"I want the students to be prepared. I want them to know what to expect," said Xu Lin, an organizer with the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp., who helped lead last week's three-hour training program.
When school starts, South Philadelphia High will be led by its fifth principal in six years, burdened by academic failure and outfitted with extensive new security and programming.
Last week, school administrators held new-student orientation, a day complete with cheerleaders in uniform and volleyball-team hopefuls knocking a ball around the gym.
The Asian session was a study in contrast. At FACTS charter school in Chinatown, three dozen students from Myanmar, China, Nepal, Vietnam, and elsewhere gathered to listen and talk.
"You guys are walking into the continuing story," Nancy Nguyen, head of the local chapter of Boat People SOS, told the students. "We don't know if the school is better. There are a lot of changes, but we don't know if it's better."
The changes include security cameras and programming additions such as an Asian arts initiative and an in-school center for immigrants. A new antiharassment policy is in the works. The Justice Department, which recently informed the district it found merit to the Asian students' civil-rights complaint, could impose more change.
At FACTS, organizers explained what harassment looks and sounds like, a raw introduction to students new to American culture and schools. Harassment, students heard, can be based on the place of your birth, the accent of your speech, or the shape of your eyes.
The instruction cut close to the bone, particularly when the leaders distributed a list of racial slurs and told the students: It's wrong. And you need to know that slurs can escalate quickly and violently.
