COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Friday, April 19, 2024 11:35 a.m. PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT KENYATTA JOHNSON COUNCILWOMAN NINA AHMAD COUNCILWOMAN CINDY BASS COUNCILMAN MICHAEL DRISCOLL COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILWOMAN KATHERINE GILMORE RICHARDSON COUNCILMAN JIM HARRITY COUNCILMAN CURTIS J. JONES, JR. COUNCILWOMAN RUE LANDAU COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA COUNCILMAN NICOLAS O'ROURKE COUNCILMAN ANTHONY PHILLIPS COUNCILMAN ISAIAH THOMAS COUNCILMAN JEFFREY YOUNG, JR. RESOLUTIONS: 240254, 240255, 240256, 240257, 240258, 240259, 240260, 240261, 240262 - - -
This is the public hearing and public meeting of the Committee of the Whole regarding Resolution Nos. 240254, 240255, 240256, 240257, 240258, 240259, 240258, 240259, 240260, 240261 and 240262. Thank you for being here today. Mr. Christmas, will you please take roll for attendance.
Present. Thank you. A quorum of the Committee is present and this hearing is now called to order. Mr. Christmas, will you please read the titles of the resolutions.
Resolution 10 240254, confirming the appointment of Crystal Cubbage to the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia. Resolution 240255, confirming the re-appointment of Sarah-Ashley Andrews to the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia. Resolution 240256, confirming the appointment of Joan Stern to the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia. Resolution 240257, confirming the re-appointment of Reginald Streater to the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia. Resolution 240258, confirming the appointment of Wanda Novales to the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia. Resolution 240259, confirming the appointment of Whitney Jones to the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia. Resolution 240260, confirming the re-appointment of ChauWing Lam to the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia. Resolution 240261, confirming the re-appointment of Joyce Wilkerson to the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia. And finally, Resolution 25 240262, confirming the appointment of Cheryl Harper to the Board of Education of the School District of Philadelphia. Resolution 240261 is being held.
Good morning, everyone. We will now begin the hearing regarding the School Board nominations for the School District of Philadelphia. We want to welcome you to the City Council of Philadelphia, so we will begin testimony. So, Mr. Streater, would you like to begin -- one second. Chair recognizes Councilmember Thomas.
Good morning, Council President. Good morning, colleagues. Good morning to the members of our School Board and all of the people in the listening public, the audience here today as well as those viewing who have taken an interest in their government and specifically in their schools. Again, I'm Councilmember Isaiah Thomas. I've been the Chair of the Education Committee for about two years now. But prior to being the Chair of the Education Committee, I'm a product of the School District of Philadelphia, graduated from public schools. My father is a retired teacher who taught over 40 years in the School District of Philadelphia. And I, myself, am a former teacher. I've taught everything from undergrad down to kindergarten, former Athletic Director, worked closely with the School District and still works closely with the School District because I still coach high school basketball. I'm still the President of the Coaches Association for the Public League for Boys Basketball, and I sit on the board for PIAA District XII. The reason I said all that is because I want to make what we're doing here today clear. As the Chair at the Education Committee on City Council, I wear a lot of hats outside of City Council that has put me in a unique position to have a personal relationship with principals, with teachers and most importantly with students and families. I can argue that I spend more time in our schools based on the hats that I wear than most of the people sitting in the room 16 right now because I'm constantly in the schools, whether I'm coaching games, running free summer programs, working on different initiatives to support young people and families. And so, today's dialogue is 100 percent about children and families. And I want to make that very clear. In the midst of talking to my colleagues, in the midst of the work that we've done on the Education Committee, we have a lot of concerns around our schools. Council President, I've listened to you talk multiple times about outcomes, why are our children not learning. I've listened to Councilmember Gilmore Richardson talk a lot about apprenticeship programs, why are our young people not being put in a position if they don't want to graduate from high school where they can go into a quality apprenticeship program, and I commend her for her legislation to allow more points for young people who go to our CTE schools. We have new Councilmembers who are here who've been advocating, especially our District Councilmembers, for the schools in their neighborhoods no matter what type of school it is. They just want to assure a quality education. So at the end of the day, Council President, I thought it was important to frame today's conversation because as elected officials, we are held accountable by the people of Philadelphia. The people put us here. The people decide whether or not we're doing a good job, and the people determine if we get to stay here. And I think every one of my colleagues are here today to vote on behalf of the constituents that they represent and nothing more than that. With that being said, Council President, I'm looking forward to today's conversation. I'm going to be able to have the opportunity to ask questions of School Board members who've been in a position for some time. But I'll say this to close out, Council President. Since I've been the Chair of the Education Committee in September of 2022, not only is it the greatest honor I've ever had as it relates to a position being an elected official, and you know firsthand how much this means to me, and I appreciate you for re-appointing me as the Chair of the Education Committee, every single day I work tirelessly to try to put us in a position to improve the quality of life of our children so we can assure that no 14 matter what zip code a child lives in, they have access to a quality education. So I'm looking forward to today's conversation.
And I'm excited to continue the work that the Education Committee as a whole has done to advocate for families and children in need. Thank you, Council President. Thank you for allowing me to have this opportunity as the Chair of the Education Committee. And again, I look forward to today's discussion.
You're welcome, Chairman Thomas. So actually we're going to start with Resolution No. 240254, Ms. Crystal Cubbage.
Good morning, other members of the Council. I'm honored that Mayor Parker nominated me to be a School Board member and to be speaking with you today. What follows are a few highlights from my life and career that qualify me for this role and some of the reasons why I applied to be on the Board. I'm a proud Philadelphia native as well, educated in the City's public school system. And after graduating from Masterman, I studied physics at Lincoln University. I know a lot of students from the school system go to Lincoln University. And after my graduation, I began my career as an electronics engineer at NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. In search of a more personally satisfying work, I decided to join the Peace Corps to serve as an education volunteer in Cameroon, West Africa. There I discovered my passion for education. And shortly after returning to the States because I'm not a trust fund baby, my parents are like, what are you doing going to the Peace Corps, we thought we were done with you. But I returned to my job as an engineer. It wasn't satisfying enough, so I made the permanent switch to education. I changed my career from engineering to education and proceeded to teach some combination of physics, chemistry and math at Girard College, the Shipley School, Greene Street Friends School and Germantown Friends School. Simultaneously I began working with a mentor to create a five-month program that took students on an identity development journey that culminated with summer travel to multiple countries in West Africa and Western Europe. It was called Journey to Freedom. Together these experiences convinced me of the value of experiential education, and I'm happy to hear that some of the Councilmembers believe in that as well. It fueled my decision to pursue a Master's Degree in School Leadership at Harvard's Graduate School of Education. Since graduating, I've worked at the education thinktank Jobs for the Future, at Drexel University, the School District of Philadelphia, and now the Philadelphia Learning Collaborative. I've done everything from analyzing student performance data and grants management to facilitating contract negotiation to open new schools and convening groups of educators to write policy statements. Exposure to these environments has helped me to gain insight into what a healthy, functional school that prepares students to lead lives of meaning and purpose after graduation, what that looks like. During these years, I have developed skills and operations, collaboration, nonprofit leadership and relationship cultivation and maintenance. My network in the City's education and nonprofit sectors is substantial. These factors qualify me to serve. I am particularly excited about Mayor Parker's -- that Mayor Parker is prioritizing teacher recruitment and retention. I believe that if we hire and retain the right teachers, they will educate and care for our children. I want to serve because I've been asked to. I have a lot to offer, and it is my responsibility to contribute to improving the quality of life in my hometown. More importantly, I know how extraordinary the children in Philadelphia are and I know they deserve better than what they have been getting from our system. I want to be one of the ones with this impressive slate of nominees, particularly those who hold the institutional knowledge. I'm sitting next to two of them, there's Joyce Wilkerson and Chau Lam, one of those who helps heal the system that I believe can heal our children and ultimately transform our City. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Next we're going to ask for Sarah-Ashley Andrews.
Good morning, President Johnson and members of City Council. My name is Sarah- Ashley Andrews. Thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding my nomination to the Board of Education. I was born and raised in North Philadelphia. My educational journey began at the Salvation Army Daycare Center. As my parents began to look for schools for my sister and I to attend, they felt my neighborhood school would not provide the safety or educational experience that we needed, as we would have to navigate through drug paraphernalia and crime-ridden streets to make it to school each day. My parents fought for me to obtain the educational experience they felt I deserved. That prepared me to stand ready to fight for the students of Philadelphia, ensuring that they receive the best educational experiences no matter their zip codes or no matter what school they attend, especially those students who sit at intersections where they are ignored and marginalized because of their complex and layered identities that give no framework for their existence. My belief has always been that our schools need to be lighthouses for our students, places where all students can feel safe, welcomed and supported. As a proud graduate of the Philadelphia School District, I am an example of the type of success that students of Philadelphia can achieve. I attended General George A. McCall Elementary School from kindergarten to 8th grade. B. Saul High School. I have a firm belief that all students can learn and thrive in our school system no matter their race or their zip code. This especially happens when we focus on their academic achievement and their well-being. I attended Bloomsburg University for two years where I majored in mass communications. I hold a Bachelor of Art's Degree in Biblical Studies with a minor in Human Services from Lancaster Bible College. I hold a Master's of Science Degree in Counseling from Lincoln University and I am also a licensed professional counselor. As a licensed professional counselor, I bring a unique approach to communication and decision-making. As a Board member, we are often faced with tough decisions. My special set of skills helps us ask processing questions, get to the root of the problem and decide on a solution. Each of those decisions have had a direct focus on student achievement. For the past two years I have been committed to Board transparency, prioritizing student success and focus on our students who most would throw away such as our drop-outs. I have helped to develop the vision for the School District of Philadelphia, adopted and supported Accelerate Philly, the Superintendent's strategic plan to make Philadelphia the fastest, improving, large urban school district in the nation. Accelerate Philly has already produced great results for our students and our teachers. My experience as a current Board member has equipped me with the necessary tools to further succeed in this position. As the youngest current Board member of the Board of Education and the Student Board Rep Liaison, I have been afforded the unique opportunity to engage with students on a level in which they feel comfortable sharing the truth. Some would say it is my skills as a therapist. However, I see it as a direct reflection of representation. Students can see themselves in me. I am the example of someone that they can mirror, and I look forward to moments of interacting with our students who can relate and feel safe when I show up. I have also had the opportunity to co-chair the Parent and Community Advisory Council for the past year. Within that year of my appointment, we have developed a mission and vision for PCAC. With my collaborative leadership skills, we have moved PCAC in a direction where members feel that their recommendations, suggestions and opinions are heard. The members have become more engaged with the Board of Education and that has helped us to share vital information with all communities all over Philadelphia.
More than that, I have been committed to inspiring all students to greatness. I often remind students that they can be anything they want to be and help to give them the tools, mentorship and connecting them to the resources to do so. I have structured my life around this quote which sums up who I am as a person, "The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great at whatever they want to do," and that's by Kobe Bryant. In closing, I often reflect on Mayor Parker's vision to make Philadelphia the safest, cleanest, greenest big city. Without quality education, this vision will not come to pass. As a current Board member, I am thankful that Mayor Parker chose four of us to continue this great work. And through the leadership of former President Joyce Wilkerson and current President Reginald Streater, our progress speaks to the collective goal to improve District outcomes. This is working as it was highlighted in the recent State of Education speech by Dr. Watlington and recent highlights on post- pandemic achievements. This work speaks to our willingness to work together to achieve what are the best outcomes for students. It speaks to our emphasis on student achievement and will ultimately help create the city that Mayor Parker envisions. I will be honored to continue my tenure on the Board of Education as we are headed in the right direction. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
You're welcome. The Chair now recognizes Reginald Streater.
Good brother Council President and esteemed members of the City Council, I stand before you today not merely as an individual but as a member of a collective team, a slate, that embodies the rich diversity and talent of our great city, and I am honored to seek re-appointment to the Philadelphia Board of Education. I've come back for Round 2. As a devoted servant leader, proud member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. by way of Rho Chapter, and practicing attorney, my commitment to service, leadership is in my bones y'all, and advocacy has profoundly shaped my tenure on the Board of Education. I am grateful for the diligent efforts of the nominating panel, some of whom which are here today. I also wish to thank our Mayor for assembling such an impressive, impressive group of individuals for this slate in the yeoman's work that is ahead. Reflecting on my background, I'm reminded of my humble beginnings as a young Black boy, navigating housing insecurity in this City of Philadelphia. It was through the unwavering support of my village that I cultivated a lifelong passion for learning and required the foundational tools necessary for success, Council President. School was my fortress of solitude, nourishment and transformation, whether it's through the academic achievement, amazing teachers and principals like Gloria Pelzer at Germantown High School or through working with Coach Hawkins playing football at Germantown High School. Amazing teachers are access to extra- curriculars. I truly believe that the whole child was educated and that was me. And I'm no different than any of our babies in this City right here. This foundation provided me with a platform to return to school at age 27, y'all. After working nine years mostly as a bartender, bartender at TGI Friday on City Avenue in front of AI by the way, graduate from law school and practice law as an attorney right now at Feldman Shepherd helping people every day. I am consistent. Everything I do flows through my life, through my being for the babies and its service. I have no skin of the game other than the babies, and the one that's on the way by the way. I love you, honey, I know she's watching. This foundation -- I already said that part. Now, as one of Mayor Parker's nine exceptionals, nine exceptionals, appointed to the Board of Education, I'm a living testament, again a living testament of the transformative power of our strong public education. Before I proceed, I will be remiss -- I wish to express my gratitude to the outgoing Board members who are working tirelessly right now, right like this instant to ensure a smooth transition while continuing to focus on student achievement, right, and the holistic education of children through the Board's goals and guardrails. They have also been steadfast in managing public funds and supporting our remarkable, I mean remarkable, Superintendent. We hired him with the support of the public because we engaged the public. I believe this slate, this slate, is poised to build upon this momentum, which includes making tough decisions, even reversing them when necessary just as the former Board did, and just as I know this slate would in the best interest of our students, our babies. And y'all wonder why is he saying babies, because I'm a papa, I'm a Daddy, I'm a baba. These efforts have resulted in, among many other things, 13 out of 17 student achievement indicators on the rise. That doesn't sound like status quo to me, on the rise. National recog -- Philadelphia, we can win, and the Eagles ain't the only ones who could show us we can win. We can win and we're winning. National recognition for the District's recovery to prepandemic education levels, that was hard y'all. And we all should applaud that, everybody. City Council, y'all helped, y'all funded, y'all went out there and helped us. Thank you.
Financial health and just great energy, synergy around the whole sector -- and I know the whole story has not been told -- the whole sector of public education, we did that and we will continue doing that. Now, today this slate's collective expertise is a testament to our city and it embodies our Mayor's vision for One Philly. I got my finger in the air, Mayor, inclusive of a world-class education system for all children no matter where they are educated. To illustrate, to my right Joan Stern, an attorney and graduate of Girls' High School. I bet y'all didn't know that, skin in the game, graduate of Girls' High School back when they were across the street from CCP in Masterman's building, and she's about that life. An attorney and graduate of Girls' High brings a wealth, a wealth of public finance knowledge, navigating fiscal challenges with unparalleled precision. She has receipts. Wanda Novales, Pastor Wanda Novales, former District and Public Charter educator, balanced and now faith leader enhances our ability to govern a public system of education that educates the growing bilingual populations. We need that. We need that. I'm not done yet. I'm sorry. Cheryl Harper's extensive Human Resource expertise combined with her state and local experience as an educator strengthens our capacity to govern effectively. I mean, I can't find a weakness in this slate. Crystal Cubbage, versatility in creating and maintaining strategic partnerships. I've been hearing that since I've been on the Board, partnerships, partnerships, public-private partnerships, intergovernmental approach, what's up. Combined with her state and local expertise -- I'm sorry, and maintaining strategic partnerships will be invaluable as we seek to further along with Mayor Parker's -- and I've heard the call from others, but Mayor Parker's call for the cultivation of public-private partnerships. ChauWing Lam, dynamite. I've been in the foxhole with ChauWing Lam, analytical prowess has been essential in implementing governance frameworks that drive student success. Let's go. This is complimented by Joyce Wilkerson's wide breadth of experience. And I'm going to say a few words about Joyce Wilkerson because I've been in the foxhole with this dynamite woman. Little do people know that this sister was one of the beneficiaries of the Brown v. Board of Education, was a part of the first class that desegregated the school, did you know? Well, maybe that's why she's a little gruff. Maybe that's why she's a little like I'm tired of this stuff and we got to get this thing right, right. Two, she went to a great law school. And as for the lawyer Joan up here, I think you know there's multiple paths that opens up if you go to a great law school. She could clerk for a judge, but guess what she did? She came to Philly and worked for Community Legal Services. That's Joyce Wilkerson. That's Joyce Wilkerson. On top of that, she said I'm going to serve even more. She keeps coming back for more y'all. She served at City Hall with Mayor Street. I'm almost done on this. I know you're like why you talking about Joyce, but I'm almost done. But one more thing, after Katrina she raised her hand and went to New Orleans and went to help and she came back for more again, Joyce Wilkerson. Whitney Jones offers a national perspective on finance and charter school management, expanding our educational pathways. Come on y'all. Returning Board member Sarah-Ashley Andrews brings her counseling expertise as she said in nonprofit leadership, providing robust essential tools for Board governance, indeed as a current Board member and interested citizen. This slate is loaded with talent, temperament and nuance necessary to govern this District in the right now. Did I miss any -- I hope I didn't miss anybody. I got everybody. I got y'all. Okay. Finally, as a Black man I'm committed to leading by example inspiring more Black men to actively participate in the civic and educational spheres of our community.
There is a gap of Black men who are educated, who came through the system, who raised their hand like Good Brother Isaiah Thomas and said, we will serve. We need more of us. My lived experience as a product of Philly, a family of two children with one on the way as I said earlier, in public education and as a lawyer compels me to serve with my heart and my head, passion, servant leadership and pragmatism. I know that this slate aims to further the City's collective mission of making education the great equalizer. After my interactions with these eight amazing individuals, I believe it is safe to say -- and I'm sorry I came off, I'm a lawyer so please excuse my passion, I'm a lawyer so I like advocating -- I believe it is safe to say that we are dedicated to ensuring that every child, every single baby in Philadelphia receives a world-class quality education empowering them to pursue their dreams and contribute positively to society. I'm eager to continue this journey. I am at your service as I have been and I hope to continue to be.
Thank you. Next, the Chair next calls for Ms. Joan Stern.
Thank you, Council President Johnson. And thank you for honoring me, by inviting me to be nominated -- to be considered for confirmation to the Board of Education. As members of this Council and the Council President know, I am at the end of my legal career. I retired from private practice September 30, 2023. What I wanted to do in my retirement was to serve one of the governments I had represented and I sought to become a member of the Board of Education whose schools I attended, whom I was fortunate to represent as bond counsel and special finance counsel. I think my acquaintance with the Council President goes back to his time in the General Assembly, so he is well aware as many of you Councilpeople and staff members are, that I worked fairly tirelessly to improve the credit, the market access and the funding for the School District of Philadelphia. And I now hope to do that as a Board member to share what I have gained in the 50 years that I worked with the School District, with the Board. And I'm very, very impressed with the Board nominees that I have been included in. This is an exceptionally diverse and talented group of people. I've known Joyce Wilkerson since she worked in Mayor Street's Office as his Chief of Staff, and we struggled with credit issues and economic issues for the City, for the Gas Works, for some of the City's other utilities, and I'm very impressed with the re-appointment of the Board members who are here today already serving and with the new members who show what Philadelphia can produce. I would like to just briefly touch on my own experience in the law because I started as a paralegal at a law firm now known as Blank Rome LLP, and was assigned to work on my first public finance issue as a paralegal under Governor's Shapp with the necessity for issuing the first disaster relief bonds in the country. So if you look in your Constitution and you see mention of the great storm and flood of 1972, that is our amendment, an emergency amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution that allowed us before FEMA existed to issue bonds for our local share, the Commonwealth share, to put our people who were living in tents, which we could see from the turnpike if we were going back and forth to Harrisburg, living in tents as a result of this Force 5 hurricane, the great storm and flood of 1972 known as Agnes. Not surprisingly working on such an important project that restored homes to individuals whose homes had been destroyed by a natural disaster made me want to practice public finance, and I decided to pursue a career in the law and work on public finance projects. I managed not to be deterred by the fact that there were no women in that field. When I graduated from law school and joined Blank Rome as an attorney, I became one of two women in Pennsylvania who practiced public finance law. We used to joke that we could convene the entire female bar in public finance by going to the ladies room at the same time. So I too understand what it means to be excluded and doubted. And I am here to tell you that because of the education that I got in the School District of Philadelphia, even though I went to Houston School, then what was known as the General Louis Wagner Junior High School and 17th and Spring Garden Girls' High for one year. Those were all built by the WPA in the '30s. Those buildings are still in use in our School District. I think our children deserve better than that. They deserve to be able to attend school at any time of the year in a place that's clean, well-lighted, safe and where they can study to achieve careers that allow them to rise to the best of their abilities, whether they learn a trade or whether they become scientists like my fellow nominee Crystal Cubbage, an engineer for NASA as part of her career. I hope to share what I've learned with my fellow Board members, with Dr.
Watlington and the staff and teachers at the School District and with the children and families whom we all must serve and advance. Thank you again for letting me appear today, and I'm prepared to answer any of your questions.
Thank you, Ms. Stern. And I remember the story about associating and gathering with the bar because at that time it was few women in the legal field. So it's definitely an honor seeing you up here for the great work you have done for the City of Philadelphia. Most people don't know you did the bond work for the Eagles stadium and probably every other major project here in the City Philadelphia. So welcome back to these chambers. Good to see you. The Chair next calls up Ms. Wanda Novales. Ms. Novales, you can start. Just state your name for the record and begin your testimony.
Sure. Good morning. My name is Wanda Novales. Dear, Council President Johnson and Honorable Councilmembers. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. To my fellow nominees, I am honored to share this moment with all of you. I truly respect you all and I cherish the experience and institutional knowledge that all the nominees bring to the table, especially Joyce Wilkerson and Richard -- and Reginald Streater and all our returning Board members. My name is Wanda Novales and I'm the Executive Pastor of City Reach Church, which I founded in 2013 with my husband Mark Novales and our two sons Mark and Joseph in the Tacony section of Philadelphia. In 2023 we expanded and opened a campus in Kensington, a neighborhood near and dear to my heart, as it is where I spent most of my career in education. I moved to Fairhill from Puerto Rico at 9 years old, and I'm a proud District graduate. My two sons are District and Charter school graduates and I earned degrees in education from Temple and Cheyney University. I began my career as a bilingual teacher and proudly served as a School District principal. I am also the founding principal and CEO of the first primary and middle years IB World School in Philadelphia, Pan American Academy Charter School serving one of the city's poorest zip codes. That's my resumé, but today I want to share my passion for quality education for all students. When I became a teacher, my father was very disappointed. His dream for me was much bigger. He would say, (Spanish translation), My dear child you never lose a battle, you need to be a lawyer, you were designed to fight for others. And I did. Throughout my career, I have advocated for the voiceless, forgotten and overlooked. As a kindergarten teacher program coordinator, I advocated for equal funding for bilingual programs. I designed and implemented a dual language immersion program against budget challenges. As a School District principal, I fought tirelessly to have my building renovated, leveraged relationships with higher educational institutions, focused on teacher development, retention and higher achievement. As a founding school principal, I dare to believe that my students deserved a world-class education, to be fluent in two languages, to be engaged in learning in a beautiful state-of- the-art facility and to travel the world. I secured funding, managed a new building project and our students outperformed all neighboring schools. I wish my dad was here today because I believe that he would agree that this is part of my greater purpose. I have fought, I am fighting and I will continue to fight to provide all Philadelphia students the quality education they deserve. I welcome the opportunity to serve our City as a member of the next School Board. I thank Mayor Parker for her nomination and appreciate your consideration.
Thank you. The Chair now calls Ms. Whitney -- Mr. Whitney Jones. Excuse me.
-- to Council President Johnson and the other members of this body. My name is Whitney Jones. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am humbled and honored by Mayor Parker's nomination and the opportunity given to me by the Nominating Committee to serve on this Board. I began my career in public education 10 years ago. This is after leaving several years on Wall Street. What I found was I wanted to use my skills and talents to support communities and build for the future. Since then I've held a variety of roles supporting charters in New York, Texas, Washington, D.C. and most recently Philadelphia. My work has included tackling such challenges as compensation for teachers and other staff in the buildings, securing funding for new facilities and managing through good times and bad, including the most recent pandemic. When I began my career in public education, I believed public education was the great equalizer to many of society's inequities. While I still believe there's truth in that statement, I now know that there are systemic barriers that limit student achievement prior to even arriving at school on a daily basis. Delivering a high quality education to a city as diverse as Philadelphia is no easy task. The historical context coupled with the complexities of operating school systems in most major cities including housing and food insecurities, teacher recruitment and retention, ever-changing demographics and supporting populations with heterogeneous needs create what could feel like insurmountable challenges. However, I don't believe that's the case before you today. The Mayor and the Nominating Committee engaged in a thoughtful process to select this slate of candidates. I am new to serving in this capacity. However, I'm excited. I'm excited to learn from the experiences, tenacity and leadership of the current Board members who volunteered to do this work again, including past President Wilkerson and current President Streater. I'm excited to work with the new Board members to bring new ideas and perspective to make the best decisions for our kids. With the Mayor's vision for One Philadelphia -- for One Philly, the diversity of skill sets and perspectives of the slate of nominees, the partnership with the School District as well as this legislative body, I believe we'll be able to achieve great things for our City. Again, I thank you for this opportunity and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you very much, Whitney. Next we're going to ask for Ms. ChauWing Lam to begin her testimony.
Good morning, Council President -- good afternoon perhaps -- good afternoon, Council President Johnson and members of City Council. I am ChauWing Lam, a South Philly resident, a charter school parent, a proud graduate of public schools and a Board member serving since 2022. Thank you for the opportunity to testify as one of Mayor Parker's nominees to the Board of Education. And thank you, Mayor Parker, for the great honor of your nomination. I believe, as I've heard many in this room attest to, that education is a human right and a public good. The investments and choices that we make in our educational system has an outsized effect in shaping life trajectories and disrupting or perpetuating societal inequities. I was raised by a single mom who brought three children to this country at the age of 27. For my fellow parents out there, the age of 27 we were 1, and years old and spoke no English. She worked 6 days a week, 12 hours a day for meager earnings and taught me a lot about sacrifice. Working hard and persevering was my way of repaying my mom for her continued sacrifice, and public education was pivotal in lifting us out of poverty and giving us a chance at success. I have since dedicated my career to ensuring opportunity and access for children and families regardless of background or circumstance. As a college student, I tutored students at Henry C. Lee and the former Charles R. Drew Schools in West Philly. I traveled overseas to teach at a middle school and learned how another educational system works. I later worked as a consultant to human services agencies to address operational and budget challenges that got in the way of keeping kids safe. I've also worked at the School District to align resources and efforts around early literacy and at a nonprofit to build up, develop and support school leaders. Through these experiences and others, I've gained valuable skills in finance, operations, data analytics, policy and performance management, all of which I employ regularly as a Board member, co-chairing the policy committee, examining and monitoring academic progress in our schools, lending a lived perspective as a first generation student and former English language learner. My approach as a Board member is data-driven, student- centered and collaborative. I am excited for all of Mayor Parker's nominees and what we bring to the table as a collective Board. The wisdom and steadfastness of Joyce Wilkerson, the energy and insightfulness of Sarah-Ashley Andrews, the commitment and drive of Reginald Streater. And to Wanda, Joan, Crystal, Cheryl, Whitney who I have not yet gotten to know as well, I cannot be more excited to work with you on this Board together for our children for the City of Philadelphia. Thank you, Councilmembers, for your continued support to public education in Philadelphia and for this opportunity to testify as a nominee to the Board of Education.
Thank you. The Chair next calls for Ms. Cheryl Harper.
Or actually good afternoon. First, I want to thank Mayor Cherelle Parker for nominating me to the Philadelphia School Board of Education. I hope to be a valuable asset, addition to the School District and to the community. I want to thank you, President Council -- Council President Johnson and all of the Councilmembers, for this opportunity to testify and ask for your support to serve. I believe that together with my fellow nominees I have the experience, temperament and judgment to serve as a member of the Board of Education. I was educated in the Philadelphia public school system graduating from Germantown High. I received my Bachelor's of Science Degree from Cheyney University and my Master's Degree from Arcadia, which was Beaver College when I was there. I hold certifications in elementary and special education. I also have Elementary and Secondary Principal certificates. I have a Supervisor certificate and I hold the Superintendent's Letter of Eligibility. I taught in Philadelphia as an elementary teacher and was the acting vice-principal. I was appointed as a placement officer in the Human Resource Office and later appointed by then Superintendent, the late Superintendent Dr. Constance E. Clayton as Director of Human Resources. I spent 30 years working in the School District of Philadelphia. I actively recruited quality staff to assure that our students would have quality education. I worked with administrators, teachers, staff, students, families and community. After retiring from the School District of Philadelphia, I was called to work for the Camden Public School System as Executive Director of Human Resources. In that capacity, I continued to work with administrators, teachers, staff, students, families and the community. Later under Governor Ed Rendell's Governor's Institute, I was appointed as a distinguished educator for the Pennsylvania Department of Ed. I was assigned to various school districts across the state of Pennsylvania helping them to make AYP, which is adequately yearly progress. I left the position to become a Site Director Adjunct Professor Supervisor of Student Teachers for Drexel University. I am currently a Trustee for Cheyney University appointed by our past Governor, Governor Tom Wolf. At each stage of my career, people in leadership have recognized my skills and talents and called upon me to take on important and difficult challenges. I bring that experience to this position. I'm dedicated and committed to assuring that every child is afforded the opportunity to be successful and that no child is left behind. My experience was to provide support for principals and teachers on improving instruction and increasing student achievement using data from diagnostic to formative and summative assessments, attendance rates and school improvement plans. I support principals and helped assist teachers in delivering effective differentiated instructions tailored to meet the individual needs of all students. I'm sorry, I missed -- the Mayor has a vision for quality schools across all sectors, traditional public, charter and independent. I share that vision and look forward to working with my fellow nominees. And I look forward, especially to working with those who have institutional knowledge of the Board, School Board. And, that is, the President Reggie Streater, Joyce Wilkerson and also ChauWing and Sarah-Ashley Andrews who bring some information and some important experience to the School District and all of my fellow nominees. And again, I want to thank you for allowing me this opportunity to testify.
You're welcome. At this time, we will open it up for members of City Council for questions. Yeah, little guy. What's up, little buddy. That's what's up. He stole the show. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jones.
Thank you so much, Mr. President. I was anxious to do an opening statement along with my colleague. But as Chair of Education, I yielded the mic. But I did want to kind of preempt why public education matters to me. My grandfather was one of the first graduates of African American descent to graduate from Central. My father, a graduate of Overbrook, my mother, a graduate of West Philly High School, they got married. If you know the rivalry, that marriage was doomed from the start. My children, Lamberton and Central graduates, but my grandkids have chosen other paths into charter schools based on their perception of the quality of education that they have. Having said that, I remember being in these chambers, it's my sixth term, and each time a President or a School Board presented their vision about education, quite frankly I didn't quite understand it until now under this Administration seeing what guardrails, guidelines you had. If I were giving you grades, some of them you passed, some of them you failed and some of them you need work on, but that's why we grade and average them. I know from the time we gained control from the state, you've made a marked improvement in that regard. I know during the pandemic there was no instruction manuals to educate our kids. We, collective we, City, Administration, Council and you made it through without losing too many of our kids through learning loss and through some of the hazards of them staying at home. The predictability of food insecurities, we managed through that to the degree that the counties were envious of what you were able to do to provide laptops and other things to create that. So I don't want us to not say what was done real well. We have environmental issues, lead, paint, asbestos that we have to manage through with a $6 billion capital improvement need that we have to manage collectively. I would go on and say that where you need help, and I would ask Joyce Wilkerson and Mr. Streater this one question: Do you think you treat charter schools and public schools fairly? Is there an apples-to-apples comparison? I've stood on the line with our Chair testifying about schools and equity, particularly in African American charter schools. I've been in the room with Global who started like the little house on the prairie in a church. And even when the school burned down, they didn't miss a beat. They took kids on trips to the museums and managed through it. But somehow, and I remember this turning point, I was in Mayor Kenney's office with them, Chair of Ed -- Deputy Mayor for Education, and I asked him one question, if you had one child to go through one door on the first day of school and all things being equal, would you go to Global Leadership Academy or one school that I will not name because they've gotten better since, but at the time for show- and-tell a kid brought a 9mm handgun for show-and-tell, someone brought packets of fentanyl and we had to rush the whole class to University of Penn. And I asked them point blank charter school, public being equal, which door would you take your child too. And he looked me in the face and said, well, uh, that depends on -- and that was a boldfaced lie. It was an untruth. So I ask you today -- and the only issue I have with any of this because it's fair to -- I walked the hallways with Streater up at Randolph where one-third of the kids that go through the automotive are now in our vehicle maintenance program for the City of Philadelphia school-to-paycheck pipeline, so you get some good grades. But the one that I need to hard-check you on is do you treat all schools fairly in your evaluation? I've been at way too many of the advocacy hearings in your -- and you treat me nice, polite, you move me up in the line, let me speak, but at the end of the day it falls on deaf ears. So two-part question: Do you always treat them fairly and do you have it in you to treat them fairly under a Parker team, question?
I don't know if the mic's on. Can you hear me now -- yes. Thank you for that question, Councilmember Jones. Yes, I can speak to my experience of being on the Board for three years. I can speak to the fact that the Board of Education even through the Accelerate Philly process, create a unifying mission and vision inclusive of charter schools, and what I can also speak to is that the Board of Education has aspired to treat all schools fairly. But -- I'm sorry, is there counter? But I think it's important to talk a little bit about what are the tools at hand that can be utilized by law as it relates to Charter schools and District schools. Under the law we're allowed to create things like Accelerate Philly and goals and guardrails that enshrines the same things that I believe Charter law is trying to also implement through Board governance, through academic achievement, high standards there, and also as it relates to financial domain. And I believe since I've been on the Board and even before that I believe that there's been strident work being done to treat charters fairly, and I have data to prove it. So, for example, under the Board of Education we have increased the size of the charter sector by 2,000 seats, even though there's about 7,500 vacancies in the space. And I can tell you where those seats were. Kensington/Richmond area, Mariana Bracetti, Franklin Towne High School, Franklin Towne Elementary School, North Philly Esperanza, 368 seats; Eugenio Maria de Hostos, 310 seats; Antonia Pantoja, 50 seats; Northeast Philadelphia MaST, 650 seats; Keystone, 300 seats; Mastery Smedley, 25; Southwest Montessori, 82; West KIPP -- KIPP West, 125. And the Board has not non-renewed or closed a charter in two years even though the performance framework says maybe that's a possibility. So I do believe that we are trending in the way of being fair and utilizing the tools that we have under the law to work with charter providers. But sometimes we have to make tough decisions, especially after we know there's been 15 years in some cases of trying to work with charter operators to make sure that we're all doing what we need to do for our babies.
Let me just say I'm going with the team Mayor Parker has recommended because if she's responsible for making the meals, she should be responsible for the groceries so that's -- but I do not subscribe that you've been fair. You can't tell me that. The question I have today is can you be fair going forward. And when Hackney said that to me and said, yeah, I would take my kids, I knew -- you're in a room 19 full of politicians, we can hear it. The question is we know or most people know that there's not an apples-to-apples comparison. The question is, going forward under a Parker Administration can you be fair? Because let me say this, agnostically I care about good schools period, right, period. (Applause.)
And my grandkids should not be playing whatever external factor politics. There's a school-to-prison pipeline we have to break. There are 48 zip codes in the City of Philadelphia. of them produce 90 percent of 12 the inmates on State Road. And 13 conversely, it's where the failing 14 schools are. We got to stop that. 15 And I don't know all that 16 other political who's on what team, 17 I don't care and I want you not to 18 care. And I trust Mayor Parker in 19 that respect, and I want to and will trust you in that respect. But I kid you not, hear this on the record, if we can't treat them fairly, you won't -- I take tough tax votes, am I right. You haven't lived until you knock on the door in Roxborough and say, hey, I'm Councilman Jones, I'm here to run for re-election, oh and by the way, I raised your taxes. You ain't lived. So I got skin in the game. But if you want me to continue that, you got to show me you're fair. Thank you. (Applause.)
Thank you. Thank you so much, Councilmember Jones. Colleagues, as a heads-up we will have seven minutes each in this round as we typically do in all of our Committee of the Whole hearings. Okay. The Chair will recognize Councilmember Phillips.
Thank you, Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson. You know today I just want to begin by saying this is about our children. One of the things that has always been important to me with my interactions with people is about listening, being collaborative and not having a mentality that I got it right, I know it all, I'm everything. One of the things that has been really helpful for me is that even coming on City Council, I've had a host of people, friends, family, colleagues who have said, you know, Anthony Phillips, here's where you're doing right but here's where you can get better. If you look around this room, this is why we are here today. We have charter schools from North Philadelphia, West Philadelphia, South Philadelphia, Southwest Philadelphia, Northwest Philadelphia and Northeast who have had it up to here with how we have not listened to them. (Applause.)
I am not a person who will say that I'm an expert on everything when it comes to the School District of Philadelphia, though I'm a former educator, though I'm really great with college access and all that stuff with young people. But what I will say is this: I'm really good at listening because I want people to be treated the same way that I want people to treat us. And right now unfortunately, there's a lot of listening that has not been happening. We have one of the best schools in the Olney area called ASPIRA. At times they may not meet the mark for academic achievement, but they strive every single day and actually they've been growing every single year. This particular school -- these parents send their children to these schools because, one, their safety, they feel a sense of culture, they feel a sense of community. Unfortunately, whatever reason some parents make decisions and choose in their schools, some parents can send their kids to private schools and paid schools. These parents send their children to these schools because of certain values that are reflected. I may not necessarily have an opinion on pro-charter versus against charter, but what I do know is that ASPIRA is working for families. And if it's not working in your eyes, how do you do better -- I'm talking to the old Board. How do you do better to help them become the best that they could potentially be? How can you make sure that they're successful? So the question that I have for all of you is if you can grade yourself as a Board member just like we have to grade our children, the previous Board, where would you give yourself as a grade on that grade and will you champion public charter schools as vital partners in creating a system of great schools that better serves Philadelphia students and families? This is for our old Board members, our seasoned ones. Excuse me.
I'll take that first, especially as the current Board President. I'll give myself a B. And the reason why I say that is because there are things that we have implemented or that we have directed the Charter School Office to do such as creating a window of time where charter leaders can come in and say, there's a little issue with how maybe we reported something, can we come in and talk about it and fix it so it doesn't knock us into a place where we don't want to talk about renewal. Also, for example this Board did something for the first time ever. Southwest Leadership Academy was on the pathway to closing and the Board of Education reversed itself 9-0. Every single person up here voted to bring the school back online because number one, we're guided by the law which is what we looked at, we're guided by student achievement and students, but also the school shows signs of student achievement growth under extreme financial issues that may have been happening that I'm hearing that they're rectifying. On top of that as well, the board of that charter school showed the willingness to be an independent board, a mini board of education, to further the operator of the school who's an amazing educator the tools she needs to be successful. That's the story that needs to get out here, yes. And again, I hate to go back to the data. But again, the Board of Education could have not renewed many more schools the last two years and we did not. Why is that? Because we're trying to give grace, but we also have a legal duty under the law. And if we don't do our duty under the law, the law doesn't work. So I will give myself a B on that reasoning. I say look at what I have done. Look at what these individuals have done. Look at the data. Look at the seats we've increased. Look at the composition of the founder or the leader of those schools. BIPOC, I just gave you a list of where they are in the City of Philadelphia, that's how you judge us. And I think we're doing a pretty -- I think we've done an okay job. We can always be better. I'm a lawyer. I'm used to getting criticized by my clients, by -- we can always get better. And I believe that this is momentum and I think we have the slate -- I'm going to bring it back to the slate, the slate to take it to the next level to keep up the standards. So I think that story needs to be told, and I'm going to turn it over to other Board members if they want to answer the question.
Councilman Phillips, thank you for your question. I would also give myself a B. There's always room for improvement. We can work harder at our jobs as School Board members. You said something though that caught my attention. You said in our eyes, right. We don't make decisions just basically through our eyes, right. There's a framework and there's Charter law that we have to follow, right, that we have to follow. And I think how can we improve, we can improve by being more transparent. We can have more transparent conversations, right. We can bring more people to the table and have these conversations. But I don't want anybody in this room to think that we just sit and make a decision based on our own opinions. There is Charter law and there is Charter framework. And I am excited to have that conversation with anybody about what that is, what that framework is and what Charter law is because that's what we follow. We don't make decisions based on opinions. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. I would also say I think B is an appropriate grade. And I will say that every single charter decision that we've made has been a difficult one, and I stand by every single decision that I've made because I've taken the time to do the research, to understand the data to do what's in the best interest of our children. In terms of the question earlier by Councilmember Jones about fairness and in terms of standing for public charters, it's important to see the Board's role within the process as authorizers and as fiduciaries. An authorization decision allows the passthrough of public dollars to support a charter school which the District no longer has management authority over. And certainly, we have a Charter School Office that lends support, that evaluates charters, that does visits, ensures that the practices and the performance of the charters align with law. We don't have the authority to remove a school leader, to change the staffing, to do many of the things that we can do with District-managed schools much more quickly and within our purview, because according to the law and as the state sees it, the charter schools are governed by their own boards. So once we make the authorization decision, that decision has granted an authority to a Board that now has authority over the school and, therefore, every single decision that we make as a Board is a difficult one, is an important one and we do not make any of these decisions lately.
Yet there are times where you can make a decision to renew a charter based off of some stipulations, and there's been times where we have not done that, just as a point of information. Last question for me in this round has to do with the following: Beyond the charter school problem that we clearly see here, last June when I came on Philadelphia City Council, I was told that we would have from the School District of Philadelphia a facilities plan by that June. Now, as June's coming up, there's no sight of any new facilities plan. We keep getting numbers and information about facilities plans and nothing's happening. Leveling has been an issue for decades. It wasn't until City Council worked with the community, Katherine Gilmore Richardson and all of a sudden leveling is changing in the School District. The question that I have for you is, is this Board, new and old, right, the ones that's being re-appointed from last year, are we going to usher in radical change to our education or are we going to just continue to suffice to the necessary norms around our infrastructure plan because right now we have none? We don't have one. $2 billion is on the line that the Governor has mentioned that he could potentially look into, amongst so many other things that the state has talked about, state officials said they could talk about, but we have not gotten to the point of accessing that money and time is running out. And I'm like, what are we doing. Who are we holding accountable when our children are living in asbestos buildings under terrible conditions? To me that's just unacceptable. And do we have a sense of urgency around our infrastructure?
Yes, I'm happy to address that question. And thank you. I think the outgoing Board shares the same concern.
Yes, I'm sorry. The outgoing Board shares the same concern. In a second I'm going to share what we've done and how the plan has actually already started. And maybe we haven't done a good enough job socializing it, but I'm going to do that here today. But I think it's important to note that currently there is a capital budget of $21.3 million for new construction, including -- can you hear me?
Okay. Right now there's a capital budget allocation -- can everybody hear me?
Thank you. We share the same concern. And as I've said, I don't know if everybody heard me, the plan has already started and I think we haven't done a good enough job socializing that plan or the work that's being done toward it. But before I get into that, I would like to just talk about the capital improvements that have already been underway and that will be underway going forward. Right now there's a capital budget for new construction, $21.3 million for construction which includes 145 million ESSER funds to support state-of-the-art educational facilities. Right now we have six approved new projects in the pipeline or are done. One being Lincoln Athletic Field relocation, Solis-Cohen, T.M. Peirce, Cassidy, AMY at James Martin, Holme. In addition to that, there's additional budget highlights and major renovations. The capital budget allocates $58.6 million for additions and major renovations in support of our utilization. projects in 6 various stages. Seven new 7 projects, Ethan Allen, Anne Frank, 8 Disston, Mayfair, Rhawnhurst, 9 Richmond and Shallcross garage 10 campus. Four major renovations, 11 Forrest, Beehan(ph), Pollock and Pratt, eight new projects, two new additions, Fox Chase Farm, four major renovations, Bache-Martin, Bethune, Fitler, and McClure. Two major renovations, including modular additions to Comly and Hopkinson. Also, it doesn't stop there. $78 million for HVAC controls, electrical systems. I have more. I don't want to go -- and then there's $15 million allocated to the Sayre pool, which is a thing that had a lot of energy and shows that we listened. But on top of that, I would just add that the process has already started. And I think what the Board and the District is trying to do is learn from our mistakes. We've tried to do this many times and we didn't go through the requisite steps that I'm going to go through right now. And if you don't do this, it's dead on arrival whatever the plan may be. One, develop a strategic plan, Accelerate Philly. What does that matter? We believe that the academic programming should inform what you're building. If you want science labs in every classroom, right, some of our old buildings, sorry to say, the infrastructure can't handle it, circuits are overloading. We can't have that. So you have to think about that before you build a building and what you're building it for. And we believe that partly academic -- the facilities plan should be informed by that. So that's complete. And that was completed -- it started June '22 to June 2023. So I'm going to give you dates too.
Mr. Chairman, could you also have your team and administration provide that information to members of Council, please?
Develop an RFP process to secure data strategy to a data strategy vendor, June '23, September '23. Why does that matter? We want to make sure our data is right. If we build something with bad data, what are we building. We might be here in 20 years doing the same thing over and over again asking why didn't we take a little bit of time to go slow to go fast. Three, develop academic baseline standards. Again, that's through your Accelerate Philly. How many students does it take in any school so that it's economically viable to give students everything that all the babies on the Mainline get in their classrooms. It's a certain critical mass of students that you need, but also the academic programming has to inform that. Phase 4, develop a swing space plan. This has a dual purpose. One, as we remediate our buildings and do our due diligence around asbestos abatement and things like that, we got to move the babies somewhere. And we've gotten better at it because we have a swing space plan. Wow, the District has a plan? Yes, it has a plan. And I'm not trying to play you. I'm just in my zone right now. Create a data-planning strategy, right. That is completed, December '23. Develop a pilot facilities data warehouse, that is under way. And what this warehouse would be able to do, you can pick a school and say this school education or suitability is this, therefore this decision should be made here. Phase 7, develop a comprehensive facility data warehouse, and that is under way right now. And then Phase 8, develop a facilities plan project team, that's to be determined. So just so you know the plan is under way, right. And we get it. We want to run fast too, trust me. Yeah, I went to Germantown, right, which we sold for $100,000. It's another thing we got to think about. What do we do with our infrastructure and our facilities. But we're trying to be thoughtful about this thing. And I think we're asking for grace. And I'm telling you exactly what we've done. And we have the receipts to say what we're doing already and we're not sitting on our hands, because that's what we're doing.
Thank you. Thank you, Council President. But I just want to say I understand that renovation work has been happening. It feels like large scale maintenance work in a lot of our schools. And I appreciate the work that's already been done. Some of them we as Councilmembers have pushed for you all to do, which is wonderful. But what the public is demanding is transparency. We need you to come into the neighborhoods, listen to them the same way we do, and then tell them here's what is happening but have a timeline. Because I tell you for whatever reason in government, you go year after year without having results and still maintain your job whereas in corporate and nonprofit you don't deliver results, you don't keep your job. (Applause.)
And so, for you to say grace, one of the Board members has been there since 2016 or longer, you know, like some of y'all been here for a long time. You keep emphasizing you want people to trust. This is not personal. Trust is built. Trust is about collaboration and listening. What I would have appreciated, and I appreciate that you're sharing the facts, but what I'm saying about how this Board needs to work, and not only just this Board but this entire Administration, this entire team, we have to be able to say we have a vision, we're going to push that vision, but how do you include all of us in your vision, how do you listen to make sure that we're working together collaboratively, there's no ego, there's principles about how we are doing things together. And so, all I ask is that the responses that I'm hoping from our Board members to say, I hear what you're saying, I'm going to do better, how can I get better, how can we collaborate to work together because these people aren't foolish. There's a reason why they're here, and we have ways and have answers to our questions, so we can't just be gung ho with this idea that I'm right, gang, gang mentality, I'm right. We have to have this sense of collaboration, and that's how we build the best city, the City of Philadelphia. And I know that only because I only took this crazy position in politics -- there's a lot of politics with this right now -- because I believe that people have often times utilized their ego to push an envelope, and that's not fair. We got to find a way to be listening, facilitating and collaborative and find ways to get solutions because you're right, we're all in this together. But I just hope that this time around -- you see that this Council is about collaboration, we're about radical change and we're about finding ways to get to solutions immediately because that timeline, we do need a date, we do need one. So please, thank you. (Applause.)
Chair recognizes Councilmember -- just real quick, Chairman Streater, also do you have data? I know you mentioned several different capital projects are in the pipeline. Do we have diversity and inclusion numbers in terms of Black and Brown contractors that we're using? And it's just a question I've asked in the past and introduced resolutions in our hearing in terms of the District because it's like $1 billion industry, and we just want to make sure we're addressing the issue of making sure that we're the safest, cleanest, greenest city in Philadelphia with economic opportunity for everyone and we share the same vision as the Mayor. Part of that is addressing poverty by making sure Black and Brown people have an opportunity to participate and all of that money that's being spent and development that's taking place with the Philadelphia School District. Do you have any numbers that you want to share with us?
Councilmember -- Council President, excuse me, I don't have that data on me, but I do know just as an exemplar, Brother Perryman, who is the principal person building the beautiful school that's coming at Cassidy, so that's an example. And we're working, we're working it.
Okay. Just also, you and your team just provide that to the Chair and members just for the record. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Isaiah Thomas.
Thank you, Council President. I'm going to get right into it. First of all, I want to just start by piggybacking on Councilmember Phillip's question around facilities. While I appreciate the -- oh, no, let me take a step back. First, I want to thank you all for being here and thank you all for your testimony because the reality is, is listening to the credentials, especially of the new members, I do commend the Mayor for the diversity and the lived experience of the new members that's been selected, and that is something that should be commended. So thank you, Madame Mayor. I'm going to push back on the facility stuff just to get us started -- no, I'm not. I'll come back to facilities in a second. Let me go here first. I listened to you all talk about institutional knowledge, right. I've heard this term come up a lot. And I'm listening to you all praise who the Mayor was selected and specifically talk about the importance of maintaining certain School Board members. Cecilia Thompson and Lisa Salley were not selected. What are your thoughts on her, on those two?
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I apologize, Board President Streater. Somebody besides Board President Streater answer that question for me.
I really appreciated both Cecilia -- both Board member Thompson and Board member Salley as colleagues. I thought that they brought valuable perspective and experience to the table. Board member Thompson is a strong advocate for students with specialized services and she saw through a lens that was not directly apparent sometimes in conversations and really pushed the way that we provided services to this population of students.
You're not worried about losing their institutional knowledge?
I believe that there are -- I believe that we have an amazing slate of nominees right here.
But you all talked about institutional knowledge and the importance of institutional knowledge. So I'm wondering does this institutional knowledge that you're concerned about only apply to certain Board members and not the other Board members? (Applause.)
No, I'm sorry. Not, not, Board President Streater. I would like somebody else to answer my question.
Institutional knowledge is not a person-specific trait. Institutional knowledge refers to having been in those shoes, tried to push certain initiatives and understanding what it takes to succeed and the factors that have led things to fail in the past.
Okay. I was just curious. Let's go on to facilities. Councilmember Phillips raised questions around a facilities plan. When I became the Chair of the Education Committee in September of 2022, the first request I made was for a facilities plan. What I listened to today was a lot of renovations, a lot of things that's happening as it relates to capital issues. But that's not a facilities plan. I want to be very clear. A facilities plan would talk to us about the future of Strawberry Mansion, Overbrook and Martin Luther King High School. Councilmember Jones, do you know about the future of Overbrook? Do you know what we're going to do? We've got some issues there with the facility, student enrollment. Are we going to build a new one? Are we going to close it? Are we going to downsize it? Has anybody told you about Overbrook, Councilmember Jones?
Okay. All right. So then I think about schools in the Northeast, like Washington, Northeast High School, Lincoln High School. All these schools have a growing population, right. So we have some schools where the buildings are underutilized. We have other schools where the buildings are overflooded. And then we have this reactive mindset that we've seen early on during the pandemic where we found out there was all this asbestos in all these schools that somehow, some way none of us knew about. Who was present and who governed our schools when the asbestos crisis hit the fan? Who was that? (Applause.)
I'm asking. I mean, because I remember voting for Board President Streater. I remember voting for Sarah. And I remember voting for a lot of other people. I don't remember you guys being there when the asbestos crisis was created, but I remember us having multiple meetings because we felt like the previous leadership had brushed some things under the rug as it related to the facilities crisis. So how do we now sit here and say that we have a facilities plan and no Councilmember has ever seen this facilities plan?
First, I would like to say you're right, we don't have a plan for, hey, this is what's going to happen with Strawberry Mansion, but I believe I did set forth the vision, that the building should flow from the mission and the vision of the institution to educate children, educational suitability, the amount of students that it requires in a school building to have all the things that our babies need. I did say that.
I mean, Board President Streater, you know how I feel about you, sir. Nothing but love for you, absolutely no 21 question about that. But that's not a plan. The Governor wants a plan. Harrisburg wants a plan. In 2022 of September I asked for a plan. It is 2024, and I'm being asked to vote for the same people that I asked for a plan that I did not get a plan from. I'm okay with that. We can move on. Let's talk about a couple other things that are really important. Councilmember Jones talked about treating charter schools the same way you treat public schools, right. That's not my area. My area is why do we treat White charter schools different than how we treat Black charter schools? (Applause.)
I want to be clear, I said in my opening statement this decision today is not about charter, public. This decision is about children. Nothing else but children. But we had a report that basically communicated concerns, and let's be honest when we were making decisions around who the lawyer was, City Council and the Education Committee pushed back on who the lawyer should be because we did not want the School District to be the client. Now, I'm no lawyer, but I know that if I'm the client of a lawyer, then that lawyer works for me. We wanted to be the client. City Council asked for this study, not you all. And similar to how you were reactive to the facilities crisis because I listened to Board President Streater talk about a swing space, a swing space in the facilities issue wasn't a part of the plan. It was a reaction because of what happened with Building and other facilities 21 and we seen children in limbo, so we said we needed a swing space. And that was a great decision, Board President Streater. But I want to be clear, we're talking about things that are reactive. So in the midst of looking at what happens with Black charters and White charters, one of the things you all said was you created 2,000 new seats. How many of those new seats are Black? First question while you look for your data. Second question: Over 80 percent of the charter schools that's been closed in the City of Philadelphia are Black. Somehow -- (Applause.)
Somehow some way over 80 percent of the charter schools that have been closed are Black. White charter schools like Franklin Towne and Northwood committed egregious violations and they're allowed to stay open. Fine, whatever, that's not my fight right now. But I'm wondering how are we going to sit here and say that we're okay -- I listened to a Board member say I can stand on every decision that I've made, and then you change your own vote. How can I say, Council President, that I'm proud of every vote that I've taken, but I switched my vote. You can't have it both ways. So somebody needs to help me understand how many new charter seats have gone to Black-led institutions out of your 2000. And how can we sit here and say that we treat Black charters fair when Black charters make up 80 percent of the schools that's been closed? Not under this Board. Let's be very clear, not under this Board. But there are people who were on the previous Board when over 80 percent of the charter schools that were closed were essentially Black when Black-led charter schools make up less than percent of the schools in the City of Philadelphia and then you're going to tell us that that's not racist. I'm no economist. I could do math. I'm very good at math, but I'm no economist. There has to be some metric that you're using that's totally different than us when percent 10 of the schools are Black, but they 11 represent 80 percent of the 12 closures. Help me understand this 13 information. 14
Yeah, I'm 15 happy to, Council Chair Thomas. To 16 answer your question, and I'm going 17 to actually include BIPOC schools 18 because I think they matter as 19 well, and I know you do too, good 20 brother. Keystone, 300 seats out 21 of 2000. I believe that is a 22 Black-founded, Black-led as been 23 defined charter school. We've also 24 added 368 seats to Esperanza and 25 Eugenio Maria de Hostos, 310 as well. So that's a big chunk I think of the 2,000, right. Number two, we are actively trying to --
Point information, I just want to agree to disagree. I don't think that that's a big chunk. So I hear your number, but I said Black schools. So I'm fine with what you said, but I don't agree that that's a big chunk.
Okay. I appreciate you, yes. And on top of that, we have tried to hold Franklin Towne -- actually I had to get special privilege to not be at a hearing right now where we are in the middle of hot litigation trying to hold to start the process to determine whether there should be a revocation of a charter, which I'm now being stopped, the tax dollars are being used to defend the school -
And I want to commend you that you're doing great work. But earlier you said that you -- not you, but earlier it was said that you all stand on every decision that you've made. So you stand on the fact that it was a good idea to give Franklin Towne more seats and now we have this retroactive problem that we do? So that wasn't a mistake to give Franklin Towne more seats?
I wasn't a part of that vote, but I'm talking about in particular issues around the closure of charter schools, the decision we have to make --
But with all due respect, Board President Streater, that's why I'm trying to remove you away from answering some of these questions because 90 percent of the questions I'm asking not necessarily are within your jurisdiction or within things that you've said in this hearing today. So I respect the fact that you want to have your colleagues' back. I'm a team player myself and I'll ride for my colleagues all day, but I think it's better if somebody else answer these questions because most of the things that I'm referencing as it relates to these comments and the data that I'm communicating, it's not necessarily you. So you could do a victory lap around the advocacy work you've done as it relates to Franklin Towne. I've stood neck-and-neck and shoulder-to-shoulder with you and I'm proud of you with that. But you didn't sit here and say that you're proud of every vote and every decision that you've made and you would not change any of them. That was somebody else that said that. And I don't understand how you could say on the one hand that I'm proud of every vote that I've taken, but then you've had to reverse your vote. I don't understand how you can say on one hand I'm proud of everything we've done, but then we got to go back and take action against Franklin Towne because that institution is looking to use a report that was supposed to address issues around racism to defend their stuff. I'll leave it at that.
Chair Thomas, if I could briefly respond. From my understanding, that data as it relates to schools that have closed, some collapsed on their own or closed on their own. So, yes, they might have closed, but it might not have been due to Board action. I want to put that out there even before my tenure as well.
So what are some of the schools that -- no, nope, never mind. If you can --
I wanted to respond because you asked about the comment that I made earlier standing behind my votes. Board members make the votes that they do with the best information available to us at that time. And if significant changes in the facts and the data are later found or surfaced, then in the best interest of the students sometimes votes can change.
And I thought you would say that. So my next question: Who gave you that wrong information?
I don't believe that we can characterize the information as wrong. Information is updated all the time -
I'm sorry. Your word was -- what was the word you used? You said misinformation, right?
So what was the word you used? You said things changed. You used the word originally. You said when people give you blank.
-- Charter School -- I'm sorry. Not you, Board President Streater. Who leads the Charter School Office?
Information about schools that enter into the decisions that we make are fluid and change all the time.
Who gave you the information that wasn't most up-to-date? You said the Charter School Office, right?
No, no, no, we're talking about old decisions. We're talking about previous decisions. Who gave you the information that wasn't most up-to-date? You said the Charter School Office, right?
We do rely on information provided by the Charter School Office.
Who runs the Charter School Office? Who runs the Charter School Office?
Who is the name of the person who has the Charter School Office?
Come on. Council President. Who is the name of the person who runs the Charter School Office? And what did you recently do with this person?
Chief Peng Chao. And can I please add this context? I think it's very important.
Board President Streater, I asked you not to answer the questions. Who runs the Charter School Office?
Our Charter School Office is led by Chief Peng Chao and a team of very qualified people.
And didn't the same person that leads the Charter School Office the person who didn't give you updated information and then you gave him a raise and a promotion?
Board President Streater, with all due respect, sir, you have my vote. I don't want you to answer the question. I will be voting for you, sir. Who leads the Charter --
Respectfully, Councilmember Thomas, I'd like to understand what the intent of your question is?
With all due respect, Council President, this is a City Council hearing and I don't think it's appropriate for them to ask me what the intent of any question I have is when I've already made a statement that my intent is to make a decision today that's in the best interest of the children. So I'm not quite sure, Councilmember Gilmore Richardson, how that works. But I don't think that's an appropriate line of questioning to be asking myself or any member of City Council in the midst of a hearing where we are here to take a vote that's in the best interest of the children. Am I out of line, colleague?
Thank you, sir. All right. So back to my line of questioning, because I believe that my original point in all of this was that we treat White charters different than how we treat Black charters. And I think the place that I was going specifically with this line of questioning is to identify racist behavior that existed before any of you all got here. So here's a question that you all can answer, anybody who wants to: Why are you so defensive about things and decisions that were made that are clearly racist that were made before your tenure?
I do want to add context, and I have to, to the question. What changed, the vote I was talking about was a Southwest leadership vote. Something -- it wasn't --
Board President Streater, I know it changed. My point of going to that line of questioning was to show that we all sometimes make decisions that we regret. And I think it's disingenuous to come before this body and say that you all haven't made any decisions you regret when you had to go and reverse your decision. To me that's disingenuous. But --
-- now we've moved on. We're now talking about racist behavior. So if you could answer the line of questioning that's being asked now, that would be appreciated.
I would answer all the questions. Yes, sir, Councilman. And I'm saying this with all due diligence and all heart, as a Black man I get it, right. I get when there's a feeling of something. But as a governmental agency, it'll be governmental malpractice if we did not find out whether the exact intent or the exact thing that is being discussed is actually causing the issue. And in the law we call this disparate impact and disparate treatment. An allegation can get you through the court door, but you have to find out whether there is actual intent, whether there's a smoking gun which we call in the law, and I think the Board has done that with its due diligence, right. Yes, we have embraced -- if you look at the press release, we are embracing the voices of the Coalition. We are embracing saying those voices matter, but we have to do our due diligence to determine whether someone actually did something because they're racist or was there a legitimate non-discriminatory reason why it happened such as breaking the law, such as financial issues, financial mismanagement of money, such as academic achievement that's been sliding for years. Those are the things that we have to look at. And there's records and things like that that show why the decisions were made. There's these things called adjudications in which every decision has set forth the reasons. And if those reasons, if you look at them and you take off any lens, you'll see that --
Board 13 President Streater, you're one of 14 the most intelligent African- 15 centered brothers I know. I complimented the Mayor on the lived experiences and the credentials of the people she selected. You have multiple lawyers, you have graduate degrees, you have very intelligent people who I know for a fact love Black people. I will put Sarah in that category as well too. 80 percent of the schools that's been closed in the City of Philadelphia are Black while they only make up percent of the population, yes or no? Those numbers aren't racist to y'all, yes or no? Let's just move it to another place. Let's move it to the law field. Let's move it to the therapeutic field. Black therapists only make up percent of the population, 11 but 80 percent of the people who've 12 been charged with crimes are Black 13 therapists. Black lawyers only 14 make up 25 percent of the 15 population, but 80 percent of the 16 people who are charged are Black 17 lawyers. Black people only make up 18 25 percent of the population, but 19 80 percent of the people who are 20 arrested are Black people. Those 21 numbers are alarming. 22 My son is 11 years old. He 23 just got out of school 38 minutes 24 ago. He's a math guru. If I gave 25 him them numbers, he would say, Dad, there's some statistical problems with that data. If I'm 25 percent of the population, how can I be three times the number of closures. And you looked at us and said that's not racist. I'm done with that line of questioning. Let's move on to School District stuff. Goals and guardrails, and again I'm voting for y'all so I'm not making a decision about that. We talked about the academic progress of the School District of Philadelphia and while we made a lot of decisions during the pandemic that Council disagreed with and the Board might have agreed with, we can agree that there has been some progress. But let's not compare us to other large schools across the country. Let's compare us to where we want to be. Are you happy with the test scores, math and literacy, of our children? What are those numbers right now and what number would make you feel like we've done the job?
To answer your first question, I am not happy. And I think that's the energy that the Board that I currently sit on and I believe that the new nominees of the new slate will sit on as well, and that's why goals and guardrails exist. In the past this School District, this School District did not focus on student achievement. It focused on everything else. And that's what the goals and guardrails do, where we actually progress monitor in public, we get national notoriety for doing it, to drive system change from a governance model. So I think that's to show you that we're not happy and that something was done with it as well.
I would agree with you. Well, how many of our children are reading proficiently right now and how many of our children are proficient in math? What percent?
You know what you can do, if you can get that information to the Council President, that'll be appreciated. I know other members have questions. Council President, I'll stop right now. I'll come back for another round. Thank you, Council President.
You're welcome. Chair recognizes Councilmember Kathy Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Council President. And thank you to our colleagues for all of your questions. I too want to commend Mayor Parker and her team for the hard work and the heavy lifting that was done to get us to this point in the process. I do recognize the importance of the work that was done and very appreciative of the group that we have before us today. And I'm thankful for the testimony that you all provided. And for those of you who I've had the opportunity to work with, thank you very much for your service. I wanted to start where I started this morning. I had the opportunity to be back at the Philadelphia High School for Girls for Career Day this morning with our colleagues and also was fortunate enough to be on a Town Hall last night of over 300 parents, alumni, teachers, students of the Philadelphia High School for Girls. So to see Joan Stern here, I am truly thankful and grateful for your work. I remember you very early on in my career, have tried to emulate your work in municipal finance. I've studied you since I've been here over the last 9 years. So thank you very much for 10 your service as a fellow Girls' 11 High girl. 12 You all know that I care 13 deeply about the public schools as 14 a graduate of Gompers, Masterman 15 and the Philadelphia High School 16 for Girls. Currently my oldest is 17 a graduating senior at Carver High 18 School for Engineering and Science 19 by way of she moved here when her 20 father and I got married. So she 21 came from the Chester public 22 schools and then went to Mastery 23 Mann Charter School and then 24 finished her academic career at 25 Carver High School. And you know that my two youngest are at Gompers Elementary school. And you also know that I taught in the Philadelphia public schools by way of Overbrook High School, so I care deeply about the public schools. So I wanted to start at Girls' High and then also talk about leveling. Thank you for the decision around leveling. It's something that we all work very closely on going together and it was extremely important to the success of our young people. No 15 major school districts in the country are doing leveling anymore. And so, I want to thank you for making that important decision and re-arranging the budget to do so. I want to start at Girls' High. I'm very concerned about the future of the Philadelphia High School for Girls. We have one class that only has 88 students. When I graduated, there were almost students and previous classes were much larger. We know that this is a result of unintended consequences with this new special admission policy around the special admission schools. And so, if you all could speak to how you were looking to course-correct around the implementation of the special admission schools, the admission policy to give principals and leadership, members at schools the autonomy to pick young people off the list, particularly when they are not at capacity. Girls' High was capped at 200 students that they could admit this year. And out of the 200, I think only 83 or 88 have chosen to go to Girls' High. I'm very concerned about the future of my 175-year-old alma mater. And we really want you all to do something to help Girls' High moving forward. Can you please speak to how you are looking at the special admission policy and how you will specifically help the Philadelphia High School for Girls?
I'll be brief, and I'm doing a lot of talking. I'm about to give other Board members an opportunity and nominees the chance to speak. I share your concern, and it is something that I know for a fact that the Superintendent right now is working on, want to be that close collaborator with you and the City and all the stakeholders. But with that, just again I think it's a strength to course- correct, right. And I know there was some conversation about that earlier. And I think I'm going to talk to the special admit piece, which I think is actually going to help and has already started to help Girls' High as one of our schools. We know the special admit process had flaws when we course- changed. The District and the Board didn't say we're the smartest people in the room, leave us alone. What we did, we leaned into it and tried to fix it and work it out by listening to our principals, things like that. And I'll be very brief --
I just want to say this in particular because I've been going to Girls' High once per month this entire school year after the incident occurred along with visiting a number of other CTE schools that I visited with some of you, and Girls' High is slated to lose six teachers that are integral to the IB, the International Baccalaureate program, and the advanced placement classes. We do not have the ability to maintain teachers because of the projected enrollment. It is all because of the new special admission policy that was implemented. No course- correction has happened at all. Girls' High has been without a permanent principal for a year since that incident took place. And all the alumni students and teachers wanted Principal Lisa Mesi back. She was one of the best things that ever happened to the Philadelphia High School for Girls. And so, we don't feel heard. We don't feel as though anyone cares about Girls' High, and I do have other matters that I will discuss, but it was 300 parents and alumni on the call last night. And I have to represent for my alma mater, the school that gave me so much, the reason why I'm a member of Philadelphia City Council today. Please do something to help us with the Philadelphia High School for Girls, and we need a concrete plan. We need concrete commitments. We need the ability to enroll additional girls for this upcoming academic school year. We have to do something. And I don't want everyone to think that I'm just focusing on Girls' High because a number of schools across the District need help and assistance, and this is happening at other schools as well, including my daughter's school at Carver High School. And I didn't even think that she was paying attention. She came home and said, don't you work in City Council, you need to do something about what's happening at my school and some of the other schools that my friends go to. So this is also impacting the children. And this is all about the children and all about the students and their future and their academic success. So can you please speak to what's happening not only at Girls' High but across some of the other schools and how you all will work to fix this?
Thank you, Councilmember Gilmore Richardson. I just want to let you know this is a conversation that we are having as a Board and this is not the only school as you said who is affected by the selection process. We believe that there is a place for the centralized admission but then also an important need to ensure that schools can continue to fill empty seats and not cap their enrollment at only the students who reserve or enroll during that process.
But they're not allowing Girls' High to do that.
We hear you and we would definitely take that back to the Superintendent. And we will work through this like we worked through other things with you, Council Gilmore Richardson, going forward.
And I just want to say that we hear you and we understand. We went through the same thing with Saul. I'm a graduate of Saul. Saul is going through the same issue right now. So we understand there is an issue, right. I want y'all to know that we do sit in meetings and hold people accountable, right. We do lose sleep over these kids that are not being able to get into these schools or whatever the case may be or not being re-engaged, right, because there's some kids that just aren't being re-engaged, and we have to work on it, right. So I want you to know that we are diligently trying to fix this issue and we will continue to work with you, but we hear you and we understand.
Please, this is a number one priority. In addition to that I just quickly wanted to mention, and I'll come back on the second round, two things: Services for our young people who need additional help, who may have IEPs like speech therapy or other services and also our young people reading on grade level. Since COVID-19 and a number of our young people who were either in PreK or kindergarten or 1st through 3rd grade during the pandemic, they are struggling with reading. And we need the ability to work with the District to provide additional reading resources for our young people. It's something that we are going through as a family. It's something I've heard from a number of other families. Our young people must be on grade level with their reading. You are learning to read from K to 3, and then you're reading to learn thereafter. And we need to help our young people get on reading grade level all across the School District. How are we doing that? What additional assistance will you all put in place to do that? And then finally, this Council has stepped up year over year since I've been here even back to when I was a staffer. I remember being in rooms in 2011 at the height of the economic downturn coming up with MOU with the District and former Councilmember Maria Quinones-Sanchez working through some steps that we knew the District would take as a result of the Council body voting on additional funding for the School District of Philadelphia. We recognized that in the Mayor's proposed FY25 budget that there is a proposed millage shift from 55 to 56 that would give additional funding for the School District of Philadelphia for the upcoming school year. I do believe that we need to work together on a Memorandum of Understanding on some of the goals and outcomes that we anticipate and expect as a result of that continued increased funding that you all have seen from this body year-over-year. But can you please speak to the reading grade levels?
I'll be brief, and thank you so much. First, Accelerate Philly. I think that is the first answer to the question about English language arts and the valid and thoughtful points you made. Also, there's a new curriculum coming out next year. One of the issues in the School District of Philadelphia is for so long we've had fragmented curriculum where students over here are learning this and students are learning that. Also, the Superintendent is looking into the number one factor to move student achievement, high quality teachers, stable over time and well- supported. That well-supported part is very important and key as well. So that's something he's looking at as well. How do you incentivize our teachers who have shown the ability to help students -- all of our (inaudible) to the schools that they need to go to. And then number three, I watched the press conference about what's going on right now in collaboration with the City and the Mayor and Council. I saw Council President was there. Right now there's a program this summer for students who need a little bit of extra help to come to a School District school for the first half of the day and get your learn on, right. And then the second half of the day, you can have fun and do what children should do in the summer. So that's our answer to your question, but if Board members want to --
I'm going to respect the clock and honor the time, Council President. I am very well aware of that program. My children have attended that program. I know the program very intimately. We need additional resources for young people to get on reading grade level. It is not enough. They need specific instruction to help them get on reading level so that they can succeed academically in their future career endeavors.
You're welcome. That's a good program. My kids were in the program too, but the buildings were hot. And so -- but I'm a hood kid. I grew up in the City so I'm kind of used to not having air conditioners going to Childs Elementary School and Edward Bok High School, but I am excited about that program because it's a summer slide that we want to make sure we address to make sure all of our young people are on the right path from an academic achievement standpoint. So definitely going to be supportive of those efforts. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Quetcy Lozada.
Thank you, Council President. And thank you all for being with us this afternoon. We just heard the frustrations expressed by Chairmember of Education Isaiah Thomas. And as a member of that Committee, I share those frustrations. And, Board President, you're aware of that. I think I've been very clear in our meetings. And if those are the challenges that Black charter schools are experiencing, can you imagine Latino-led or bilingual charter schools, right? I think that often times we are left out of the conversation. And so, I'd like to hear a commitment from this new Board and from those of you who will stay on the Board that Latino charter schools will not be an afterthought, right. I represent the poorest zip code in the City. I represent some of the lowest-performing schools in the City. I represent schools in my community charter and public schools that are challenged with keeping qualified teachers in our spaces. I represent some of the schools that have or see the very serious conditions in facilities. I have -- the facilities in the 7th Council District and across the City are deplorable, right. And I've only been here months 15 and my colleagues have been here 16 much longer than me, and I share 17 the Education Committee's frustration on asking for a plan, right. I'm sure that as people were being asked to be a part of this new Board, they must have done their due diligence and probably have started to listen to the conversations during the Education Committee or doing this legislative body Council sessions. And so, I'd like to hear from the new members, right. What would they recommend, right? Based on what they have heard, based on them considering becoming a part of your Board body, what do they think needs to happen to better improve communication between not just the Charter School Office but between the school and the Charter School Office as well as better communication in the community? How do the decisions that you all make, how are they felt on the ground and in the neighborhood?
Thank you so much for the question, and it's really at the heart of why I'm even here. I do believe that we will speak up for all students, African American students, but also the Latino population which now consists a quarter of the population of the School District. And I also served in the community that you're talking about as a School District principal. I sat in a school that had not been painted for years and 6 started in a charter school that 7 was a 100-year-old building that 8 the School District left which was 9 the old Hunter School to start the 10 school there. So I'm very much 11 familiar with the deplorable 12 conditions in a school. 13 I cannot speak for the 14 existing facilities plan that the 15 existing Board has worked on, but I would tell you that if I am here and even willing to serve because I believe that our children deserve to be in schools that have a standard of excellence, we know that long term we're going to need new buildings and facilities plans, but just to open buildings that are clean, that smell good, that have equitable lighting, we need that in our schools and I will do my best serving on this Board to fight for that, not just for Latino students but all students in our City. (Applause.)
Thank you. How do you think -- and, President Streater, this is probably for you. We have some newer facilities like Kensington Performing Arts, who is a newer facility but is also experiencing challenges just maintaining the facility, right. That space has over 47 windows, something very simple, that are broken. And they have put in multiple requests for repair and they can't get a response to it. So if we're talking about the seriousness of facilities and we can't maintain the ones that are newer now, what is there to be said about the lack of response that we are seeing now and that we may see in the future?
Yes. Thank you for the question. And I share your same concern. I mean, I went to the G, Germantown, where it was very hot as Council President said throughout the year, and it did impact my ability to focus in the learning environment. What I can say is what we have done as a Board of Education. Through our goals and guardrails, we have something called safety welcoming schools as a guardrail, and we monitor things like work orders, right. We monitor things that actually matter and we monitor those things, and we see what the trends are, what the District is doing and how the District can better as the operator, operationalize this stuff and get better. And based upon the trend lines, it looks like the District has gotten better. And some of the stuff is actually because our buildings are very old. And some of the qualifications and the people who do the work, there's not -- some systems are so old and obsolete that we can't even find people who even have the expertise to fix those systems and those things slow down the process and the progress that we can get in, but we've beefed up our capacity and it's something that we monitor. And I do believe we're trying to make headway there. But, yes, it is a concern. I'm not going to gaslight you. This is real. And it's something that we're actually working on through our goals and guardrails.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jay Young.
Thank you, Mr. President. Some of my questions are the same -- first of all, I want to say good afternoon. And I want to say I commend you all for your efforts to work for our City for free, right, and to do these things, a job that is thankless and a job that has the burden of our entire City. So I want to thank you all for wanting to step up to the plate to do it. My line of questioning or question rather is similar to what Councilmember, Chair of the Education Committee Isaiah Thomas was talking about when it comes to the Charter Office, particularly the pattern I see of the discrimination in the Charter Office. In the past life, I represented a property owner who was trying to lease a building to a charter school, a charter school that was excelling. But the process of trying to move from one location to the other and dealing with that Charter Office was a very interesting process I'll say from a perspective of an attorney. And, Mr. Streater, I know you said as an attorney I know there are certain things that have to be found for it to be discrimination. But 80 percent I think a court will find that's a disparate impact, right. The policy appears neutral, on its face it appears neutral. But when in reality when you're implementing these policies and you see that it only affects one demographic of people, something has to be wrong there. That's just not a coincidence. It's not a coincidence at all. And so, I think we need to take a deep dive at what the institution of our School District is doing when it comes to educating Black children, because the majority of students in that District are Black children. When you look at the things that are going on in our society, the issues stem from Black children. And if we are going to continually not pay attention to the issues, the bureaucracy that gets in the way of educating Black children, then I think we are doing a disservice to our city and to our children. So one question I do have is when it comes to holding folks accountable, right, so I do think that everyone needs to be held accountable. Charter schools need to be held accountable. Traditional schools need to be held accountable. And I do know it is a little bit easier to hold charter schools accountable because of the quasi independence that they have and just dealing with the structure of the School District. But why is it that when I see a school like Strawberry Mansion, like Ben Franklin with these abysmal numbers, why are they not held to the same standards when they're educating the same students, the same population base, why are they not held to the same standards as a charter school would be in that same community?
I'll take a quick stab at that. I think it's because we have two different metrics -- mechanisms under the law to hold accountable both sides of the sector. As you know, the Charter law requires that there's a five-year renewal window where there's five years of independence where the Board of Education, the District does not have the authority to go in and check things out and dictate what needs to happen. I guess to -- what that does is it trades away the ability to kind of have a different accountability metric, the independence comes with accountability and it's actually baked into the law. There are things we have to look at, financial wherewithal, the independence of the Charter Board, academic achievement, higher academic achievement than what is purported, is the school a Petri dish of education in a way that's new to the sector and can the District or the sector at large learn new things from it. Those are all the things that require us through the law to I guess hold accountable, right. For the District, the District has a lot more autonomy and agency and it uses goals and guardrails. And if we can get the charter sector to buy in goals and guardrails, I think that's a good move. Maybe that's something we can talk about going from here. But the goals and guardrails is for the first time in the history of this School District, we look at the data and we ask the question. And we've aligned the Superintendent's evaluation. And now, for the first time in history 440 is going to have an evaluation system that aligns with a shared vision and goal. And I think that's why we're seeing the academic achievement moves that we're having. But the Charter law doesn't give us the ability to do that. What it does is it says you got to wait five years. And sometimes you got to wait five years and watch something trend in a way that could lead to a collapse, which we've seen as well in the last two years, and wait on the sidelines and then do something in Year 5. And I think that's the thing I think that's missing in the conversation that we have different tools prescribed by law that's an above- me-now moment with the state that precludes us from doing the things that you're talking about. And we have tried. We created conditions. This thing called surrender clause probably has a bad name, those things were created to give charter schools another shot and then another shot. Some of the schools that have closed unfortunately have had maybe three or four charter terms where there were conditions that weren't met that those charter schools agreed to. And I think that -- and I know now that the Charter School Office hearing anecdotal information from other Black- founded leaders, and I'm not going to say any name on the record, this is the best they've ever had with Mr. Peng Chao, right. We're doing things, we're trying to give grace, we're trying to pivot. So that's my answer to your question. We're trying to balance our state-delegated duty, right, as fiduciaries of the School District of Philadelphia to these babies under the law with the grace that the law gives us in the gaps. And I think we're using the gaps now to be more gracious.
Thank you. And on those same lines, it's equity, right. We're trying to be equitable and treat every school the same way and treat every school fairly, because again the premise is the best interest of the children. And I think we have to keep that in mind. And so, I guess you gave me one recommendation on what we can do regarding how we can gain more equity I guess in the treatment of these schools. But can you discuss I guess when the School Board is evaluating these frameworks, potentially particularly like the goals and guardrails, what type of equity lens does the School District look at when evaluating equity in hiring, right, and equity in representation at the School District itself?
Well, I know that I can't speak for the Superintendent. But I know the Board has given a strict directive -- well, I won't say directive. Well, yeah, a directive to the Superintendent to look at things like equity, whether it's in our contracts and things like that, whether it's in how we actually educate. So, for example, in our goals and guardrails we just found out that there's 9th grade work happening where Black and Brown students are having higher student achievement in career readiness because of implementations that he's doing knowing that the Board of Education cares deeply about equity as well. As it relates to hiring and things like that, I know that as an attorney there's certain things we have to do under the law. You can't pick people based upon your race. You'll get sued. A reverse racism lawsuit is actually a win nowadays in court. And by the way, we're being sued as a city right now because of our attempt to change our framework for how students get into our special admit schools by an organization led by one of Donald Trump's alkalides in court right now, people know that, trying to stop us saying that we're only trying to help Black children out, we're trying to help out everybody. But getting back on point, I know that through the law the Board and the District is doing everything it can to diversify the whole District.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Nic O'Rourke.
Good afternoon. Thank you for being here today and testifying. I'm a freshman here on this body. And so, all of this that's going on today is a little newer for me, but I was an organizer before all this and the concerns I find as an organizer who was a part of the statewide school fight are kind of the same concerns that I have now. The thrust of our office's concerns are around the lack of consistent government oversight and accountability for charter schools in Philadelphia. My understanding is that a charter school, I think you just mentioned this, is only under official review during the renewal process every five years despite having reporting from the Charter School Office every single year, which means the charters can go years without much accountability as it looks to us, without much budget, you know, around their budget mismanagement around underperforming student outcomes. So I wanted to ask all of the new appointees to answer a few questions related to accountability. What is the actual plan to provide more active and intentional oversight to charter schools on a regular basis, if you can just detail that for me?
I think it's too soon for me to speak about a plan because I'm not appointed yet, but I do have a lot of experience in the charter school -- well, both, in the public. And I do think that accountability is important both ways. Accountability leads to outcomes. And I heard the previous Councilmembers speak about the difference of both traditional charter schools and traditional public schools, and I do think that there's a lot to learn from both. There's a lot to learn -- there's a lot of great things happening in charter schools. We tend to speak about the schools that are closing, but there's incredible work happening in charter schools. There's also incredible work happening in traditional public schools. And I think that we need to figure out, and this is me dreaming, I'm not appointed yet, I haven't sat in those difficult conversations looking at that data. But there has to be a way where we can equalize and look at schools for schools, whether, you know, I think that's part of the problem. It's always the charter schools, the public schools, but can we look at schools. I think that -- and the gentleman that was here, I don't know his name right now, but I think we should have good schools period, good schools period t-shirt, good schools period logo, because I do think that we need to start having that conversation. Can we have accountability for traditional public schools? Can we have accountability for charter schools? And can we celebrate the great things that are happening? And my dream will be that one day we can sit at a table and celebrate each other and hold each other accountable. (Applause.)
Thank you for the answer. I appreciate that. That having been said, I'm specifically asking about charter schools because of the point that we raised earlier about the regularity of accountability on that front. For those of you who come from working primarily with charter schools, how do you plan to advocate just as fiercely for the Philadelphia public schools as you do for the charter schools? If someone can answer that question for me.
I'll take that one. I advocate for all schools and all schools that are doing right by kids, that is charter, that is traditional. It doesn't matter. I want good schools for the kids in the City of Philadelphia. To circle back to your point just a moment ago or your question around five years in accountability, I think that window is important because having been an administrator in a charter school and having worked as an authorizer in D.C., one thing I know is that one or two years' worth of data is not enough to evaluate and really give a holistic picture. So I think giving five years to understand trends and what's really happening at the school is actually very important. Now, what I think it can inform, and I'm eager to work with my other Board members and the management and the Charter School Office, is how can we be very clear about their strengths because I think every school has an asset. One thing I want to be clear, one thing I've learned, nobody opens a charter school to do wrong by kids --