Nobody opens a charter school to do wrong by kids, so I'm curious to see what assets can we find in that community and in that School District where they are having challenges and opportunities and how do we build out charter conditions that are specific to support that District and to your point hold them accountable going forward so that the next renewal we have five years of new data, that hopefully shows progress.
Okay. Thank you. That was helpful in terms of the rate on why the five- year window is helpful for you all. Still focusing though on the accountability for the charter and really the detailed plans is kind of what I was looking for. Let me move on though. This also is to the new Board appointees as well. We all know too well that there is an ongoing teacher shortage and that teachers are leaving the profession for other careers where they are less scrutinized, paid what they ought to be paid and given more time off which I think is really good for mental health. How do you plan to support the District in enticing and encouraging new teachers to join in the midst of this kind of toxic educational environment I think that we're currently in? And how do you plan to make teaching an attractive profession again?
Thank you for that question. I run the Philadelphia Learning Collaborative, which is a collaborative of schools, some public, some private, some charter. And one of our initiatives this year was a community of practice where we introduced a curriculum for advisory, a period that's often in schools, a throwaway period, but can be used to transmit whatever school culture is and really strengthening the entire school environment. And in this initiative of ours, we really elevated teachers as professionals. We paid them generous stipends to explore this curriculum and implement it in their schools. We made them actually in charge of implementing the PDs that they -- they were teacher-led PDs. So I think we need to make the profession attractive. There needs to be the professionalization of teachers. And some of the other issues we talked about regarding facilities, regarding the selection process, it's the environment, it's the ecosystem. And I think we can't deal with making the profession attractive in a vacuum. We're going to need City Council for funds to make the environment better. There's policy issues at the state level related to certifications. I mean, I know people who have come from out of state. We have an initiative. I think Tamir's here in the audience some place, the Center for Black Educator Development. I know one African American principal that came up from down South, who was an amazing educator who had a hard time policy-wise, like what the rules are to become a principal in the School District of Philadelphia. So I think these are some of the things that we can push and pull on to make the environment more attractive. And then let's think about -- at SLA Beeber, for example, there's a CTE track now for education. What does it look like for students in schools right now, how do they see teachers. And this particular program is putting students on a track to become teachers, but we have to make the experience that students are having in schools attractive so they consider it as a profession. So those are some of my thoughts around what we might be able to do. I hope that answers the question.
It does. And I thank you all for your answers. Council President, I heard the bell. I'll come back around for next round.
Thank you. Just a real quick one as we talk about the recruitment of teachers. I remember early on when you first took your tenure and you gave your presentation among members, and we talked about a book that both of us like, Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy black Boys, Jawanza Kunjufu. I remember you saying that as a part of your presentation. And some time ago I introduced a resolution to host hearings when Dr. Hite was here around what are we doing with a sense of urgency to hire Black teachers, right. Let me change it specifically, Black male teachers, right. And from time to time, we'll hear parts of strategies, right. But what are we doing as a District to really aggressively come up with incentives as a part of the strategy moving forward, a plan? Is there a budget allocated to it? From that aspect, what is the Board working in partnership with the District to make sure we get as many African American male teachers inside our schools?
So right now the District is engaging with Brother Sharif El-Mekki, working hand-and-glove with him as well. I know Dr. Watlington has put -- well, the Board in partnership with Dr. Watlington in the Accelerate Philly plan, that is actually one of the things that the Superintendent is right now driving. In addition to that, we also have a paraprofessional program where paraprofessionals can actually go to college right now in the School District of Philadelphia, get their degree, the Bachelor's degree or if they have a Bachelor's, to get their teacher's certification and come right back to the School District of Philadelphia right now. We also have a middle college model, which is part of our CTE program at SLA, I think, Beeber where students right now are learning right now to be student teachers so they can come right back to the School District of Philadelphia. I know that we have a lot of -- Brother, we have a lot of work to do here. I'm not going to tell you that, but that is what's being done right now. And I believe this slate of amazing Board members and I would like -- if Cheryl Harper wants to add anything, she just came up here, but I believe this slate can take it to the next level.
Yes. We had a program when I was in the system of hiring Black males because there was a lack -- I think it was like 1 percent of the professional staff was Black males. But as you know now, it's like almost 90 percent or 85 percent of our students are African American, but back then most of them were African American. And what we did, and this is maybe something we need to look out after, is that we brought in people who had degrees who retired from their jobs. They weren't really old, like maybe retired when they were in their 50s. We were able to obtain emergency certificates from the Pennsylvania Department of Ed. with a guarantee that the male teachers would go back and get certified, permanent certification, by taking a few courses. And so, a lot of them did. One of the problems that the program eventually failed, it wasn't about the male teachers. They were excellent, but there was a movement by people saying it was racist. My answer to them was it wasn't racist when we only had 1 percent Black males and yet the majority of the teachers were White males. The White females were second majority and then the Black African American females were the third, but the Black male was 1 percent. So we may want to look into that again because we do need a role model for our children, especially our Black boys to see that. We also had a program where we brought in people from the trades, actually were teaching children carpentry, engineering, electricity, plumbing, sewing, cooking, male and female, and they had the experience, so all they had to do was get a few credits and get certified to do that, and that worked out well. But due to funding, that was tossed out. And I have to agree with Crystal when she said that we need to make this a professional job. You know, without teachers none of us would be sitting here. And if we do not start to pay our teachers for what they are worth, when I came into Philadelphia, we were the highest paid School District in the state. Philadelphia became the lowest. And so, people started going out to the suburbs, to other states, in Jersey, Delaware because they were paying more. We need to bring back professionalism. Teachers are the core. Without them, we have nothing. Our children will not learn if we don't have professional, adequate teachers. And when I went out and recruited, I recruited. And I interviewed everybody to make sure we had the right and proper teachers, so we need to look back at that.
Thank you very much for your response. Appreciate the enthusiasm.
While we're shifting seats, I'll just add a couple quick notes as well. I think there is a fundamental responsibility for us to ensure that school is a good experience for our Black male students. You don't get Black male teachers when our students do not enjoy school. So I think that's thing one. And then I think as a District we need to celebrate and surround supports to those people who step up into the teaching profession just like everyone said, but especially if they are representative of a population that's not representative among their peers. So I was delighted to celebrate principals. I believe it was this past week, but maybe it was two weeks ago, I don't know. I was just delighted to celebrate our principals with three Black men being there and to see the delight in their school communities as well. So I'll hand it over to --
So we talk about getting Black teachers into the profession and teachers period. There's a teacher shortage nationwide. Pennsylvania used to be the biggest producer of teachers. We're no longer that. And I think that we also have to give consideration. And it keeps coming back to money, to what supports, what mentorship, what ongoing assistance teachers get. So I know there's some teachers, and teaching is hard. It is hard.
And so, we need structures, like intentional structures that actually support them, and there needs to be some safety nets for teachers who struggle because it takes three to five years to make a really good teacher. And what's happening now, you've seen some of these laws. What's happening now is that, oh, you went to the Army, you can be a teacher. I myself, I will say that I transitioned into teaching. You know, like people call me all kinds of things, hidden figures all the time. And it was arrogant of me to come into teaching. I went to private schools. That was -- the list was a private school list because I thought I would try it out before I went to go get training. And it was one of the most difficult -- it was more difficult than working at NASA, so I can say that, right. And so, the mentorship that you get from more seasoned teachers, and you have to pick the seasoned teacher, are they advocating progressive models, are they student-centered, are they authentically getting students ready for success after they graduate from high school. So I mean, all of those things come with a price tag. But if we can be intentional about setting up the structures that will actually support teachers and having a long rewarding career in the profession, that's what it's going to take. A School Board alone can't do that. (Applause.)
Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Nina Ahmad.
Yeah. First, I wanted to echo my colleague Jay Young's comments about thanking all of you for doing a job that is not only difficult but not rewarded by I think a population at large, and that really speaks to where we value education in our culture, how we value teachers in our culture. I am the daughter of a teacher who was a social worker- turned teacher. She was a Montessori-trained teacher, and I watched how much work she did after she came home, how I helped her cut out shapes and this and that as she did the work. But it was a calling, it is a calling for us. And for you to sit there as a Board working with our School District to make sure our teachers, our students, our staff have the best possible circumstances is a yeoman's job given how little we value education in our country here. I think we need a Marshall Plan, right, just like we had after II World War about how we sent resources to Europe to build them. We can't send resources to our own school, our own country here, the first-world country with the most resources available. Yet we are having 5 percent rates of achievement in our children. That's criminal. That is absolutely criminal, and we are all accountable for that, all of us sitting here. Every one of us need to really put our children first and figure out what needs to happen to make them successful on a global stage. And I'm -- (Applause.)
Yes, thank you. I'm so happy to see a NASA engineer. I am a scientist by training. And I think we need strategic planning. So this was a question asked of you by my colleagues before, is to see what kind of a strategic plan do you have in concert with the School District from your vantage point to see how we are driving making our children ready for the global stage? Second part to that is what is your relationship with Council? So I'm very new, four months old, and all my colleagues who've been here have told me it seems to be non-existent in this real sense of knowing what's going on, right. Real sense of sharing and collaboration, real sense of making sure we are partners. We go into the community. We go -- I mean, there's nine of you. It's hard for you to do everything. We can be partners in taking your message out so we can have that cohesive look for our constituents to say, we got our -- excuse my language, S together, right. We need to show that amount of competency to our taxpayers to say, your dollars are being used equitably, your dollars are being used efficiently and we are going to be held accountable, all of us, for the use of that money to make sure that our children have the best education in this country that prides itself on being first world on so many other things. So that's just my comment. I really want to hear about your strategic plan going forward. By the way, all your bios are so impressive. Every one of you have extremely impressive bios. I had an intern in my office collate all of this and she's a Temple student, senior. She did a little synopsis of each of you. And it was interesting to see what she picked up as a young woman out of all your bios, and I compared it to your actual bio. Excellent bios. Now, how do we put this to work? How do we make sure that your best ideas are connected to what the community is looking for, what Council is looking for, what the Mayor is looking for, what the District is doing. We need to stitch that all together and to have a real cohesive plan going forward that you share with us, that you don't do in a vacuum. So I want to hear from all of you what does that look like? What do we expect? And give us timelines. Thank you, Mr. President,
I can take a a stab at this. First, we can do better. And I think that was the Mayor's vision when she put this slate together to have One Philly, intergovernmental approach. And I believe that that was in -- I know that was in mind central to the Mayor's thinking when she put this slate together. So I think that no 9 matter what we're doing is going to get better. What I offered as a suggestion last year in one of our monthly education committee meetings is that there needs to be a retreat, right. I think the Board of Education and the District in the summer -- I know the summer time, y'all, might be out of budget season. There needs to be a retreat because these once-a-month- fly-by things happen. I know somebody might be here, you might have to take your child because we're all busy people, and information sometimes go there and it might go there to die, right. So I think if we can have a retreat where we all could respect each other as we all do already, have a strategy session. And I know the Mayor's all about bringing people together. This is in line, I think, with her vision. I think this Board is rare and will go to do that. I think you'll see a different mechanism going forward. And I think that all of our good faith that we're all trying to move in the same direction will be further more collaborated. So that's something that I would hope that the Board be ready to do day 1. And I know logistics have to be -- and I know this is your chamber, Council President. I don't want to tell you, you know, stay in my place. But Board members, nominees?
I have some of the same questions. I actually wrote down and was wondering what our relationship is with City Council. I have had experience at the District. I was Executive Director of New School Models, and that wasn't in my universe at all, what the relationship looked like with the District. I had questions about what the District's relationship looked like with the Mayor's Office of Education, so those are things that I'm keenly aware of. Also in my work, I cultivate a lot of relationships and partnerships to pull multiple organizations in a common direction and I'm looking forward to bringing that skill to the work that we're going to do as a Board.
Just one more comment. Thank you very much. We would like some deliverables in terms of what that plan looks like. What is the timeline for that? Especially around the facilities plan, what does that look like? Who on your nine-member Board is going to drive that so we know that they have the competency with other support hopefully to put that together because all of this is strung together? So I thank you all for your energy. I thank you all for doing this, and I look forward to working with all of you. Now, I'm done. Thank you, President.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Rue Landau.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you all for being here. It's been a long day. And my colleague Councilmember Nina Ahmad did ask some of my questions. So I do want to start with thank you for the work you do. We are excited for the new folks. Thank you for the folks who've been here for a while. Thank you to the teachers. Thank you to the principals. Thank you to everybody who has been working to keep all of this functioning under very, very difficult circumstances. My grandmother, my aunt and my mom were Girls' High graduates so I do have to lend my voice to the Girls' High cheer. Please take care of that school. It is an incredible institution for the City of Philadelphia. My grandmother taught at Olney High School. There's a lot of tradition here and a lot of excellence in the City of Philadelphia and we need to make sure that we are lifting it up at all times. (Applause.)
I am new as well. I've been doing a lot of advocacy. I've been a legal aid lawyer and been doing a lot of stuff in the City of Philadelphia, but I am new as well on Council. So I want to tell you that I am cheering for you. I want to work beside you, we all do, and we will hold you accountable. And I know you expect that and I know that's part of the job just as we will be held accountable as well to the constituents throughout the City of Philadelphia. This goes to you. This goes to the District. This is all hand-in-hand. We must all be paddling the boat in the same direction because there's no other choice right now. We are in an urgent situation and we need transformational change, and we are at a moment where we're actually going to start getting some funding. So let's come up with the plan of what we are going to do with these resources to make the School District of Philadelphia, all of the schools in Philadelphia the most excellent places of learning that they can all be. (Applause.)
Over the past years I know that it's been critical to have leaders committed to safeguarding the District's fiscal stability, and I expect that the new members will continue that leadership. I am so excited about the new funding that will be coming to the School District. That is just years and years and years in the making and needed. What I am hoping that we see from the School District, some of which was just articulated especially by our new member, new-to-be member, hidden figures- covered Ms. Crystal, is that we need to not only work together and communicate, but do what the Mayor has been talking about doing throughout the City of Philadelphia, which is breaking down silos and also making sure we can do what we are doing even for the Commerce Department in Philadelphia. We're open for business. I want to see the School District of Philadelphia open for business for all of us. I want to make sure that teachers, community members, parents, students, everybody have equal access to engagement with the District and want to hear some of your ideas about that as well as not only are they going to share their ideas, but it will be listened to and talked about whether or not can you execute on it. We're getting amazing ideas. I've been here for four months. People on the ground, our community members are coming with ideas, they're brilliant. Let's take them, let's execute them. We cannot continue doing things the same way. As we work for the best interest of our children -- you did answer some of my questions previously. I do have just one question I want to ask very specifically. How will you prioritize the funding to support academic achievement and address resource disparities among our schools? While you're looking, I just also wanted to add, this one's important, that my son and my niece --
I'll say briefly the Accelerate Philly -- I know I keep saying Accelerate Philly, Accelerate Philly, but it was based off of not just what the School District thought, I think we've already kind of this piloted this mechanism in getting the District's muscle going as it relates to engagement where Dr. Watlington engaged with Councilmembers from my understanding, he engaged with parents, teachers and think leaders. He's actually used data and he actually used the best, you know, for example our math curriculum now is actually the best curriculum that you can buy, and that's an example of how our funds are driving the change. Another thing that I'm not proud to say, but I am the President of currently the institution that for whatever reason this occurred, there was an audit by the Council of Great City Schools that said that our science curriculum had not been updated in years and that's coming, right. 6 So I think that's what happens, we 7 have a chronically underfunded 8 entity. 9 And I like to use 10 analogies. It is a malnourished 11 entity that may have some PTSD that 12 it's working through right now, and 13 I believe we're getting better at 14 that, but we're trying to figure 15 out how to actually fix the problems that need to be fixed. Another thing that Dr. Watlington and I think the Accelerate Philly plan talks about is how do you incentivize the number one thing that moves the academic needle, which is a highly- qualified, well-resourced teacher, and we understand we can't do that. So now, what are we doing. We hired a Superintendent, and I believe the nominees would agree with this as well, who believes that we have to collaborate with our unions. They're not our enemies, right. Mr. Jerry Jordan and Dr. Robin Cooper and all of our other wonderful union leaders, 634. So I think that is the tax dollars in work, and I think it is also showing that there's been a pivot. And I know that we're fighting kind of Ghost of Christmas Past, and we know that, right. We're going to absorb that, but we're going to do everything we can to change the narrative around that. And that's why I'm even mentioning things like a retreat, right, things like that, right. And again, even the ideas are starting to flow out of us, right. So that's an example of how we've used funds to drive change as well. And I believe that there's many other things. For example, we want to have Algebra in middle school, right. It's too late in high school. It's too late, but that requires resources. And that's in Accelerate Philly. That's something Dr. Watlington is working through right now. The Mayor's all-year-round school, out-of-school time, that's in the Accelerate Philly plan and is going to cost money though, right, about $25 million extra per schools, but that's -- City 16 Council looks like they're going to 17 put their money where their mouth 18 is. So the dollars are working. 19 We have the Accelerate Philly. 20 There's a through-line, and then the Board on top of that has goals and guardrails where it monitors the stuff and holds the Superintendent accountable where everybody's evaluation is flowing toward the same goals. And I think that that piece is important to speak. And I think that this Board and the nominees, we're all primed to go, to keep this progress going forward.
Some of our more recent efforts, particularly affecting academic achievement, are our roll-out of comprehensive curricula. As a parent and even as someone who's taught for a couple of years before, I didn't appreciate how significant this was until I heard the same message being shared back with us school after school after school about the math curriculum and how it breaks concepts down and how it layers component pieces of information and skills in ways that were not laid out in that manner before and how it is the same at every school across the District depending on which grade level. So I can go to a 3rd grade class and then the other 3rd grade class across the hall will be doing the same work, and another 3rd grade class at a different school will be learning the same concepts, and teachers can collaborate on how they are working on their instructional plans because they're all working on the same thing. And I'm excited that we are working on the professional development this summer to roll out an ELA program that is a continuum across the K-12 grades and that build upon a lot of the work that has been done around the science of reading so that we can continue to accelerate reading across our District. Thank you.
I'd like to add that this is also a policy issue. We know that things are happening at the state level around the funding formula, and I believe that we have to work with bodies like City Council to galvanize our citizenship to activate them around these issues. I recall that Senator Hughes was doing some work and came to some nonprofits to ask us to galvanize our bases. I think that's part of what's going on here too, because I know teachers who create their own curriculum and it's amazing. So I don't think it's always just about the curriculum. It's about this holistic approach to what we're doing. And so, I think Sarah- Ashley and I were talking about how to get parents more engaged, and it has to be the parents who we know are disengaged and what are the efforts, you know. If we try one thing and it doesn't work, how do we try another thing and how do we work with City Council and other bodies in the City to move the needle on this. So I think that's part of reducing that disparity.
Can I make one quick plug feeding off of hopefully future Co-Board members? In the Accelerate Philly plan, there is -- not a plan, the work is already under way, to re-ignite Parent University, right. And I think and I believe Councilmember Phillips would appreciate this with the work that he's doing. Thinking about old ideas that went away when --
Probably separate from Constant Clayton to be quite frank, the most engaged I've ever seen parents involved and really meeting parents where they're at, not District/Board up here, parents down here, but actually listening to the parents in terms of the policies and direction that the School District is going into, so I think that's great.
Yes, sir. I just wanted to elevate that, Parent University --
-- and that is something that is being marked, that is being tracked and that is a deliverable that will soon be soon to come as well.
That's what's up. I'm getting ready to call on my last member before we go take a break and go into our second round. But I have just a real quick question. When you talk about working in partnership with the unions, which I think is great, it's good to hear that, right. Give me your perspective regarding the School District 3579 policy. The policy specifically deals with teacher absences for personal or family illnesses. And according to teachers who were advocating around this policy think it's unclear and causing confusion amongst teachers across the City and appears to conflict with and undermine the District's Collective Bargaining sick leave policy. Under the terms of the School District's Collective Bargaining Agreement, teachers are entitled to 10 sick days each year and we fully support teachers right to take leave as necessary to care for themselves and their families. However, the 3579 policy subverts the collective bargaining terms of the teachers contract by tracking these absences and subjecting teachers to escalating repercussions, including excessive warning memos, recommendations for suspension or even termination beginning within three absences. And I kind of paid attention to one young lady during one of the hearings talk about how she missed work because she was sexually assaulted, right. And so, I didn't really hear any feedback from the Board in terms of if there would be anything practical in terms of a strategy to actually address this issue. And obviously, it's a relationship between the Board and the Teachers Union. So have there been any progress since then or are we looking at possibly shifting and changing? From my understanding, and this is a letter that we sent to Dr. Watlington signed by Councilmembers Katherine Gilmore Richardson, Jamie Gauthier, Mike Driscoll, Chairman of Education Isaiah Thomas, Mark Squilla, Jeffrey Young, Quetcy Lozada as well as Kendra Brooks, Jim Harrity, Anthony Phillips, Cindy Bass, Rue Landau, Nina Ahmad and Nicolas O'Rourke, which shows that the body collectively has the interest in making sure teachers get their due justice in terms of sick leave policy.
Council President, I want to say that we hear you, the Board, and its current iteration hears you and I know that we all hear you today, and I think that we have the right Superintendent, just again whether it's leveling, whether it's taking a second look at our special admission process, which I heard from Majority Leader Katherine Gilmore Richardson needs more work and we understand that. So I believe that Dr. Watlington is definitely in tune with this and is doing the work to figure this out. He's very careful and thoughtful about unintended consequences. I think that's how we got here with the special admit piece. We didn't think enough about the unintended consequences, and I think it's important for the Board of Education, whether it's charters or others, to say we got it wrong sometimes, right. But we are also showing that we can get it right, right. And I think Dr. Watlington on this topic is the right guy at the right time on this piece as well. And I think it is an old, antiquated policy and I've gotten educated on it, right. It's an old, antiquated policy that needs to have a second look. I'm not sure exactly what Jerry Jordan and the PFT with Dr. Watlington -- but I know that relationship is warm and I do trust that. I have all my confidence in Dr. Watlington to ensure that this is addressed.
Thank you very much. Last question for this round. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity.
Could I say a little bit more about that question you just posed?
I think this relates directly to the optics of teaching as a profession. If in the news you see teachers protesting because they can't take days off for medical needs, family needs, what have you, so I think it is integrated with some of the other aspects of the teaching profession that we need to take under consideration.
Thank you very much. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jim Harrity.
Council President, I'll be brief. My colleagues were very good with their questions today and I only have a few softball ones that I can ask. But one thing I wanted to -- I'm very glad to hear that you're going to be working with getting more parents involved because that's the one difference I seen myself between public school and charter school. So my son went to middle school at GAMP, great school, fantastic, right. And then another one of your schools, he went to Prep Charter for high school. But the biggest difference I saw was that when he went to Prep Charter, we had to go in, me and his mother, and we had to sign papers that we would be in that school so much. We had to commit not only that my son would be there but that we would be available to be there. So I'm glad that you're looking into that Parent University, and hopefully we can get some education for the parents in there also because I don't know if I'd be able to do the new math that they got out there right now. Thank God my son was -- he's now 12 so he graduated a little while ago. 13 But the new math that my grandson 14 is doing is really kind of crazy. 15 But just because of the -- 16 I live in Kensington and I've been 17 doing a lot of stuff with Memphis 18 Street Academy. And I went in and 19 I talked to the children themselves 20 about their experience of just what 21 they are seeing on their way to 22 school and the trauma that they're 23 facing on a daily basis trying to 24 dodge their way around the 25 neighborhood in order to get to that school. And it actually -- we partnered up. They are having the kids now do videos of their experience. And I have been posting them online on my Facebook page so that people could see what actually is happening. So I want to know does each school have access not only to full-time nursing but full-time counselors available at the schools? And if not, what are we doing in order to rectify that situation? Because the fact of the matter is that there's so much trauma out there right now that these kids are facing, that it's not necessarily the school's fault. We're going through a lot of things in society right now that are doomed. But from my conversations with these kids, they get it. They know what they're saying. They know what's going on. Their biggest question to me was what are we going to do about it, you know what I'm saying. They're thinking a lot different than we are. So what can you tell me about that? And does the School Board directly communicate with the teachers and the students on a regular basis; is that something that's happening?
I believe currently -- not I believe, I know currently that work happens at the District, on the District level. The Superintendent convenes various groups to have conversations. He definitely has students that he convenes with once a month, and with our Student Board Representatives they also engage in that space. And first, I want to apologize to all students who have to go through any of the trauma. I mean, I can't even say it was as bad as it was with some of the stuff when I was a student walking up and down Germantown Ave to get to school. This is different. It's a little different. And --
I went to school in Southwest Philadelphia during the crack epidemic when the JBM and the Jamaican Jerk were warring. So we had some trauma, but nothing compared to what these kids are facing today.
But what I can add briefly is that whenever there is a traumatic issue, whether it was the shooting of the young brother walking to school at our Mastery Gratz campus, the District gets involved. And at that time, it was Commissioner Bethel who was Chief Bethel, who gets in his car and runs there and offers all the trauma support that we can bear. This year we had this unfortunate situation with Imhotep, one of our amazing charter schools that is doing the work on academic achievement but doing the work around governance on financial wherewithal, has a great relationship, a good-working relationship with the Board and the CSO. But even in that context, I can tell you that the District and the Board send out all of the resources no matter what school it was, whether it was Frankford or whether it was Imhotep, right --
Yeah, I understand that we're reactionary so we react when a trauma thing occurs. You know, I'll just throw it out there. Me for one, I would like to see counselors in every school because kids -- (Applause.)
-- kids have problems daily. I found in my own life experience that it's not always the bigger things that get you. Sometimes it's those small things that you see on a daily basis. You know, the big shootings and all that kind of stuff kind of come together, the students together and they talk amongst themselves and they're able to work that kind of stuff out. But it's that underlying trauma, that trauma that they're not speaking about, the trauma that nobody's talking to them about. And for me, I know full well from my own lived life experience, I've been very open with that, is that that trauma I faced as a child is what ended up getting me as an adult. And I would like to see us try to cut that out. So it leads me to how can we help in order to get more counselors in the school, because I mean that's something I'll pay -- I'm willing to have the City pay for. I'm willing to vote to add money for counselors. (Applause.)
I think that if a kid needs to speak to somebody, they need to speak to somebody. Because if they're reaching out like that, we need to get them there.
So number one, we're going to get you that data so we can know what schools are needing nurses and counselors. I'm going to say this as a therapist. One therapist is not enough in a school, right. One therapist is not enough. So even if the school --
It is a start, but it's not enough. So let me say this, we do have a program called Kooth. Every student in the Philadelphia School District, public, charter has access to Kooth where they can talk to a licensed therapist. We need to do a better job with advertising that, right, that they have that access. So we partnered with Lane Johnson on that and we have big events to kind of talk about it, but we need to on a daily basis make sure that that information is getting to not only the student but to the families so that they know that they have access to Kooth. And it's free of charge to them and they're able to talk to a licensed therapist.
Again, I think that's great. But again, kids don't ask those kinds of things, you know what I mean. They're not going to seek out, but if they have a counselor that they see every day that they know is cool that other students have told them, hey, listen, you know what I mean, I talked to Mr. So-and-so, you know what I mean. So for me I believe that that has to be first and foremost. Because a kid cannot learn when they have this other stuff on their mind, it doesn't matter how good the teacher is. It doesn't matter. And I know we have a lot of great teachers in the City of Philadelphia. My concern again is the trauma. And again, I'm telling you I'm going to vote for whatever we have to do in that aspect of that. But I'm hoping that you're thinking on those kind of lines. Because, listen, being able to talk to somebody online is not the same as having that face-to-face interpersonal connection. (Applause.)
Test, test. Councilmember Harrity, thank you so much for lifting that up for us. You are absolutely correct, there's so much research about childhood -- ACES, childhood traumatic experiences, and the sustained trauma that you talk about is something that we believe is every bit a part of our guardrail around safe and welcoming schools. I would thank you also for the commitment to fund what it takes. We'd love to engage further as partners as we work to understand how we can better support all of our students, because the fact of the matter is if a kid shows up in a school and their mind is somewhere else, their body might be there but their brain is not, we can't do what we need to do to educate that child. So thank you again for lifting that up.
Thank you. So we will break until 3:30 and we will see everyone back at 3:30 sharp. Thank you very much. (Afternoon recess.)
We will now resume this Committee of the Whole. Ms. Sarah-Ashley Andrews, hello. How you doing good? I remember when you were first nominated and appointed in 2022, and I appreciate your enthusiasm but most importantly your work as a therapist. And so, as a Board have we began working or strategizing -- it's a follow-up question that was already asked regarding how we address the issue of trauma. Gun violence is the number one issue here in the City of Philadelphia right now. And particularly amongst our young people who are going to and from school, they're experiencing a level of trauma which probably we've never seen in this lifetime in terms of young people being shot and murdered here in the streets of Philadelphia. So can you just give us an idea, but particularly you, from your perspective things we have been doing, things we can do in the future as it relates to addressing the issue of trauma that our young people are experiencing as a result of gun violence?
So the first thing I want to say is when we think about trauma, we think about the journey to and from school. One thing we have expanded is our Safe Paths program, right. So we want to make sure that there are police officers out there, there are community people out there, there are people that are keeping eyes on our children as they're going to and from schools, right. I think we're expanding now to 20 -- I can't -- 22 more schools this year. We're expanding that.
Yes. So that's one thing, right, making sure our kids are safe at least going to and from school. The second thing is, and I mentioned it earlier, is that we established a program Kooth which every student has access to, and then also teachers too but there's another program for teachers. And I can't recall the actual program that we have for teachers and staff members, but there is a program that they can access for free too when we're dealing with trauma. Do I think we're doing enough? No. I mean, we live in Philadelphia. We see the gun violence. We see not just the gun violence, the drug problem, right. We see the overdoses. We see all these things happening and we can't shield our kids from it because it's on social media, it's everywhere. So when I was in school, I could be shielded from some things. We can't shield them now. So I think we definitely have to make some investments in some more counselors and mental health resources for our District.
Thank you very much. Ms. Crystal Cubbage. Ms. Cubbage, you recently stated that your work at in education at the thinktank helped you gain insight into what healthy functional schools look like. Can you give us an idea what these healthy functional schools have that our School District lacks so we can better see how we can be supportive with the District and its goals?
Yes. To start, there needs to be a clear school culture that is responsive to the adjacent community with some clearly articulated core values that anchor the entire school model so that it is clear to school leaders, teachers, parents, students. A good example would be the SLAs. They have a clear -- there are five dimensions to their core values. I think it's -- I'm going to get this wrong, inquiry --
Can you elaborate what SLAs are for non-educators who are here today?
I sure can. It is a group of schools, Science Leadership Academy, it started off about 16, years ago. Chris 17 Lehmann is the current CEO. He's the founder of those schools. There's SLA Beeber, which also has a middle school, and one of the schools I help to open is SLA Middle School. So another component of a healthy school, I also worked with an organization named New Tech Network when I was at the District. That organization was hired to help the LINC, one of the innovation network schools to clarify what a school model was after so much turnover in leadership. And they too talk about a clearly articulated model. They talk about school -- the facilities. We had a lot of facilities conversations, so the facilities should be a reflection of the model. For example, if you want to get students together to do things collaboratively, there should be space to do that. And SLA Middle School is new and it has those spaces. Another component in addition to the model is the school schedule that supports that model and then PD that also bleeds into it. So the model and how well it is articulated allows for the rest of the school structure to be built so that it's beneficial for schools. It's a model that is clearly understood across the community. Those are some of the pieces.
Okay. Thank you very much. The Chair recognizes Chair of Education, Councilmember Isaiah Thomas.
Thank you, Council President. A couple things. First, I want to start with a little lesson in Black vernacular because I think that there are some people who take my tone, semantics or my energy around children as something that is different than what it is. As a dark-skinned Black man when you raise your voice and you are passionate about something, racist accusations tend to come out. So I want to be very clear. This is about children and education, families that we advocate for. And I apologize if my authentic Black self bothers some people. And I know for a fact that that's not the School Board members here, so I want to make it clear that I'm not talking about you guys. A couple quick questions that I'm hoping you can answer so we can have some things on the record as we educators try to put ourselves in a position to be able to have some expectations once the Board is confirmed. A facilities plan, we talked about that earlier, Board President Streater, do you think it's realistic that we can have a facilities plan that talks about where we're going as a city before the end of the calendar year? Do you think that that's something that's realistic?
When you say -- I know I'm not supposed to ask questions. But when you say a full plan, do you mean around a vision where we're headed or like this school right here, this is what needs to happen to it?
Yeah, I mean so it's a two-part thing in my opinion and I could be wrong because I'm no expert. The first part I think about is the change of population in the City of Philadelphia. You have some parts of the City where the population has grown significantly and that part of the City might need an elementary school. Then you have other schools where the building is underutilized and then you have other schools where the actual facility is dilapidated. We don't know how many schools are in a position where they need to be torn down, built new. We don't know how the change of a population has changed the demand for elementary schools. I think about Councilmember Squilla's District, the Council President's District. These are areas that have seen a boom in population. And so, when we think about a facilities plan, these are some of the things that we will consider. So do you think it's realistic that we can have a facilities plan that include all of those things by the end of the year?
Based upon my earlier testimony and to be, you know, not to be a hypocrite of what I said earlier, there's a process right now with the data warehouse that is going to be necessary to have that conversation. But I do believe it is fair to say that there can be a better articulation of where we're headed and vision and mission. And I think it's also very important for us, the District and the Board and I think our new colleagues who are coming, to understand that it would be disingenuous if we had a plan right now, I think, personally. If I was to walk into a community and say, this is what we're going to do to you now or come to you in City Council and say, this is what we're going to do to schools in your sector without talking to Brother Jones, Councilmember Jones as it relates to Overbrook, I think that would be a bad look. I think we've tried that in the past, and maybe we're overcorrecting too much and we're trying not to do that again.
So do you think it would be fair to say that we could have a facilities plan by the end of the next Calendar Year 2025, considering all those things that you just mentioned that need to be done before we have a plan that we all feel comfortable with?
Well, I will first say is definitely what we're trying to do is follow the lead of our Mayor, right, in collaboration with City Council. But I believe from what I know, which some of these questions are above my pay grade as it relates to making sure the timing is correct for the village to move forward, if all the stars align and with the Mayor who's bold and a Board that I think is ready to do the right work and be thoughtful, I think there's a good chance. I mean, as a lawyer it's hard for me --
70 percent, 60 percent, 75 percent chance, I think there's a good chance.
Can I get a point of information in here. I know our Mayor has a bold vision to address lead and asbestos schools and make sure we address facilities and even look at even consolidating some schools and building new schools, and I also know on the state level we have our representatives who are sitting by willing to be supportive. I know Governor Josh Shapiro, he started a facilities fund to address that very same issue. But I also know for a fact there's conversation saying when Philadelphia comes to Harrisburg, particularly around facilities and support, we want to see a plan. And so, I think what Chairman Thomas was talking about is a sense of urgency, right. Because at the end of the day, we share text messages on a group where schools are closing down or half the school building is open and the other half of the school building is shut down. And when you get those type of text messages, most important responding to our constituents, the parents, right, then we have a duty to respond in an urgent way. And I think that's where this line of questioning is coming from because it was about two years ago when we were down in the Mayor's reception room under the last Administration addressing this very same issue. And so, I think it's the urgency that a lot of us want to feel -- a lot of us are looking for that it's really critically important. I know the Board believes it's important, but it's that sense of urgency like come hell or high water we're going to get this done. Rather bringing outside consultants to help with the process, get everybody around the table. The same way we built the I-95 bridge, right. That bridge broke down and everybody in the whole world came together. They did press conferences. We had the Eagles, the Flyers and the Sixers. The Flyers, they all came down on trucks and they were celebrating, but they were in the room every single day trying to figure that part out of how we make a bridge, right, how they found thoroughfare to go to and from, but that was dealing with commerce. That was money-related. And I believe our children are just as important to receive that same level of urgency. So I think that's where Mr. Chairman is going. The Chair recognizes the Chair of Education Isaiah Thomas.
Council President, I couldn't have said it better myself. And I think the sense of urgency is not just the issues that we're facing with facilities, but some of us are concerned that Harrisburg's $14 billion surplus just won't last forever. And while they do have the surplus while the court ruling is fresh in everybody's mind that says our schools are severely underfunded, we feel like this is the perfect time to cash in on that, on that guarantee that the Governor made as long as we can provide a facilities plan. Next question, yes or no. 14 Board President Streater, you and the other returning Board members, I commend you because you did a great job with the UNITE HERE contract when that contract came up, and a lot of us on City Council was extremely worried about those workers, the wages and some of the issues that they presented to us. In the audience, we have Dr. Robin Cooper who's amazing. She leads our Principal Union. I seen Jerry Jordan who leads our Teachers Union. You have a number of other unions that are represented within the District whose contracts are going to be expiring pretty soon. Yes or no, do you think you'll be able to -- you and this new Board will be able to have that same sense of urgency around these contracts that are going to be expiring pretty soon as you did around the UNITE HERE contract?
Okay. I know you took some of my time, Council President. A couple more things real quick. Athletics, you guys know I'm really big in the sports space. We're very concerned about the lack of revenue for athletics. So I would ask can this Board give the Council President something in writing that speaks to how do you plan on dealing with the facilities crisis that we have with athletics? The PIAA is looking to make a new law that says that your facilities have to be up to a certain standard in order to host a home game. Based on this new law and based on our facilities, every athletic competition that takes place outdoors or in a facil -- I'm sorry. Every athletic event that takes place outdoors or that's not in a gymnasium, Philadelphia would not be able to host that home competition in the playoffs because none of our facilities would match the standard of the PIAA. So can you please get the Council President a plan in writing to be able to address the facilities crisis we're dealing with in a sports space because we're concerned? I also want to put on the record around special admission schools. City Council -- for those who don't know, City Council meets on a monthly basis with the leadership at the School District as well as the School Board. And one of the things similar to leveling that we've seen some issue with is our special admission schools. We want you guys to give the principals a little more autonomy to be able to fill vacant seats when they're not necessarily filled. Councilmember Gilmore Richardson talked earlier about Girls' High School, right. And I'm not going to ask you on the record to give us a decision around special admission schools today because I do believe the commitment is there to try to figure it out. But I do want to put on the record our advocacy to assure that every special admission seat is filled in our school unless our children don't want to go there, right. So whatever we need to do to fill those seats, we want to do it. Arts, music programs, big concern for us. Not enough arts programs and music programs in our school. So if you could get the Council President something in writing as it relates to a plan to get more arts, more music programs in our school. I'm no artist. I can't dance. I can't paint. I can't sing. But I'm sure that there are young people out there who are great at that. And it's unfortunate that most of our schools do not provide those types of programs. So what are we going to do about that? We're very short on librarians. We're struggling with librarians in our schools, right. So what are we going to do to make sure that our schools have librarians? We have a ton of people who always want to donate books and things of that capacity to us, but it's unfortunate that some of our comprehensive schools do not have a library to go to. Last but not least is my shameless plug. I would like our schools to teach financial literacy and civics in government the senior year of high school and give young people the option to get registered to vote. I'm a former teacher myself, so I would never ask you to implement this in a testing grade because I understand that the state creates standards as it relates to standardized tests that make it hard for teachers to abide by while simultaneously trying to teach things like civics and government and financial literacy when we don't provide any standardized testing on that. So the reason I'm asking for that specifically in the senior year of high school is because I know that the senior year of high school is not a year where we use standard testing to determine the amount of revenue you get from the state, which is wrong, Council President, but it is the way it is. So my last comment as I close out, and I'm hoping you can get all this stuff in writing, Council President, please provide us something in writing as it relates to your opinion on civics and government and financial literacy.
And my personal recommendation is to make that mandatory to senior year in high school so every child graduates with some level of financial literacy as well as civics and government with the option to get registered to vote. Council President, that is it for me today. Thank you, sir.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes the Vice-chair of Education, Councilman Anthony Phillips.
Thank you, Council President Johnson. I've been sitting here listening attentively to this discussion. Why? Because education is vital and critical to one of the reasons why I'm here, right. And I just want to have a -- I'm noticing a dynamic. The dynamic is very different than even how we're governed. Our Council President, right, is very -- he's a facilitator. He allows us to make ideas, he allows us to come together. He's not like the person that is like my way or the highway, right. But it's leadership and you can see it and you can observe it and you can feel it. The dynamic that I'm observing with this particular Board, which a lot of people have been concerned about in the community, is that Chairman Streater, your influence is so high that the rest of the Board members don't have a feeling to kind of move or they're not as involved or as engaged. Like, they move when you move. Is that true or things can be better? Because thus far what I've been seeing is that Sarah's been trying to grab the mic, other people -- everyone's been trying to grab the mic at some point, and every time you'll say, let me grab it back. So how can we make sure that this is a Board that is very inclusive as opposed to there's a level of we move when Streater moves and he has all the knowledge?
I'm going to show my act of listening and I'm going to let the current Board members who are allowed to speak today to speak. Thank you.
I recognize your observation. I'm not going to debate with you about your observation. But I don't think it's true that we just move when he moves. I think he's a leader. We're all leaders by nature. So we're all going to want to say something at one point, but he is our President, currently our President. And so, I don't think the culture is though that we just move when he moves or we're not involved. We all have our own areas that we're involved in --
But he does seem like he has more knowledge around all of the systems and things than what I've been seeing lately. I'm just saying, I watch people like, oh, wait. Is it one or two people only have all the knowledge? Is that the dynamic that we're going to be looking forward to in our future?
I would say that President Streater has been our spokesperson and he has a lot of experience being our spokesperson, has spoken to many of you in this room about many of these issues, has a lot of context as to the discussions that have occurred around these two issues or several issues. And so, we trust President Streater's leadership in these conversations because we know that his answers are our answers too.
Is it on? Okay, yes. I'd like to add my observation is that a lot of the questions have been about what's happened historically. And so, as a newly-appointed nominee --
Oh, yeah, that really wasn't for you. That was for --
I have high expectations for the new folks. But I also want to make sure that the new people understand that this City Council is really collaborative and we want to make sure that there's a level of listening and collaboration as well with this particular School Board too. And once you guys get your feet wet, we expect so much more, right. So that's what -- all right. Quick things. If you had to go on some level of excellence of what you can bring to the Philadelphia School Board or things that you have done successfully, this is for our new appointees as well as our returning appointees, what would that be? What is the new innovative thing that you hope to bring to the Philadelphia School District this particular year? The Parent University is an amazing thing, but are we going to have by the end of the year, are we going to see X, Y, Z, that's going to be held accountable by the School District? Bullying has been rampant around the School District of Philadelphia and we have not figured out any particular campaign to -- what is going to be your innovative thing that you could say by the end of the year we can highlight this to the general public saying the success of our District has been this?
It's impossible for me personally. Maybe some of my other colleagues here can speak to that, so we're stepping into this role really not knowing the level of bureaucracy that we have to navigate. We certainly have ideas, but can we move those ideas forward. We don't know yet. I know in terms of the skills that I hope to utilize in this position, they include collaboration. It includes engaging employers for workforce development at the high school level with the passing of Act 158. That's something that's really, really important to me. And I think really can be developmental for our students. And then I personally have skills and operations so I am not completely clear not knowing the landscape, not being briefed on all the things, budgets, facilities, so on and so forth on exactly how I'll be able to utilize my skills to innovate. But I know that there will be some innovation.
I'm sorry because I'm a current Board member but I'm speaking as an individual, not even as the Board President, and I know a little something about what's going on. I think around the charter piece, I think there's some things that we can do. So I was an Eisenhower fellow when I went to Finland and Kenya to learn about public education. And one of the things I noticed is that there is a policy cycle around public education or education in general. And I don't think in Philadelphia we have a cadence from when we need to go back and look at the framework and see is something that we agreed upon five or six or seven or eight or ten years ago needs to be revisited. I think that's something new we need to do with our charter framework. And right now there are three Board members working right now, one being Board member ChauWing Lam and Board member Joyce Wilkerson working through the kinks to figure out how do we create a policy cycle where there might be an RFP or something like that comes out for a neutral third party to help us engage around the academic domain of the framework. That's new, right. That's where we're headed, right. Number two, I think that we need to be more transparent in many ways around charter stuff, the topic. I think there needs to be more public hearings where we can hear from our providers in a way that is enshrining our policies so that everybody knows what to expect in public where we can hear from the providers, but also maybe the Board members can ask a few questions at some point in the process as well. I think it has to be public. I think it can't be behind the scenes as well. That's just a couple of things. And I think we have to empower our parents in the charter sector as well. We're talking about Parent University on the District side. Even though we might have the same tool on the charter side, we can think about, well, if we have the same ideology around student achievement we're using different tools. But with this tool, I think we have to find a way to empower parents so they can go to their Boards and hear from the Boards of the charter schools to hear their concerns and get into the know and advocate and rally against a decision that might be made and say, wait a minute, we see in your Year 3 of your H(ph) Report, there might be something going on and we want to be able to help you, help the leader of the charter school get what they need so that when Year 5 we're not out here looking crazy -- not looking crazy, but out here looking like, well, what's going on. And I think if we do those three things I've just said, I think we're going to get through a lot of the things. And one more thing I'll say as well, after talking to personally the drafters of the Ballard report, one of the things that I heard was your issue, right, might be communication, transparency. Your decisions might have been legitimate, right. But if people don't know why you're making them, it can feel and as Black folks, you know what I mean. It can feel like someone's doing something to you. And just because you weren't the one who was there who made that decision or one who wasn't there who started the process, that doesn't mean that you should still not engage with the community. So I think that will help all of us to kind of have a shared language around what a quality seat is by way of an ongoing policy cycle where we talk about what the framework is and how it should evolve based upon lessons learned over the last four or five or ten years, whatever that policy cycle would be. Two, if we empower our parents on both sides of the portfolio is one portfolio to me. And then three, we got to do a better job of having tough conversations that are data-driven, law-driven and based upon our lived experience collectively and make the best decisions for Philadelphia. That is my vision as a Board member, right. And I'm dealing with the tools I have.
And I think we have a slate of individuals who can get everything I just said done, done. But we're going to need your help as well. Thank you.
The Chair recognizes -- you want to make a comment? Go ahead.
I just want to quickly -- that's such a great question. I've been asking myself the same question, because I think especially the new nominees, we bring a lot of knowledge, a lot of ideas, a lot of experience. But it is just like Crystal said too soon to tell. I can just offer you my dreams, what I would hope would happen and the skill set that we all bring to the table. Specifically I can speak for myself. My last experience was actually in a private school. And one of the things I have noticed whether we're talking about a traditional public school, traditional charter school, a private school where I met with a single mother who could not afford the tuition but was still having three jobs to pay that tuition because she cared about her child's safety. And I believe that at the end of the day, whatever school setting we're talking about, we are talking about, I am dreaming that we have safe schools, that children are challenged and not just told what to do by a new textbook, but that they're critical thinkers, that they're able to navigate a changing culture and that we, the School District of Philadelphia, prepare them for that. Someone mentioned earlier, I think it was one of our Councilmembers that we're all guilty of this. So if there's a problem with our schools, we can't just blame each other. We just can't say it's the Mayor, it's the Superintendent, it's City Council. No, we all have a piece. We all have a responsibility. And it is my desire that I would learn whatever it is I need to learn to get this job done. But the truth of the matter is that everyone in this slate comes with experience. We're smart, we're critical thinkers, that you put us in a room together we'll be able to get the job done.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes -- I felt that energy too. The Chair recognizes Councilman Mark Squilla.
Thank you, Mr. President. And I just wanted to add one question, and it was the education and we see the passion for education on the Board and we're talking about facilities. Who is the facilities person on the Board that really understands the ins-and-outs of the school, and when the District's able to say things to you, you're able to push back on the District about those things?
In the two years that I've been a Board member, we've not had a facilities committee. I think it's time we have a facilities committee.
Once the nominees are confirmed to collective Board seats, I'm sure there will be energy to -
Okay. I think that's really important. Because as we talk about the educational pieces, part of learning is being in safe facilities in order to learn. And I think we need really need to look at somebody who can look at the facilities, understand them and has a way to when the District tells us things or even you guys, be able to push back and say, no, this isn't the case, we need to do better. So I would really love once this Board is situated to be able to create a facilities committee and then have somebody who really understands the facilities to lead that. So thank you.
Thank you, Mr. President. How does the District determine -- so what is your role in determining the curriculum of the District?
We're governance, right, so we have a Director of Curriculum, right. So we get briefed on things. We ask questions. And all those -- we get briefed on all those things. We ask questions, but Dr. Watlington, that's his role as far as the curriculum.
So are you able to provide advice and feedback on the types of things that our kids are learning? And I ask that because we all know that in order for success in our children like 8th graders need Algebra, right. So in a lot of schools 8th graders are not being taught Algebra. I went to a school in my District, a charter school in my District and I saw that the 9th graders were doing fractions, right. Fractions was their math in 9th grade. They're set up for failure, right. And so, again that's my question, how can we -- if we know that the data says that certain curriculum and certain grades can lead to higher outcomes, why are we not doing what the data says that needs to be done as far as particular types of curriculum being taught in certain grades?
It is absolutely the Board's role to set expectations for what we want our students to know and be able to do and by when. As a Board, we expect students to be reading at grade level. We wish and are pushing for Algebra in 8th grade and we expect and direct that students even if they are not at grade level be exposed to grade level content. But in terms of the materials, the learning plan to get there, that is our Superintendent's role. And we have authorized him and his team to do the research and make those decisions and let us know what they've decided and why so that we can better understand how that will align with the expectations that we've set as a Board.
So how do we then hold the School District accountable, right? Because if the Superintendent is setting those expectations and we're seeing year after year that those expectations -- from my understanding I think that for this particular Superintendent, they've lowered expectations to meet standards in certain areas. Like for around attendance, for example, right. Now, to have satisfactory attendance they lowered the percentage of days that a student needs to be there in order to meet that particular mark. So how can we then hold the School Superintendent accountable, I think, to enable the students to achieve higher, right, because I think it's your job to hold him accountable? But if he presents a plan to you and you just say okay, that plan still gives us this mediocracy that we've been given over and over and over again.
That's a great question and there's a difference in what we expect and what we monitor. So attendance being a really great example. If our expectation is that students are in school 100 percent of days and that every single school has 100 percent of students 100 percent of days and we monitor at the level of percentage of students at school 100 percent of days, it won't give us a lot of information to go by in terms of what we need to do to get closer to 100. But when we monitor at a level of here are the schools that are not meeting this benchmark of 90 percent of students attending, then we get to see patterns and have better, clearer information to drive the practices that will change the data to get us to what we expect.
It seems like you're manipulating data in order to reach the goals that you want to reach rather than using what's actually happening to make the decisions. I mean that -- I just don't understand that. (Applause.)
Can I say one thing? You're right. I understand the sentiment. But our goals and guardrail meetings once a month I think will answer a lot of these questions, right. We asked the Superintendent -- we put the data up -- and Algebra is one of the things. Algebra, English language arts and we also look at math -- I mean, science, and we progress monitor and we have goals, right. And if the needle is not moving up, that's when we intervene. But we've seen consistent growth in academic achievement and the Superintendent has gotten us here and we put that data out there and we do progress monitoring. So I'll just add that once a month we do progress monitoring. And I think we're actually doing the thing that you are telling us to do. And one more thing I'll say as well, that stuff is in this evaluation. And he's making everybody's evaluation at 440 reflect his evaluation. That's the dream where we're headed so that we can hold everybody accountable from the top to the other side of the pyramid.
Thank you, Council President. We heard in Round 1 a lot about charter, non-charter. I mentioned earlier that some of the public schools in my District are amongst the lowest performing. And so, for some parents in my District charters are the best option, right, because it's where they feel their child is going to receive the best academic journey or because they feel that their children are in the safest spaces, right. And so, while we work towards improving the public schools in my District, charter is what they have. But we've also heard from my charter providers the challenges that they experience when they're dealing with the Charter School Office as well as with the School District. And so, my question is do you all support separating the charter approval function from the School Board and why or why not, right? And do you support separating the CSO function from the District? Why or why not?
I will say no. And what I will also add is that we have a history, right. And I mentioned earlier that there are things that we have gotten better at and more things we have to get better at. But I know the current leader of the Charter School Office is doing everything he can to kind of get over that -- I think the apprehension of engaging with us is due to the history. So, for example, he does these things called professional learning communities where he tries to bring in charter leaders to understand how to understand best practices, things and ways to get better. That's something that never happened before. There's this thing called an early window where charter operators can come in and engage with the Charter School Office and try to figure out ways to say, hey, there's a mistake in my data, can you fix it. So I'm going to stop there. But I do not believe that the -- because this is one system of public education. And I think when you separate the two, you may have two systems going in completely opposite situations. At least now it's housed in one house where we can come here whenever this process happens and you can hold us accountable in one place. In addition to that, that's what the law provides for and that's what's contemplated. So I would say that I think that we just got to get better at what we do and I think once it's a public education piece, I think that's the way to do it. Once you split it out, it can get I think a little murky.
But don't you think that is almost like the judge and the prosecutor being the same person, right? It's difficult to evaluate expectations or some of those goals or guardrails, it's almost like the same person, right? And I think that's some of the challenges that I consistently hear from some of my charter providers. How do we get the School District to understand that charters are not competing against you, right. I think that charters are providing just another opportunity for children or another option for families to choose for their children. How do you get us to that point, right, where we stop -- I think Wanda mentioned it earlier, right. How do we stop competing and start trying to make it about the children and families being able to choose the best option for themselves, how do we do that?
And I think -- I've mentioned some things earlier that are pieces. One, this body and the District have to have more engagement, whether it's through retreats and things like that, one. Two, there needs to be a shared understanding of what a quality seat is in the sector. And I mentioned earlier just as Reginald Streater, former Eisenhower fellow, we need policy cycles so that things that might have been okay with the sector 6 years ago may not be okay with the 7 sector now. And I think once you 8 do those things and you get 9 everybody engaged to bake the cake, 10 no one can say I didn't like the flavor, right. We were all there together lockstep. And not only did we do it once, we'll do it again in 5 years, we'll do it again in 5 years or we'll do it again in 10 years. I think when you do that, you'll start to see the synergy. Even though there's different mechanisms on both sides of accountability and things like that. But I think we are all aligned on student achievement, student-centered approach. Just because the tool is different doesn't mean it has to have a different outcome. So that's where -- I think that's my answer to your question. Board members, nominees, please I don't want to hog the mic. I heard you, Brother Phillips.
And while you're at that, right, I agree with what you're saying. But how do you ensure that there is no 12 conflict, right? What are some examples of that, that you believe walking in as Board members that have been there for a while or new Board members coming in, how do you ensure that there is no conflict, especially in the renewals or the non-renewal decisions?
I think what the Board of Education has tried to do is be more nuanced even with holding our legal obligations, and I think our record over the last few years demonstrates that we are trying to be nuanced because we're thinking about it for students first. Two, we have the framework, right. I know people are like, well, what is the framework, what is the framework. It is a way for us all to look at what's going on in a charter school. And I think what the Board has tried to do is say through a student-centered, academic achievement, educate-the- whole-child model, this is the tool that we're using. So I think that's how we do it. And I think we got -- again, I think what I heard is we have not done a good enough job communicating and being transparent about what things exist and what things ought to exist. And I think once we do that, I think we'll all start having that shared language piece as well.
My last question: There was a situation in my District where a charter school provider became the manager of two of our schools, right. Olney and Stetson, I'm going to use them as examples. And while we saw a better performance in student attendance, in teacher attendance, in math and reading levels, the School District still chose to take those schools back under their management. We have seen a decline in both of those schools as a result of that. I believe that impacts negatively on student learning, on teachers morale and on the community in general, right, because now families are trying to figure out what do they do. Those schools originally were considered some of the most dangerous, right, and they changed for the better and are now back to what they were prior. So how do we avoid situations like that, that impact communities and families?
What I'll say is it is unfortunate that that has occurred as well. But I think this is where the other side of that nickel matters. The reason why the charters were taken from my understanding, I had just got on the Board, because there were some issues with mismanagement of funds. So I think the onus is not only the Board of Education and the CSO to work with charter providers, because it's high stakes so we all got to dot our I's and cross our T's. And I think that because the stakes are so high and there's certain things that the Board of Education at that time or even now can't look away from, we all have to do a better job leading up to when these decisions have to be made. Whether there have been warnings and attempts to try to work with the school and those things might have been ignored, that's the piece, the accountability piece that I think we've tried to implement but we're so quiet about it. No one knows about the work that was done behind the scenes to try to really massage this stuff, because if we are seen as not being good stewards of public dollars and allowing some of the financial mismanagement that occurred there, that can hurt us in Harrisburg, and that makes the whole City look bad, right. And I think that's the crux of being a Board member in Philadelphia. You are an unelected Board, which we say is fine because we have the Mayor, City Council, but you have to make sure that I'm a financial steward of public dollars. I can't be seen as being willy-nilly with it because that's what's led to us losing local control. We don't want that to happen again. And I need to -- but I also have to make sure these babies are okay, which is one of the reasons why the Board of Education was trying to interview with Math Civics this year and try to compel them to find a new operator. And I heard four operators showed up through a process that isn't covered under the law that would have gave us the flexibility we needed to do the conditions that you mentioned earlier. So we're trying to use the tools that we have, but I think we all have a job here because it's about the babies. It's about students. And I think unfortunately they're the innocent byproducts -- bystanders of some of the stuff that's going on when all the adults need to get it together.
I appreciate that response, but people -- I'm sorry. I'll go in the next round. Thank you -- or can I --
So the Auditor General who investigated this case said that there were no mismanagement of funds, right. So is that an example of the judge and the prosecutor? Is that one of those examples or what is it? And I'm new to this role, right, so I'm learning, I'm hearing from parents, I'm hearing from providers, I'm hearing from you on a regular basis. So I'm just trying to figure out how do we eliminate that?
Well, in addition to this, it's not just the Board of Education, which people have said is adverse to the District and for whatever reason affirmed us. So it's not just the Board of Education saying it. There was another statewide body that said that we see this as a problem, right. And so, I think that's the -- that's why I keep bringing the law -- I'm a lawyer, right. I keep bringing back the law. The straight jacket sometimes that it gives us, but I'm compelled as a fiduciary when I take that oath to follow. So I think that's again another example of we got to do a better job of telling the whole story, all of us, right. And I think when we do that, we'll have more shared language and shared understanding of what happened, so it doesn't happen again, right. So I'll just leave it at that.
You're welcome. The Chair recognizes Councilmember O'Rourke. O'Rourke.
Praise the Lord. All right. Hello. Sorry y'all. I forgot where I was.
Going back to my original questions around staffing, how do you think the School District can raise wages, create a better quality of life, incentivize retainment for our already existing teaching staff? And this is again towards the new members coming on. How are you thinking about that? The question is around raising wages, creating the conditions that will make sure that we're retaining good staff and good teachers in our schools. Just as we think about losing teachers to the suburbs, other states, things like that, how are we thinking about ways that we're able to retain them?
Okay. A lot of that has to deal with funding, the funding that we get because teachers need to be compensated for the jobs that they're doing and it is hard out there. Part of what I've done throughout the state is get out into the community, get out into the schools and see what's going on. Because if you don't see what's going on, you don't know what's happening. And it's difficult teaching. But you do need the funding for that. And another thing for retaining teachers, we used to have a program where new teachers had to have staff development a week before they went into the buildings in the summer. If they were hired during the year, they still went through staff development. And if they weren't certified but had a degree because of a teacher shortage, they had to go through three to four days of staff development, but also the coaches or supervisors would get out at least once every other week or once every month to help coach those brand new teachers so that they feel like they're important and feel comfortable teaching. And the coaches can see what's going on, see what's happening and help guide them into being able to teach the children and to make sure that we drive instruction and that we get achievement through the teaching, because some of it is teaching, but we have a lot of great teachers out there, we're all here. But then you have some that need help and some of them are weaker. But it's the finance and it's also they need to have some coaches that can be out there helping them to stay so we can continue to retain teachers.
Our Chief for Professional Learning has been doing really great work with building communities of practice and with doing PLC's, professional learning communities, across the District. And I used to work at the Philadelphia Academy of School Leaders. And School Leaders is an organization that convenes and chooses cohorts of principals into cohorts of about 20 to 23 principals at a time who support 24 each other, who are experiencing 25 similar things across Districtmanaged charter and parochial schools. So it's sector agnostic, but they are all school leaders who see the same things, serving the same students and it gave them a way to have shared experience and then also have professional learning together. And I do believe that being part of a community, being supported, having a mechanism where teachers develop their profession, develop their skill and have people to lean back on, that helps. It's not the only thing, but it certainly helps.
One of the other things I wanted to add is that we have to make Philly attractive, attractive for teachers to come and work here, right. So when I think about that, I'm thinking about subsidized housing for teachers. I'm thinking about making parking accessible for teachers. I'm thinking about all those things we have to make Philly attractive for people to want to come and work in Philly and not the suburbs. So what are we going to do to make Philly attractive.
Well, I think under the great leadership of our new Mayor making sure we make Philadelphia the safest, cleanest, greenest city with economic opportunity for all, we will attract more teachers here in the City of Philadelphia.
-- that I do believe that Philadelphia has a marketing problem. I think our Mayor's campaign has done a great job in making sure that we have been clear, and we have to do the same thing with our School District in retaining and attracting teachers. We have to be proud of the School District and we have to stop talking badly about it. And then we need to have teachers who want to work in that District. But if we keep saying that this is the worst district, that we don't have this, that we don't have that, teachers will not want to work here. I was the principal and CEO of Pan American Academy Charter School and I was tasked with having to hire 80 percent of our teachers not only needed to be certified, but they needed to be bilingual and they needed to come from a Latin American country, either Central America, the Caribbean or South America, and that was really hard to do. But we had clarity that we were going to pay our teachers, we were going to have incentives for them. And teachers need to be proud of where they work. And guess what? We had teachers of all nationalities. And it still exists if you want to see a great school and see it. But you have to be proud of where we are. So our job is to change how people are perceiving our School District. It is a beauti -- we live in the best city. We live in a beautiful city. We need to start saying that, where our children walk into schools where teachers work really hard. And we talk a lot about the teachers that are not doing a good job, but how about all of the teachers that are doing a great job. (Applause.)
The same thing with our principals. How about all of the principals that are working 24/7 and have given their life for the District. (Applause.)
We don't say that, so we need to start changing how we're speaking about the School District of Philadelphia and come up with a plan. Whoever helped Mayor Parker needs to help us, making sure that we have something clear, something precise and let's do whatever we can to get the best and the brightest here in our District.
Council Pres, I have one more. I know I taxed my time, but I have one more. I know this is the last round. Would you --
No, this is a very, very important issue. Go ahead, young man.
Thank you, Council President. And this is again -- first, thank you all for those responses. That was wonderful. Again, to the new Board appointees only and then this is it for me. Many of you have deep histories in the education landscape here within Philadelphia. Could you -- you know, mindful of time, could you detail the scenarios or organizations for which it would be a conflict of interest, this is an ethical question, for you to vote on a particular matter? What's your proactive strategy for recusing yourself when there is clearly a conflict of interest, something as a hot button issue? How do you go about doing that?
I can give you a direct example. I'm a therapist in Philly. I have clients. There was one client that came up and I had to make it known to our chief of staff, our legal department, the relationship and I recused myself from the vote. So it's a real simple process where we have to be honest, right, and let people know when it's something that might be a conflict of interest. So it's a real simple process. You just let it be known to Legal and then we recuse ourselves on the vote.
But, Sarah-Ashley, you were on the previous Board, correct?
No, you're fine. I appreciate the response. But particularly for the new appointees for those that we have, I don't want to tax my time too much longer, but could you just detail that for us for the record?
So I worked for the KIPP Philadelphia Public School Network between 2018 and 2022. I also sat on the Board of Global Leadership Academy Southwest between August '23 and I'm in the process of resigning. I also am the CFO of the Children's Crisis Treatment Center that does receive some School District kids in one of our partial inpatient programs, and we have a small reimbursement contract with the District for the teachers we provide to those students while they're in our program. To Sarah's point, those are known in my application. They're now on the record. And if any business comes up, I will submit to Legal and go from there.
So the collaborative of schools that I lead, Some of the Board members run schools or run nonprofit organizations that may want to pursue contracts with the District. I've brought this up to the Mayor's Office of Education. The Board and I, we had a very clear discussion on exploring these conflict of interest issues associated with me being on the Board, and I've been assured that I will be able to share any perception of conflict of interest, anything that I think may come up as an issue of conflict of interest with Legal to help me navigate what that looks like.
Thank you very much. I think that's sufficient. I just wanted to make sure we got that on the record. I appreciate you.
Thank you very much. Councilmember Cindy Bass.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Good afternoon. How's everybody. So just a couple of things. Number one, I do want to assure you that I caught all of the testimony today. I'm a little bit under the weather today, but I wanted to make sure I caught all of the testimony because I think it's very important, these appointments that we're going to be making. And the one thing I just wanted to say before I go into my actual question was around the way we speak about our schools and how important that is, and I could not agree with you more. I could not agree with the narrative that we put out. And, listen, we're all cheerleaders. That's what we do down here. We cheerlead for Districts and we cheerlead for the entire City. That's what we do. But at the same time we also recognize that we have a constituency that to some degree they don't want to hear it, okay. They don't want to hear it when you're in a school with a 1.4 percent proficiency in math and an 8 percent proficiency in English and those numbers have been the same pretty much since 2014, 2015. And so, how do we address those particulars when we look at how our children are performing or not rising to the occasion? And through no fault of their own, I do want to say that. And I just want to be clear, I'm for schools that work. I'm for the traditional public schools that work. I'm for non-traditional charter schools that work. I'm for schools that are going to be educating our children and providing the quality of education. That means that they're not going to be stuck into a lifetime of poverty and a lack of opportunity. We talk about our Mayor and how she wants economic opportunity for all. That starts with education. I mean, I'm just preaching to the choir. I know you all know this, but those are the kinds of things that we really have to be focused on. And so, I wanted to go back to the school -- I'm not going to say the name of it, I've mentioned it before, but I'm not going to say the name of it right now. But in my District there's a school that has a -- it was a 0 percent proficiency in math and 8 percent proficiency in English, and that was in 2015 and a charter school provider offered to come in and take it over, and there was pushback. And so, the charter school provider walked away. And what happened between, say, 2015 and 2023, the last year of reporting, those numbers stayed the same. And so, you had kids who started at kindergarten, went through 8th grade or started in 1st grade and went through 8th grade and we really locked them into a system that did not work, and this was a traditional public school. And so, I'd like to know what kind of decisions are you all going to be making that's going to change that trajectory? Because the decisions you make -- I mean, I don't think of this as a one-and- done, we're going to make appointments and then we're kind of stuck with each other until the next time comes around for us to make more appointments. Because the decisions that you make around the School District will inform and affect the decisions that we make around the School District. So I'd like to hear from you all about how we're going to address matters like this and make sure that we're not locking our kids into something that's not working? So it's easy to say, well, this model of school doesn't work, these models don't work. But we have our own situations right here in the School District. And I'd like to know what are we going to do to make sure that they work for every student no matter what school you're in?
I think goals and guardrails. And I know I keep saying it and you're like, okay, all right, we get it. But Councilmember Bass, actually my Councilmember --
-- for the District that I'm happy to live in, Germantown, I think goals and guard -- when did they come to be? Joyce, what year?
2019, 2020 goals and guardrails during the pandemic. The goals and guardrails again is what we're doing. We are looking at that data and we're asking the Superintendent and progress monitor whenever that indicator comes up, what are the trends, what's happening. We're also going deeper now into the data, what about Black children, what about Brown children, what about our children who have exceptional needs, right, our special education population. We're asking that question from a governance perspective to drive the change that you are talking about. One of the things that I've heard from Joyce Wilkerson early on was that she was so flabbergasted when they were asked the question why does public education exist. And she said the Board at that moment, fresh off looked back in local control, said everything else but to educate children. That's what goals and guardrails does. And what the Board has tried to do for the whole sector of public education is use the framework to drive academic achievement as well. That domain matters to us. And I do believe we see trends going up. And you're right, we're not patting ourselves on the back. We got a long way to go. But we're also changing culture too, right. And we all know that institutions, it takes a minute to change that culture. So that's our response.
So I would say that we've been at this since 2019, and a school that has seen, in my opinion, really no improvement, to go from 0 to percent. And, listen, people are seeing our schools as an investment where we have high-performance schools. People do anything to move into a catchment area. And where you have schools that are not high-performing and are struggling like this one, people are just like we'll take it if we have to, we don't have a choice, there's no 12 other options for us. And no one wants to feel that there's no other option for their child. No one wants to feel like their child is a test case and maybe goals and guardrails will work. And, listen, this is not a test case. You know, this is my little one, right. She's no test case. We want our children to be educated, we want them to receive the quality of education that you get if you cross any one of our City lines. And I don't know that goals and guardrails is doing it. I don't know that it's doing it.
Test -- let me say that I have the privilege of choosing a school for my daughter not because there was anything lack -- or to choose a different school other than my neighborhood school not because there was anything lacking at all in academic achievement. In fact, they're one of the best achieving schools in our City and not because there was anything wrong in terms of safety or culture or anything like that. I had the privilege of choosing a different school for my child because of what I wanted for her and for her education. And I think that that is so important for our families and particularly for the families that don't have the privilege of how I got to choose a school for my child. And so, what I will tell you is in terms of what does the Board of Education do in scenarios where schools are not moving, right now Dr. Watlington's plan, his Accelerate Philly plan, is addressing that. And we are pushing to make sure that he's successful and has what he needs to address it. In terms of how do we weigh the decision when there is a potential other school that a child can go to that a parent might want their child to go to, how do we make that decision, I always, always look at the catchment areas that that charter draws from and compares the data of what the other schools look like.
So let me say this real quick, just really quickly, the privilege that you just spoke about, the privilege that you have is the privilege that every single parent in the School District of Philadelphia wants, to be able to make a decision for their child -- (Applause.)
-- where their child's going to go, they can receive the same quality of education. And assuming that you will be confirmed, just assuming that you will be confirmed, when we have our next go-round, the next conversation that we have, whether it's a year from now, two years from now, whenever, that's going to be my question to all of you, is what have you done with the privilege that you all have to make sure that everyone has access to that same level of privilege? So thank you.
Thank you, Councilmember Bass. Chair recognizes Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson. I'm sorry, Majority Leader. Councilmember Bass, were you done? I'm sorry. I thought you were done.
Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I just seen your look. I didn't want to cut you off. Chair recognizes Councilmember Majority Leader Gilmore Richardson.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And in the interest of time and thinking about those who has signed up to give testimony and being respectful of all of your time, I just wanted to list some of the matters and issues that are important to me that I'll be focusing on moving forward. And so, obviously the School Finder app, something I've been talking about for four years that we're trying to work with the District on to ensure that we are getting our young people to their closest local public school and then giving them their additional options. Okay. In addition to that, career in technical education, particularly ensuring that we are able to expand our CTE programs with schools like Mayfair CTE, where we have the only middle school CTE program, Mr. Evin Jarrett, he's doing a phenomenal job with our young people. So definitely want to lift up more middle school CTE programs and early career exposure for our younger students. In addition to that, driver's ed. for CTE students. One impediment we find when seeking to connect them with opportunities in construction trades and in the building trades is they are not able to take the opportunity because they lack a driver's license. Okay. Lastly, I'll mention two things. One is a dream, a building trades high school in the City of Philadelphia, a high school that solely focuses on the skill trades in preparing our young people for jobs in labor. And finally, of course infrastructure, ensuring that we have adequate infrastructure in school buildings to support the work that our young people will do in the 21st century. Lastly, I will say again that I'm certainly very appreciative of the time that you all have extended. I look forward to continuing to work with you and ask that we have continued partnership for all members of Council. I know that Chairman Thomas and members of the Education Committee meet with you all quite frequently. But we want to engage with you all on a more regular basis. And I know we've had the opportunity to visit some schools and we've done some breakfast meetings and other things, but we want to ensure that we're able to engage with you all as a full body more frequently so that we're all on the same page and rowing in the same direction, which is ensuring the success of our young people and our children. We all want the best for our kids. We all want to get to that same goal, and we have to work together in order to get there. So thank you very much, and thank you to all of those who are here to testify, which is why I will hold the balance of my questions for the School District budget hearings that are forthcoming. Thank you.
Thank you, Majority Leader. I definitely agree with you around driver's ed. And Mr. Jarrett is somebody who we had in City Council. We honored him and his dope student podcast, and that's a great school that's in Councilmember Driscoll's District. All great points. Chair recognizes Councilmember Jones.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, like my colleague Katherine Gilmore Richardson, would like to leave you with a homework assignment for which there will be a quiz when you come back for budget. And the first, it's seven subjects that I care about. Let me start with Overbrook High School, which is a -- although Katherine Gilmore Richardson had the honor of making Girls', she taught at Overbrook High School, and loved those students so much that she developed lifelong relationships with them. So we have started a plan. I didn't want to say it in front of Chairman Isaiah Thomas, that we work with them. And they're working on a modest to aggressive plan for Overbrook. And we thank you for Cassidy, which is one or two brand new stick-built schools and one of them is in the 4th District. So the first one is Overbrook. That will be an extra credit grade for you. The second one is to reduce the dropout rate in those zip codes that occupy 19 90 percent of the inmates on State Road. If you reduce that dropout rate by 10 percent a year, corresponding dropout rates will reduce crime rates. So that's Subject No. 2. No. 3, I'd like you to increase the school-to-paycheck pipeline. You did a great job with the vehicle facilities piece working with Randolph. We have 5,000 jobs that we could name right now that we could grow the inhabitants right out of school. Everybody's not going to college, but that municipal college that the Mayor is talking about is an intriguing proposition that will be something we will grade you on. We'd like you to reduce the friction between the Recreation Department and you guys on facilities fees, like some of our nonprofit -- I'm a track coach by nature. I'll be at the Penn Relays next week. But we charge some of the nonprofit groups designed to reduce gun violence $5,000 to use a track that they already paid for. So we have to work that out. If it means, President Johnson, puts a little more in your budget, so be it. The other subject -- liberal with his money, right. We'd like to get that facilities plan that Member Thomas wants, but it should be juxtaposed with the right-sizing plan that says if you have more population here, you need more facilities corresponding. And we need a plan so that we can appropriate correctly. And what else -- oh, how many was that? I went to public school.
We're on six. Examine creative programs like Overbrook works with the Mann Center who works with Live Nation. We put a $2.5 million studio in there and those young people now are getting internships with Live Nation, like a real job at the end of the rainbow kind of thing and doing the things that they love, writing, producing, acting, scripting, building stages that are industry-certified. We need more of that. And if we can do those things, we can give you a grade on those things, I will ask these exact same questions. I might allow you to self-grade your own tests. But we will hold you accountable for those answers. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
And very quickly to Councilmember Jones' point, the young man who runs --
The young man who runs the Live Nation Urban program is a graduate of Masterman High School with Overbrook High School. And so, it shows you the talent of our young people and the talent we're producing in the School District. And we're committed to Overbrook High School, Councilmember Jones. Thank you.
Sounds like a Wynnefield thing to me. That's what's up. Chair recognizes Councilmember Nina Ahmad.
Thank you, Council President. I just wanted to echo what my colleague said about amazing students that come out of the School District. I happened to visit Lankenau High School and was completely blown away with their presentation. They were about to go to a national conference, and it was just very heartwarming. I had a few students from Sankofa visit my office, and we had real spirited, engaged debates around reproductive freedom. The other young man was about cancer research and these are Philadelphians. And so, kudos to our School District. I know we have work to do. I know we have to improve our proficiencies but we need to work together to figure out which direction we need to go. My question is for Joan Stern if she's still here. I can't quite see her from where I am. Given -- she's still here, right. Given your public finance expertise, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions around school funding from the state and then a question about the facilities and sort of floating bonds around that issue. But the first question is about, is this Board going to be actively engaged in advocating for those dollars from the state to come as mandated by our Commonwealth Court? I know there's been some recommendations from the School Funding Commission. I wondered where are you going with that in order for Philadel -- first of all, to get it in time. And I think the Governor's budget, 2025 budget, has some money set aside. I wondered what the role of the School Board is going to be in advocating for that? That's the first question.
I wouldn't have asked to join the Board if I didn't want us and the Mayor and City Council to sing one song to Harrisburg. We have more schools in our county than any other county in our Commonwealth. I can tell you that when I began representing the School District in the '70s we had no 2 market access and we were not eligible for state capital funding because we were not building new school buildings. We were renovating the buildings that we owned, so it took quite an effort to persuade the legislature to amend the PlanCon rules and to allow school districts of the first class, ours is the only one, to get state funding. It's been a constant struggle. For the first time in my 50 years of working with the School District we got state federal grants, federal grants, which we have used to build new schools in the District, the first time we have ever received funding to my knowledge to build new schools that we didn't have to pay back. So -- (Applause.)
-- we want to -- I will do my best to persuade my colleagues and I don't think it will take much for me to persuade them, and to persuade all of you and the Mayor who's already cheerleading for this, for us to go to every government funder, federal, state, local and persuade investment in 21st century buildings for our children. Thank you. (Applause.)
I look forward to being a part of that team doing this because we have no 15 option. We are a city of eds and meds and our children are not ready to get those jobs. If you're not reading at grade level, that's not going to happen, if you don't do math, it's not going to happen. So we have to push very hard for this to make sure that a state with a surplus of $14 billion needs to make room. In addition to the formula funding that they're going to give us, to make sure -- because we drive the economy of the state. And so, we need a commensurate return specially invested in our schools. So count me in as your --
-- champion, yes. And then I had a follow-up question. You mentioned capital expenditure. Because we're probably going to have to do a lot of new schools, some of these are not going to be able to be saved, does the School Board look -- I know you haven't started yet, I understand that, but you have a lot of experience. Are we going to be looking at putting a plan forward which again will have a buy-in from state, federal and any philanthropic entities to create enough resources to do that? And we would love, as Councilmember Chairman Isaiah Thomas has said, a real plan around that issue.
Yes. And I just want to add something to put context to our facilities. We have some beautiful facilities too, right.