we usually play throughout the day.

To add to what Sandy said, the other office that she mentioned, we have an office that's titled the Office of Specialized Services. So as our team pulls out -- and of course the Office of Specialized Services is generally there with us -- we leave with them what we call an after-care plan, which requires them to follow up on a weekly, a 30-day, 60-day, 90-day basis to ensure that we have indeed addressed the emergency or crisis. I would also like to indicate that this is what we are also attempting to do with all City partners as it relates to terrorism and school and community safety. We are trying to move towards what we call an incident command system and collaborate with City and private agencies so that no matter 29 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 what type of incident occurs, we indeed have a command center and we know all of the available agencies and groups in the City. In the group we are working with with Philly P.D., the Terrorism Task Force, for example, they are looking at Philadelphia's -- what's called an SMSA, Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area, for the five-county area because we are on different stages of alert as it relates to terrorism. This became perfectly clear when the situation occurred in Russia where the school was taken over by terrorists. God forbid that we never have that. All of this is designed to fit into a big picture with a continuum of services that provides preparedness.

We certainly know that we have Captain Castro. We do have those from the Police Department who can talk about their counter-terrorism offense. We're going to hear from them. We tell all of you we won't hold you long. I know everybody has a lot to do. We'll get to 30 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 you in short order. Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown.

You've spoken or referred to a number of times community partners. You identified two; Philadelphia Anti-Violence/Anti-Action Network and Town Watch. Who are some of the other community partners?

We have invited several of the community partners.

Are these individuals or agencies?

Agencies.

Can we hear who they are, for the record?

In fact, they are going to introduce their agency to us for the record.

Very good.

Again, that's the goal of this hearing, to have this emergency response team formally recognized as such and functioning as such. 31 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798

AVP is whom?

Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia. And Julie Goode is here. I believe she is the executive director for Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia.

I was attempting to get some background history on this issue from our Chairwoman, Jannie Blackwell. It was in 1997 that she put this up on the radar screen to look at it like a laser beam. In terms of developments and progress, should we assume that in 1997 some of the community partners currently in place or now in place, there was not a relationship as such five years ago? Just to get a handle on progress.

I would say that the relationship was not as strong. What we are attempting to do is develop what we call single points of contact. The office that I am currently in, the Office of School Climate and Safety, did not exist at that time. 32 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 But to go back and get a historical perspective, Councilwoman Blackwell and our CEO, Paul Vallas, when a young lady was murdered at Sulzberger, they got to see firsthand many of these community partners coming into not only the school, but the community. And she said, I want this to continue to move forward. So from that point we have continued to bring in -- and these are the partners that we know are always there. You mentioned progress. We have a list of other agencies and groups that are now coming forward to participate and work with us. That is why I mentioned a few minutes ago about preparedness and a continuum of services so that as we work with City agencies and we develop a response system for all incidents, what we are hoping is that, along with this continuum from emergencies to major catastrophes, we will be prepared to address almost any incident so that it does not fall on the shoulders of the School District or it doesn't fall on the shoulders of the City, per se. 33 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 All of these partners will come together through an incident command system so that we can address issues throughout the City as well, as I mentioned earlier, Philadelphia Standard of Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Well, then it's fair to say that based on Sandy's elaborate explanation in terms of detail, there has been systemic change, because ultimately that's where you get impact. That's what I think I'm hearing; would you agree?

Yes. And as you talk to our partners, they can tell you how we work with them around specific issues, generally emergency and crisis. But that is only a small component of what they do. They are actually in the Philadelphia community providing ongoing services and, ideally, prevention is what we want. We don't want to have crises, but we have to be prepared because the reality is we're going to have situations and incidents that we will have to address.

I agree. Thank 34 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 you. Thank you your testimony.

Let me also note, Mr. Trent, I'd forgotten I said that. I sure did say that if we can have fire drill signs, we can certainly have a report in every classroom about what happens in an emergency. We also had hearings on school violence back in December 1992 and January '93, and that is when we outlined every crime committed in or around school grounds. Because, you know, when it hit the school grounds, that's when we really started dealing with it, as opposed to across the street from the school and in the community. Many, many suggestions have been made that have been adopted after all these years. We talked about Women Organized Against Rape then, especially in many of our high schools. Then, of course, everything is kids at a younger age today. But we've come a long, long time. As the King once says, longevity has it place. Thank God, after all these years, it's working for us.

Just to add to what 35 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 Councilwoman Blackwell is saying. As she mentioned the fire drills, we are working with the Philadelphia Fire Department-- well, I'll say working with the first responders. Fire drills are mandated, and there are a specific number of fire drills that all schools must have. We have now worked with the Philadelphia Police Department and the Philadelphia Fire Department to have one or two of those fire drills to become shelter and place drills or lock-down drills. Captain Castro is here and he can talk about that because we just had one at the Pengrew School, and we have another one scheduled for one of our high schools. We're going to work closely again with City government, particularly fire and police, to make sure that the schools are engaging in these drills also. They are also part of the School District's safety plan where -- and Sandy, you correct me if I'm wrong -- the Department of Licenses and Inspections has a form that the schools are supposed to record the fire drills and record the shelter and place drills, and 36 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 we are collecting that information from the schools also. It is an integral part of their school safety plans. Every school has what we call this quasi-universal school safety plan. So, again, going back to what Councilwoman Blackwell said, having something that is City-wide or school-wide so that it should not matter what school you work in or if you transfer from one school to another, there will be common elements of that safety plan that the individual should be familiar with. After we get the plans and the teams are identified, then it is incumbent upon us to begin training those teams and training those schools so that they will be prepared to handle and address incidents.

Thank you. We've held you up from your Power Point presentation. We'll move forward with that and then ask the other agencies to identify themselves and we'll just make our concluding remarks and we'll be done.

Councilwoman Blackwell, Sandy and I, we were just having a side-bar. 37 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 We have pretty much articulated what is in the Power Point. For time's sake, you should know that while we are talking here, today is an in-service for schools, so we have at one of our high schools the school police officers and the non-teaching assistants and the school safety teams where we are actually training them to develop deployment plans and other safety plans. So I would defer and yield the time to our community partners, because without them we could not be successful.

Well, we thank you very much. We do have a copy of this report, Office of School Climate and Safety, Safety Programs, Emergency Response, Crisis Management and Recovery Operations. So we love it. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Captain Castro. Is the DA's Office here, Mr. Kent? UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Inaudible.)

Thank you. 38 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 Thank you, Chief. Thank you all from SEPTA. Thank you. Forgive me if I did not recognize you in proper order and rank. CAPTAIN CASTRO: Good morning, Madam Chair and good morning, Councilwoman Reynolds. My name is Captain Daniel Castro with the Philadelphia Police Department's Counter-Terrorism Unit. Beside me is my boss, Inspector Robert Tucker, with Counter-Terrorism. Another colleague is Pat Dewalt-Smith, Counter Terrorism. Let me just start off both of these gentlemen. I've just been assigned to the unit for about two months now. The Philadelphia Police Department and the City should be very proud to have these two gentlemen working with me in terms of counter-terrorism and school safety and climate.

Thank you. Maybe some of the others can sit inside the gate and we'll call on them next. 39 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 Thank you, Inspector, too. We meant not to demean your rank. I can only say this about Captain Castro. We met him when he was captain in the 16th, and we've had a relationship since. That's the first time we had the opportunity to go knock on doors and say, "If you're selling drugs here, you've got to get out. We're not taking it." It was really, really exciting. The hands-on activity is what I'm about. I'm about changing the quality of life from the bottom up. And we are very, very excited. Back then, some years ago we talked about the opportunity of a hands-on try to change communities, especially communities in Mantua that needed so much. Low-income communities that we focus on now, his involvement there and commitment there made a great, great difference. It made all the difference in the world. Thank you. CAPTAIN CASTRO: Thank you, Madam Chair. On that note, I realize and I recognize how important the school safety and 40 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 school education is to you. I've certainly taken a personal interest in working with all the schools, the former Deputy Commissioner Dexter Green and his staff. They have provided an open-door policy for the Police Department, for the Counter-Terrorism Unit to work with them, to, hopefully, as Vernon Trent said, never have to ever face what Beslan, Russia, had to face in the earlier part of the school year. Also, as you may recall, if you read this weekend's paper regarding the information about schools overseas -- and thank God it has not gone into the hands of any terrorists -- but it should serve as a wake-up call to the educational communities, to the parents, to law enforcement that this type of information can certainly get in the hands of folks overseas and it can certainly get in the hands of terrorists. I had the good fortune of going to one of the schools with my boss, and our team actually, and the Fire Department as well, to do a vulnerability assessment preparedness, as 41 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 Vernon Trent just mentioned. And I'm pleased to say that this particular school was well-versed. Plans were well thought out. We had cooperation with the principal, with the administrators. They pretty much had everything intact. We had made some recommendations because no matter what situation we're faced with, you're going to find some flaws with it. And certainly we were there to provide those recommendations and tips. But I was glad to walk away from there and say, you know, if one school is that well prepared -- and I generally don't make any assumptions -- I would have to make the assumption that the other schools have similar plans in place. We intend on going throughout the school year working with the School Board to address those types of issues in he event of any type of terrorist activity. I'll let my boss talk.

Thank you. INSPECTOR TUCKER: Thank you, Councilwoman. Inter-operability is really the key for us. 42 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798

Excuse me, Inspector. Would you identify yourself for the record? INSPECTOR TUCKER: Yes, ma'am. My name is Inspector Robert Tucker. I'm with the Philadelphia Police Counter-Terrorism Bureau, and we are the Domestic Preparedness Section 9 of the Counter-Terrorism Bureau.

Thank you. INSPECTOR TUCKER: Police Commissioner Johnson has mandated that we are inter-operable with the School Districts, with the Fire Department, Office of Emergency Management, and Public Health. The reality of it is that the work that we've done with Dexter Green and Mr. Trent have really worked and have really taken steps to do that inter-operability aspect. We have been doing this a for a number of years now, most directly in our programs for shelter in place and also in evacuation and relocation programs. We do that not only with the public schools, but with the charter and the private schools. And that's flowing very well. 43 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 Captain Castro has been directed to continue that effort and has been doing a really, really good job. But the inter-operability aspects are the key for this. What we're trying to do is make sure that although we've just hit one school and we're going to do another high school, we want to make sure that we get to a lot of the other schools so that we can see if there are variables that we can get best practices so that we're able to get those best practices out to all of the principals. The level of cooperation that we've received from the School District is really exceptional, and that's what makes this job a lot better. When Captain Castro was mentioning the Chechnyan incident, the realities of it is that we as first responders are going to have to respond to that school. The schools have to know what we're going to do. We have to know what the schools are going to do. If there isn't that co-workmanship, then we're going to be in real trouble. We're getting 44 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 that done right now.

How old is the unit, the Counter-Terrorism Bureau? How old is it? INSPECTOR TUCKER: Two and a half years now.

Share with us, if you will, the composition. Are all of the men and women in the unit former police officers, police officials in other parts of the Police Department? Did you export or import professionals from other bureaus? Just some background on the composition of the unit. INSPECTOR TUCKER: Certainly. There are two components, ma'am. We are the Domestic Preparedness Section. In that, we have a major incident response team, which is 350 police officers that are capable of responding in Level C personal protective equipment; that's gas masks, chemical suits, the whole shebang. That's been developed through my team throughout these two and a half years. We're now considered the best 45 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 practice in Pennsylvania. We are training the other four counties, Chester, Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery Counties, in this type of response. Each county is putting up at least 100 police officers to be able to respond and assist us, just as we would assist. It's no 9 longer just a myopic viewpoint as far as response goes. It's a regional concept, and that's what we're working towards. So that's a major response team. Of course we have our outreach program. We deal with the community, public, businesses, where we go out and we'll do security evaluations for them, take a look at their vulnerabilities and then make recommendations. We've done places like the Constitution Center, Sunoco, very large corporations. We get down into the smaller areas also and, of course, government entities such as the School District and the DA's Office. That's one component. We also have an intelligence 46 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 component which works with the five counties as a whole. The Joint Terrorism Task Force, the US Attorney's Office and the FBI all together are just digesting these large amounts of intelligence and then filtering it to us and to really the responders, and also the community itself. We're trying to get into a mechanism where we can get that intelligence, the secret stuff, and filter that so that it's useful to the people in the community. We've been assured that should intelligence come out that directly impacts Philadelphia or a specific area in the community, that the people will be told, that there's not going to be a secret holdback on that type of information. That's absolutely getting out to the community. You've seen that. Dan mentioned that information that was found in Iraq specific to Franklin Township. The coincidence is we don't believe in coincidences, and we're prepared for that type of thing. Captain Smith is putting together a 47 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 tabletop exercise just to respond to a type of situation in the schools along that line of those Chechnyan terrorists. We're trying to think of all different ways in which to respond. So that's the intel. That's all merged from different aspects within the police. Deputy Commissioner Temporelli two and a half years ago looked and said, OCI is the investigative component, and pulled them in and got people that were very, very exceptional, such as Captain Smith to come in that had an edge about him and an intelligence to come in and start digesting that. We've been specially trained with the FBI. We're all hazmat technicians, so we know the chemicals, the weapons of mass destruction. We can talk the talk. We have that knowledge and understanding. CAPTAIN CASTRO: May I add to what my boss just mentioned? You mentioned expertise and professional people. Certainly, I'm no 25 expert, but I had the good fortune to go to 48 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 England in 2001 for two months, and I worked with the counter-terrorism folks over there. We gained some intelligence. Since then, we have gained their policy and procedures in addressing some of those issues, and we have incorporated some of those best practices in our policy.

So where we may not have a, quote, expert who has been doing this for years like people in Europe have done, we certainly have best practices available to us as well.

I don't know when I'll have the opportunity again to do what I call seize the moment. I'd like to ask your professional opinion, now with the benefit of hindsight, hindsight always being 20/20, when we heard and watched with horror what happened to the children in Russia, what one or two lessons would professionals in your world pull from that experience in terms of being proactive for us here in the City of Philadelphia? INSPECTOR TUCKER: One of the things that happened with the Chechnyan incident is 49 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 that most of their material that they used, the bombs, the weapons, were already pre-positioned in that school. There's just a number of things that we did learn from that But what we've done is made sure that our patrol persons are people in the street and are aware and looking at schools in the off hours, making sure that there's nothing unusual going on. Also, when you look at that, can you imagine 300 children, possibly 600 parents, coming to that school? There's just such a response issue that there really has to be, again, that inter-operability that we talked about when I first began this. We have a work group in Philadelphia that consists of the Office of Emergency Management and Michael Nucci, the Fire Department, the Police Department and Public Health. Should there be a biological incident, how do we get the national stockpile of medicines into Philadelphia? How do we protect it? How do we distribute it? We're thinking of these things and working these 50 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 things through. So we just don't look at one area. And it's just not one department. It's everybody working together as a group to make these determinations. Of course, on the federal and state levels, we work with them also. There's a lot of positive interaction on that. That Chechnyan thing, as I said, tactically that's a horrible situation to be in. It's a very difficult position for negotiations and the tactical people to prepare for. But we are doing that. I guess that's the bottom line.

Well, that begs a follow-up question for me. With the police officers that are appointed or designated or placed at schools around the City, do they get additional training? In addition to what they bring as a police officer, is there a separate set of skills or training for police officers in public schools? I'm curious. INSPECTOR TUCKER: We have an awareness level training of weapons of mass destruction and terrorist activities. That was actually given to all police officers last 51 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 year on the state level. So we've gotten that, in addition to our very specific people, the 350 officers, that have an even higher level of response capability that would help in the case of a chemical incident. That's not just talking about terrorist activities. It's talking about an accident, a chlorine leak somewhere or something along that line where we can get them into the decontamination process and being able to work with the Fire Department and Public Health to get them through that process and get them healthy again. So there's a lot of higher levels of training specifically within this bureau. Each one of those police officers is out on the street. They're not assigned to my bureau; they're all volunteers and they're all within the communities all over the City. CAPTAIN CASTRO: Let's not forget also, in addition to that, just the basics in law enforcement, that we have a Community Relations Unit that actually deals with, as you well know, with the Police Athletic 52 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 League, GREAT and DARE. In addition to the current climate about terrorism, we can't forget some of the basics as well. We do go and teach and train some of the students in terms of dealing with those types of issues as well.

Thank you for your testimony. That concludes my questions. You're welcome to introduce yourself, please, if you will. Please come forward. Please state your name for the record. CAPTAIN SMITH: My name is Captain Will Smith. I'm with the Philadelphia Police Department Counter-Terrorism Bureau, Domestic Relations Section. I work with Captain Castro and Inspector Tucker. I just wanted to say that we work extensively as well with Town Watch, with our citizens' emergency response team. I'm sure Mr. Anthony Murphy will tell you a lot about that information. The only point I want to make is a follow-up and conclude this, is that the safety of the children of Philadelphia, in 53 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 our opinion, in the Counter-Terrorism Bureau and I'm sure everybody's in this room, is paramount. To us in the Counter-Terrorism Bureau, our the children are the greatest assets in the City of Philadelphia, and we will do everything we can in the Counter-Terrorism Bureau to make sure they stay safe.

Thank you very much. As a parent of a daughter in public school, that's quite consoling. Any other testimony from members of your team? Captain Castro? CAPTAIN CASTRO: That's it.

Thank you very much. Captain Thomas Lynch, might he be available? (No response.)

Mr. Leland Kent, District Attorney's Office. (No response.)

Percy White of 54 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 Praxis. All of the community partners, we would be happy to have you come forward. Before we move to your testimony, I'll ask each one of the community partners -- we can do it one of two ways; either you can introduce the individuals and the community agencies they represent, or you're welcome to come forward, state your full name for the record and tell us the agency that you represent. What's your preference?

I work with Praxis. I'm one of the community partners for the schools.

We don't bite. We want you to talk into the mike, state your full name for the record and the agency that you represent.

Hi. My name is Percy White. I am the Secretary of Treasury, Praxis Institute.

My name is Vergis Muhammad. I'm a coordinator for Praxis Institute also.

Okay. First 55 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 give us a one, two, three-sentence on the mission of Praxis.

Right now we do a rights of passage for the schools. Our focus is on prevention. We've been in the School District since 1993. We're a non-profit organization officially since '96. We've been more of a grassroots operation up to about three years ago, where we've now been contracted with the School District.

You work in how many schools?

Currently, we're in 15 schools. We have a proposal now for 48 schools.

And the 15 schools are located where? First of all, elementary, middle and high schools?

Middle and high schools. I think we do have an elementary school too.

They're located where? Provide us with a sampling of where they're located. 56 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798

Sayre School, Vare, Germantown, Pickett School, Shallcross.

Audenreid, Leeds Middle School.

How did these schools end up being the lucky 15? Because to have an advantage of a prevention type of service makes you kind of lucky.

We initially went out and invited a plethora of schools. Basically it was the first to respond. We were in 14 13 schools last year, and some of them closed. 14 Some of them reduced their size. Edison is 15 now just treating 8th graders. Audenreid has closed.

Excuse me one moment. I'm sorry. I had to step out. The press got me. We do note that SEPTA Police were here and they were prepared to testify as well. They did just leave, but we wanted to thank them. I'm sorry. It's my mistake. Every now and then they get you and it interferes 57 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 with your schedule. Excuse me.

So anyway, we bumped the next in line to fill our packet up. Our program is to bring the drill instruction in with the cultural component. We bring in dance, drumming, critical thinking workshops. We have a lecturer come in. He does a presentation on the global African presence.

How long does a segment, a program last? Is it 8 weeks, 12 weeks, the entire academic school year?

Ideally, we would like it to be for the entire school year. But the way our funding is coming from the School District, we usually start around November and we stay until the end of May.

The young people meet how many times a week?

Right now we're meeting an hour and a half once a week at the school.

At the school site?

Yes, ma'am. 58 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798

Anything else you care to tell us? Provide if you would a couple of examples where you as a community partner were a direct link, a bridge, for the Office of School Climate and Safety.

That's why I asked Mr. Muhammad to come with us.

There was an incident last year at Germantown High School where the child was found in the school. He hung himself. Our program actually found him. I was on the front lines of that.

State your name again the record.

Vergis Muhammad. I'm the coordinator for rights of passage in the 15 schools that we are in starting in November. As Mr. White was saying, the last school year, one school semester, we found a young man in the auditorium, hanging. That brought a lot of attention to us. My part is, we run a mentoring program in the 15 schools that we're in for 59 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 the young males and the females. And we use, like, a military-structured basis in order to get the attention of the young males and females. I believe that in order to teach them, you have to be able to discipline them and get them to respect you first in order to teach them whatever it is that needs to be taught. We use discipline. We teach respect for themselves, respect for adults, teachers, parents, respect for their peers. First they have to have respect for themselves. At the same time we teach hygiene, cleanliness. We give them a historical knowledge of themselves and others so that they can deal with themselves and others who are maybe not in the same nationality as themselves. We give them a broader base instead of just being locked in the box in the inner city in the schools that we're working in. We give them a broader base of what they're going to be dealing with as they become adults to make them responsible, respectful, and productive citizens once they 60 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 get out of school.

Thank you very much. Come forward. Again, we apologize to the SEPTA gentlemen who were waiting to testify. We're ready in any order that you so please.

Good morning. Anthony Murphy. I'm the Executive Director of Operation Town Watch Integrated Services. In relationship to the School District, we provide mobile support teams that respond to incidents in the schools or in the neighborhoods, we are currently contracted to provide intervention in our City of Philadelphia, in every neighborhood. We also provide safe corridor training and developing of junior Town Watch groups throughout the City of Philadelphia. As an example of our cooperation with the School District, the gentleman who was shot en route to Finletter School was a community incident; however, it did impact on 61 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 the school. My staff, along with Sandy Holly, responded to Finletter. We have a very strong, safe corridor. After our initial intervention, it was a situation that it was a school that we don't cover for the School District. We then network with PAAN to do the follow-up for that particular day. We cover schools in the central region for the School District; West Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, Southwest Philadelphia, and part of East Division, which I think you call it East Division Schools. I'm prepared to respond to any questions you may have.

Thank you. We know about the fine job you do. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Calvin Ivory Gadson, Jr. I'm Director of Operations for the Praxis Institute Rights of Passage program. I won't take up too much of your time. I just wanted to add some facts that Mr. Percy White and Mr. Vergis Muhammad forgot to mention. Myself, I am 22 years old. I got 62 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 into the Rights of Passage program when I was because the Rights of Passage program 4 started out volunteering in the Philadelphia 5 public schools in 1993. 6 I am myself a firsthand witness of 7 what goes on in the public schools, and I am 8 back to reach down to my fellow youth that are 9 still in the Philadelphia public schools, 10 elementary, middle, and high schools, because 11 the situations that are taking place in the 12 Philadelphia schools are sad. 13 Our youth are being called 14 delinquents, mentally retarded, but our youth 15 are not being understood by a lot of the programs that are in the Philadelphia School District and a lot of the adults that are supposed to be mentoring them. I just want to say that in my experiences in the Rights of Passage program, we have stopped countless youth from selling drugs, from committing crimes, and from dropping out of school all together. So I just wanted to mention that to you all and say that in order for us to bring our students out 63 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 of ignorance and help them to realize the intelligence within themselves, we have to pay greater attention to our youth and community-based organizations like the Praxis Institute Rights of Passage program. That is all. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony.

Hi. I am Phyllis Gibson. I am a consultant in Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell's Office for crime and safety. One of the things that happens, as victims are being victimized not only in West Philadelphia, but City-wide, they will call the Councilwoman's office, and I guess they call other Councilwomen's offices. They call for many, many things. One of the things that I've been doing is just making sure that they receive the services in a timely fashion and showing them where to go for services. We found that to be important not only with the schools, but also with the community at large, 64 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 people that are victimized. It doesn't always make the news. It's just things that happen in our community. I guess one example is a couple weeks ago we had a homeless lady that was murdered in Cobbs Creek Parkway, and the community was in uproar. So we tried to reach that family. The Councilwoman talks to the family. We try to just make sure that they're aware that there are victims services and that there are people out here that can help them. We've been doing that for a while now. Also, we have Myra Maxwell here. I call her Myra Maxwell. She is the Reverend Myra Maxwell and she is from the Anti-Violence Partnership. She's been working with the clergy trying to get a program so that when victims are victimized, the clergies from different churches reach out to the people for the spiritual-based things that they need to make it through. They do need that during the time of crisis.

Thank you, Phyllis. 65 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 All of us know that she's the former director of Victim Witness Services for West and Southwest Philadelphia, and that's a vital service. When people are of victims of crime, they need to know what services are available to them, everything from counseling to burial expenses, et cetera. Thank you, Phyllis.

Good morning, Chairwoman Blackwell and Councilwoman Blondel Reynolds Brown. It is truly great to be here today. I'm Carol Johnson. I'm the Executive Director of Women Organized Against Rape. Just briefly, WOAR, as its called in short, has been around 33 years. We are the only rape crisis center in Philadelphia, and our mission is to eliminate sexual violence in this City and really in our society. Our goals for doing that are through advocacy, education, and support services. I want to give an example of the types of advocacy talking and working with the community. In 1999, I presented testimony before City Council. At that time the issue 66 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 was the way the Police Department handled sexual assault complaints. I have to tell you, we went through a series of hearings, a lot of heartache, but I am here to tell you today that we have a relationship with the Police Department. There have been sweeping changes. We know that rape victims or sexual assault victims are being treated with respect, so that was through community partnership and a perfect example of advocacy. Through our education, we provide programs to schools in Philadelphia. I believe last year we provided over 2,200 programs to probably more than 50,000 students. Terry White is here with me, and she's our Director of Education and she will be talking more about the relationship that has been developed with the Office of School Climate and Safety. I just want to say that I've been with WOAR are 14 years. Prior to about three or four years ago, WOAR did not have a real relationship with the School District of Philadelphia. We presented programs, but we 67 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 were never called upon to be a partner. We never felt like a partner. We responded to letters we sent out and we ran out and we did programs. When an assault occurred in the school, maybe we were called and maybe we weren't called. If I called a principal -- and at that time principals were making their own decisions -- more than likely the phone was slammed in my ear. They did not want us out there because it was, quote, bad publicity to the school, which of course was already there. About three or four years ago, I had the opportunity to meet with Dexter Green and Claudia Everett and Vernon Trent. We met at 21st and the Parkway. From that point, we started developing a relationship, and I felt WOAR was being seen more as a viable part of the issues around violence in the schools. We know that last year there were about 43 sexual assaults in the schools and we were consulted on every single one of those to go out and provide counseling. That's really important to us. Because without the partnership, we're 68 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 there, but we're not providing the best service that we should be. I'm going to turn it over to Terry now, because Terry has been working with Vern and with Sandy Holly. I have to tell you, I feel good about the work that has been going on, and I was critic before. So I will let Terry come up.

Thank you. We thank you for the fine job you do as well.

Good morning, Chairwoman Blackwell and Councilwoman Reynolds Brown. Thank you for the opportunity. I am glad to be here with my Executive Director, Carol Johnson. I am going to speak specifically to our relationship with the Office of School Climate and Safety internally to provide support to the schools and to communities as well, not just schools only. We have created an internal trauma response team. When we receive a call from School Climate and Safety, as Ms. Holly mentioned earlier, we're in that network of people that receive the call. They give us as 69 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 much advanced warning as possible so the team can mobilize. I have personally been out on the responses. What we actually do in the schools is tremendous and significant. To give you a little bit about our staff, 50 percent of our staff are counseling services staff. They are master's level therapist. What may not be known is that WOAR is still working with the University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Study of Treatment of Anxiety Disorder. So we are experts in treating trauma. Our staff are also crisis trained. Our education and training center staff are crisis trained. All staff are trained pretty much the same, to do trauma, recovery and response work. So if we get a call, we go out to a school, we may work directly -- I did personally on several occasions -- with friends and families members of the survivor. We are dealing certainly with more than sexual assault. Sexual assault is one of the issues. In our effort to be a prevention organization, our services have expanded 70 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 beyond just sexual assault. We have covered family violence. We are covering the homicides and those types of things. Trauma is trauma, and we have the expertise in dealing with trauma. One of the wonderful things that we are able to do is that we go from classroom to classroom. We may meet with as many as 200, 300 students in a response. It depends on the size of school and it certainly depends on the number of staff persons we're able to take with us. We do the individual counseling right there on the spot, not just for the child involved, not just for the classmates involved, but for school personnel as well. That is so important because the principal is on overload at this particular point. Staff members in the schools are on overload. They don't know what to do. And if you don't stop that staff person and give them an opportunity to debrief and talk about their own feelings, they may not make it through that particular crisis. We also work with family. It's 71 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 amazing that at the time of a crisis, family members will come to a school because trauma happens in the community. The students that are involved, they play together after school, they're involved with each other during school, so it doesn't just affect the school. It's affecting the community as well. One of the things that we do as far as the counseling, we may do individual crisis groups as well as group types of counseling services where we're also going from the classroom, classroom to classroom, identifying the at-risk students. When we take the script that is formulated by School Climate and Safety, we're in a position to give the students accurate information about what has happened. Students have more information and more stories rolling around the school, so we participate in the dispensation of proper information. That's very important. We're there to ask questions and we're there to have the students ask us the questions. Students need their questions answered. They need accurate information. They want to know what 72 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 happened, how is the family. It's amazing that even at the younger grades they're asking the same information. So we give them that opportunity to ask us. We also say, we are here for you, we're going to be here all day.

We may be back the next day or the following day. It depends on the level of response that's required. We participate in multiple day responses as well as single incident day responses. The students will come to us because they know we're in the building. They will seek us out and get our support. But we are also red flagging the students because we understand how trauma works, that we recognize an at-risk. We have those students pulled from the classroom and we meet with those students one on one. In addition to that, when a trauma response is over, it's not just over. We provide the proper referrals and linkages to our partner organizations sometimes, as well as working in the debriefing process with School Climate and Safety. So we do a 73 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 complete package wrap-up of the incident and make sure that everything is properly handled. Any necessary referrals, definitely WOAR is going to receive. We are also in a position to make referrals to the appropriate organizations. One of the nice things about working as a team with some of the other organizations here, we are not the only one in the classroom. I've been out with Myra. I've also been out with Pablo Matteo, who's also here. Our teams have been able to work together. It's not a one-man show or a one-agency show; it's a collaborative effort. Thank you for the opportunity to let you know what our part has been in this particular process.

I'm delighted to hear, too, that there's been tremendous progress and that now WOAR is an intimate member of the crisis team. Again, for my clarity, the single point of contact starts with the Office of School Climate and Safety and then the 74 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 directive or instructions funnel from that office to the various community partners; is that correct?

Yes.

That's what we call systemic change. Thank you very much for your testimony. Any additional community partners, please come forward.

Good morning. My name is Julie Goode. I'm the Executive Director of the Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia, AVP. The mission of AVP is to address the cycle of violence in Philadelphia through prevention, intervention, support and advocacy services. We've been around for over years, 19 primarily starting out working with the 20 surviving family members of homicide victims or co-victims through our Families of Murder Victims program. But with the establishment of our counseling center approximately six or seven years ago, we've really expanded beyond just working with co-victims, especially 75 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 because we have three child victim specialists and master's level therapists who provide services to children who are co-victims, who have many times been witnesses to the murder of a family member. We get referrals for children who witnessed domestic violence and also children who have been direct victims of either community violence, child abuse or other kinds of violence. We have been a partner of the School District's, as you've heard earlier, in their efforts to provide crisis response in the schools after a violent incident has affected the school community. The ones we hear about the most are when a child is murdered, but there are all sorts of other things that bring us in. Often, it's a teacher or a professional in the school that is murdered, which is also going to have a rippling effect through the school community. Last year, we actually went in for eight different incidents to partner with the School District. We went into schools for 10 76 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 days. We provided services to 459 children and 98 adults. It is really important, as WOAR was talking about, to understand that the adults need to have crisis response as well, because they're the ones the children in the schools are going to for help. And a lot of times they're as traumatized as the children. 5 hours directly working with the children. All of this is without a contract. I think that's something that's important to understand. We're doing this on a voluntary basis. Our therapists who are specially trained in grief and trauma as well as professionally trained crisis responders are called in because they have the special talents. But they have another workload of providing services to individuals and families. So lots of times we're faced with the quandary of pulling away from and canceling individual appointments in order to be able to respond to a crisis in the School District. That makes it hard for us. Although we think the system is 77 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 working, it could work a little better if there were actually dedicated staff to be doing these things. We respond as well as we can, but as I say, we're often trying to balance those things. Because we also provide long-term counseling, we're able to do follow-up counseling, and we see over 100 children a year to provide more clinical services on a long-term basis. I guess this was referred to earlier, but a lot of the children that we're seeing when we go into a school to provide crisis response are children that have been traumatized by other instances before, and this is a triggering effect. So you'll find when you go into a classroom that a child may not have even known the child that was murdered, but they might be having the most trouble responding to it and it's because they've had multiple losses in their family and it makes them re-experience these losses and the trauma of that. So that's an important thing, that the services be in place to do follow-up counseling for children who 78 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 need it the most. We also have a violence prevention program, the Student Anti-Violence Education program.

Last year we went to schools, 6 mostly in West and Southwest Philadelphia, 7 providing a 16-week anti-violence curriculum 8 in the classroom, not an assembly kind of 9 thing, but a real intensive curriculum. The 10 subjects we cover are anger management, 11 conflict resolution, communication skills, 12 bullies, et cetera. We also have counselors 13 who are in the schools meeting with the kids 14 at lunch and recess and trying to follow-up in 15 a more individualized basis what they're doing 16 in the classrooms. 17 Those are the basic ways that we are 18 partnering with the School District. I'm 19 happy to be here to have an opportunity to 20 talk about our programs.

Thank you for your testimony. Please identify yourself for the record.

Good afternoon. My 79 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 name is Pablo Matteo. I'm the Field Director for the Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network. Basically what we do is crisis intervention. We do peer mediation, conflict resolution. Our schools are separated in regions. We have the North region, Northwest region, Northeast region, East region, and we share Central East along with Town Watch. We respond to crisis calls. The School District calls up with an incident. All the incidents go through me, and what I do is dispatch a team to go out to that incident depending on how serious it is. We also do prevention. We do workshops with some of the students. We do workshops in some of the schools and conflict resolution. So if there's anything that goes on in the schools, it usually spills out into the community. So we'll make the home visits in some of these students' homes. We'll go through the community to get more information on what's going on and to make sure that it doesn't explode in the community or come back 80 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 to the school.

How long have you been a member of PAAN?

I've been a member of PAAN for years. 7

So you come 8 with a rich history. You've had a chance to 9 see the progress from where this issue of 10 school climate and safety became a laser beam in 1997, as raised by Councilwoman Blackwell and now. Would you agree?

Yes.

If you had to pick one or two highlights of where it was then and where it is now, what would they be?

From the time it started, we had a semi-relationship with the School District. As far as Vern and Sandy Holly are concerned, we had a good relationship with them, but we had a hard time getting information from the schools. Since they started this school climate, we've had nothing but help from the schools, from each individual school. 81 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798

Thank you.

It is absolutely amazing how far we've come in that regard. We argued for years and years. I'm grateful to be Chair of the Education Committee. I was Chair before. During the early days, we were told that it is our job to pass legislation, but we couldn't ask the School District anything about how money is spent. The mere fact that we asked questions pitted on the opposite side of what was right and made me this crazy radical about dealing with issues that weren't narrowly education, and budget based at that. We've come a long way to putting our feet on the ground and just being realistic and in realizing that everything we do, we're all interconnected. If we want to improve the education for children, then we have to deal with all the other issues that make them who we are, and that we have to have an organization such as this, such as an emergency crisis response team, that deals with everything that affects their little 82 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 lives. So that's my two-minute speech of the day. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Carolyn Ulmer. I'm with the Office of Behavioral Health, and I manage the Acute Services Unit. There are two big functions that come out of that unit. One is the manning of the Mental Health Line. Many in the City know us as delegates, mental health delegates, who deal with involuntary commitments. We deploy the mobile emergency team. The other big function that comes out of that unit is the manning of the Suicide and Crisis Intervention Line for the City of Philadelphia. In terms of our relationship with the school system, we have dedicated our mobile emergency team to the schools during the school year. Basically all of the deployments are directed towards the children within the City of Philadelphia for the mobile emergency team. We've set up a system in place working with not only the Office of 83 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 School Climate and Safety, but also working with the Office of Specialized Services within the school system as well. When there's a crisis, as was mentioned before, the Office of School Climate and Safety is contacted. They in turn then contact us and we in turn send out the mobile emergency team to assist them where it's needed in the particular school that's designated. Are there any questions?

No. Thank you very much. The Chair would also like to note that albeit Brenda Cooper Kutz from Horizon House is not here, she was at our preliminary meeting and we would certainly like her included on this team as well. She's an outreach person. Whenever we have issues of homelessness, whether it be children or adults and we need somebody to go out there and try to talk to some family or some person who's on the sidewalk or who's in trouble, she's a great troubleshooter and does a great job 84 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 following up. So we'd certainly like to include her. You worked with her anyway. When you mentioned mental health, I wanted to make sure I noted that for the record. Thank you. OFFICER DAVIS: I'm Officer Davis. I'm the Community Relations Officer in the 18th District, West Philadelphia. I work out of 55th and Pine. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I was unaware that when I was invited to this meeting I was going to have this opportunity. Just last year out in West Philadelphia, as I was beginning the transitional stage -- I've taken over for Officer Riles (ph) -- I had an opportunity to work with the Crisis Unit in West Philly. There was a young man that was shot and killed. Believe it or not, probably before I got to the school that morning, the Crisis Unit, they were already there, along with the clergy that I work very closely with, they were there. 85 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 Just as of last week, I got an opportunity to even get a little bit closer with School Climate Control because we've had some ongoing problems at the schools in West Philadelphia; the high schools, the junior high schools, the middle schools. Everyone is really coming together and pitching in and doing what they can to try to alleviate these problems. Myself, along with my captain, we've gone out and visited all the principals in the district. So what we decided to do was call a meeting. He said, Well, let's get all the principals together. I said, That's great. I said, We need someone else there other than just the principals, so I called Ms. Holly and Mr. Trent and they came out and brought their staff. So right now they're doing some cross-training to try to help us alleviate some of the ongoing problems with the fighting, the gangs, and whatever other problems that we're having there in the School District. Also, I work closely with Mr. 86 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 Murphy, who's back here behind me; Ms. Gibson over here. I don't want to leave out anyone. Councilwoman Blackwell, thank you for your support. Even the school police, everyone is involved trying to get this problem, you know, bring it to the head. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you, Officer Davis, for all that you do in the 18th. We also note that Frankie Hughes was here at our preliminary meeting. We'd like her included. Captain Nash from the 18th was there at our meeting, Captain Thrush from the 16th, a new captain in the 12th. Albeit these are people in my area, West and Southwest, there are people with whom we work closely and who are very, very active in trying to deal with this issue and we hope that they will be included as well. OFFICER DAVIS: If I may add one last thing, Councilwoman. Not only do we have all the captains there from West and 87 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 Southwest, the Inspector actually spearheaded the meeting because all of them are taking this matter very seriously. They want to stop it before it gets out of hand.

Thank you very much. Anyone else to testify? This gentleman? All right. So we won't hold you all but a very few minutes more.

Good afternoon, Councilwoman Blackwell and Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown. Just a few notes for the record. One is that all of the service providers, contractors and community partners also serve as advisory councilmembers, Title 4. My name is Horace Arthur Trent, III. I am the coordinator for Title 4. We meet generally every other month to discuss different tactics, different strategies as a group as to what we can do to better improve our services, and also those services that we provide students. 88 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 Lastly, I would like to note that since Vern and Sandy had to leave early, I would like to enter for the record, the printouts, the hand-outs for the Power Point presentation so that we have physical documentation as to these proceedings.

Thank you very much. They did, and we do have them. Certainly, we thank you for being here and being a part of this task force. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else? (No response.)

Certainly, as Chair of the Committee, we would like to reserve the right to include anybody else whom we have left off today or who attended our preliminary meeting to prepare for today. We thank you all. We believe this is a long step moving forward. Albeit we're very, very calm at this hearing, people don't know how excited we really are about our ability to formally work together during these times when we have a crisis every day, to realize that the 89 10/12/04 - EDUCATION - RES. 040798 citizens of our City have a right to know that the best is being done for them. And it is because of you. It's because of you and your colleagues who do such a fine job and maintain a commitment to the citizens of our City and to our children. So we thank you all. The Committee now will be recessed subject to the call of the Chair. It is our goal to establish a report with recommendations, and we will ask that the CEO, Paul Vallas, at some point in the future after a report is issued, over which we collaborate, that he will have an announcement where we announce this as a formal crisis emergency response team. Thank you all very much. Thank you. We also note that Councilwoman Donna Miller is here. This is the former Chair of Education as well. She had her staff representing her. Thank you (Council adjourned at 12:07 p.m.) 90 C E R T I F I C A T I O N I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of October 12, 2004, were reported fully and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. RE: COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION _________________________ Lisa C. Bradley, RPR