Central Office

The realities are ugly, leaders said Tuesday - the Philadelphia School District is nearly insolvent, lags behind most other urban districts in academics, and loses students to charters because parents believe it does not keep their children safe. "What we do know through lots of history and evidence and practice is that the current structure doesn't work," School Reform Commission Chairman Pedro Ramos said. "It's not fiscally sustainable and it doesn't produce high-quality schools for all kids.

IT'S NO secret that the School District of Philadelphia is facing its own fiscal cliff. The district asked its blue-collar union to forgo wage increases and give back money to the district last summer as school closures loomed. Just two weeks ago, district officials were forced to borrow another $300 million from Wall Street to pay its bills. So, why is the district giving out pay raises to certain groups? The grumblings among district workers began to rise this month when word leaked that 25 nonunion employees had received salary increases since the summer.

New Philadelphia schools chief Arlene Ackerman has surrounded herself with a diverse inner circle of educators picked from far and wide, shaking up a historically inbred district with fresh faces. The 14 people Ackerman has tapped are seven women and seven men, most with classroom experience. They include a former Army colonel and a handful of ex-principals. They come from around the country - New York, Detroit, Louisiana, Arizona, California. Most are her former doctoral students from Columbia University or graduates of prestigious national programs she's attended herself.

In a surprise move, the Philadelphia School District agreed Friday to halt its effort to fire outspoken English teacher Hope Moffett and allow her to return to the classroom on Monday. The decision was made when the district agreed to settle a First Amendment lawsuit filed by the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers in federal court last week on Moffett's behalf. "It's miraculous," Moffett said when reached by phone Friday night. "This is like the best-case scenario. " Moffett will instead face a five-day suspension that will proceed to an expedited arbitration, and the union will argue that the Audenried High School teacher should face no disciplinary action.

Following a meeting with the School District's deputy superintendent, three of the seven district region offices have agreed to hold music festivals this year. But there's no word on what the remaining four will do. The region music festivals faced an uncertain future this year after the district's central office, which had coordinated the event, shifted responsibility to each region office. Some 12,000 to 15,000 students participate in the festivals each year. After a meeting last week, the Northeast, Northwest and high school region offices have committed to holding the festivals, said Deputy Superintendent Jeanette Brewer.

Superintendent David Hornbeck yesterday outlined a proposal to restructure Philadelphia's schools by shifting responsibility for budgets, hiring and maintenance to 22 "community councils" made up of principals, parents and teachers. About 95 percent of the School District's budget would be divied up among the councils, who would determine how to spend the money. The plan is part of Hornbeck's "Children Achieving" agenda and would reduce the role of the district's central office.

Six months after asking her entire central administration staff to resign, Superintendent Annette D. Knox is again trying to reorganize the school district's core leadership. Last week, she recommended a slew of personnel moves, including transfers, hires, and the demotion of the district's second-ranking administrator. The school board is expected to vote on the changes tonight at its monthly meeting. It will also consider a plan to lay off 136 employees. Knox offered no explanation for the reorganization when she presented the recommendations to the board.

City Controller Jonathan Saidel deserves a gold star for catching imprudent expenditures by some Philadelphia public schools staffers. To show it learned the lesson, the district's central office should quickly devise rules for those in the schools who now make most decisions about individual spending. At a time when the district is decentralizing its operations and trying to convince the state that it deserves more funding, expensive staff dinners in fancy restaurants send the wrong message.

More than seven months after their contract expired, secretaries and classroom aides in the Methacton School District finally have a new three-year agreement. The Educational Services Personnel Association and the Methacton Board of School Directors ratified the tentative agreement Feb. 11. The board gave final approval Tuesday. The contract, which affects about 71 district employees, calls for 4.5 percent increases in each of the three years. Union members now will pick up 10 percent of the cost for full health benefits.

For the last two years, as the federal government doled out millions for education spending, the School District of Philadelphia has enjoyed an increase in teacher hires, resources and student achievement. But with massive financial uncertainty looming, district officials now face the daunting task of restructuring the way they do business. And that may include deep cuts across the board, from central office staff to teachers to music and sports. Deputy Superintendent Leroy Nunery said that if the district doesn't get enough money from the city or state to plug the hole, the district should prepare for layoffs and budget cuts.

The Philadelphia School District cannot have it both ways. Saying it is in "financial distress," the school system has refused to grant 3 percent raises to its school police officers. The 350 union members were scheduled to get the increase June 30 under terms of their current contract. Yet the cash-strapped district found the funds to shell out generous pay hikes ranging from 13 percent to 49 percent to 25 district managers. According to a report in the Daily News, the raises have been disbursed since the end of the last school year.

IT'S NO secret that the School District of Philadelphia is facing its own fiscal cliff. The district asked its blue-collar union to forgo wage increases and give back money to the district last summer as school closures loomed. Just two weeks ago, district officials were forced to borrow another $300 million from Wall Street to pay its bills. So, why is the district giving out pay raises to certain groups? The grumblings among district workers began to rise this month when word leaked that 25 nonunion employees had received salary increases since the summer.

The realities are ugly, leaders said Tuesday - the Philadelphia School District is nearly insolvent, lags behind most other urban districts in academics, and loses students to charters because parents believe it does not keep their children safe. "What we do know through lots of history and evidence and practice is that the current structure doesn't work," School Reform Commission Chairman Pedro Ramos said. "It's not fiscally sustainable and it doesn't produce high-quality schools for all kids.

The realities are ugly, leaders said Tuesday - the Philadelphia School District is nearly insolvent, lags behind most other urban districts in academics, and loses students to charters because parents believe it does not keep their children safe. "What we do know through lots of history and evidence and practice is that the current structure doesn't work," School Reform Commission Chairman Pedro Ramos said. "It's not fiscally sustainable and it doesn't produce high quality schools for all kids.

Lost in the shuffle of a six-hour Philadelphia School Reform Commission meeting Thursday night: resolution A-13, a $1.4 million, one-month contract with Boston Consulting Group Inc. That's right - $1.4 million. And the Philadelphia School District still has a June deadline to trim $38.8 million more from a budget that's already lost thousands of employees and withstood deep cuts to individual schools. But SRC Chairman Pedro Ramos said he did not expect the money to come from district coffers.

A day after the state Department of Education sent the Camden School District a letter citing the district's failure to report more than 76 incidents of violence and vandalism in the last two school years, Camden's police chief met Thursday with the district's head of security. It was the first step in the right direction, said Gaylen Conley, executive director of the district's office of safety and security. "We are increasing interactions with Camden City police" to ensure that they and the district are in constant communication, Conley said.

Tucked in my recent story about "Occupy 440" - a group of school nurses protesting against the Philadelphia School District's latest round of budget cuts - was a line you may have missed: District spokesman Fernando Gallard said the Promise Academies had had "significant cuts," including the elimination of the entire central office staff that supervised those schools, which was also axed as of Dec. 31. Promise Academies, of course, are...

The players are different, but the problems are the same. Despite shedding thousands of employees and making significant classroom cuts in recent months, the Philadelphia School District - which had earlier announced a $629 million budget gap - must make an additional $39 million in reductions. Officials propose further slashing individual schools' budgets by $10 million total, cutting professional development, English-language learner instruction, psychologists, instrumental music, athletics, educational technology, and bilingual counseling assistants.

LEROY NUNERY II finished behind Arlene Ackerman in the 2008 search for the Philadelphia School District's new leader. Now, having been named acting superintendent after Ackerman got pushed out, Nunery gets to clean up the mess left in her wake. For starters, he'll have to continue working to close a multimillion-dollar budget gap that threatens more jobs. And to enjoy an amicable rapport with the district's unions, Nunery will have to repair the relationships fractured during Arlene Ackerman's tenure.