Chief Academic Officer

More changes are afoot in Philadelphia School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman's administration. Chief academic officer Maria Pitre-Martin, who has been in Philadelphia for just a year, is leaving, Ackerman announced yesterday. Pitre-Martin has accepted a job with the North Carolina Department of Education, a district spokesman said Tuesday night. Pitre-Martin, who recently married, is moving to be near her husband, the spokesman said. Pitre-Martin previously worked as a teacher and administrator in Texas and Louisiana.

A well-regarded veteran educator has been tapped to become the number two official on the interim team that will run the School District after Superintendent David Hornbeck steps down Monday. Deidre Farmbry, Roxborough Cluster leader, will be named the district's chief academic officer, a new position, during Monday's school board meeting, sources confirmed yesterday. Farmbry, 48, could not be reached for comment. But as CAO she will oversee all instructional and educational functions for the 210,000-student district.

A longtime Philadelphia educator who grew up in the city and graduated from its public schools will become the new academic leader of the 209,000-student district, subject to the Board of Education's final approval on Monday. Deidre Farmbry, one of the Philadelphia School District's 22 cluster leaders, who oversees nine schools in the Roxborough area, will be tapped for what will become the district's top education post. She will be named chief academic officer - a new position - following Superintendent David Hornbeck's departure, also effective Monday.

Arthur M. Feldman, who has been chair of the department of medicine at Jefferson Medical College, is moving to Temple next month. Effective Sept. 1, Feldman will become executive dean of the Temple University School of Medicine and chief academic officer of Temple University Health System. That makes him the second in command on the academic side of the health system to Larry Kaiser, who took charge of the system and medical school in April. Feldman, 61, earned a doctorate in biology and physiology before going to medical school and becoming a cardiologist.

Heidi Ramirez, an urban educator and outspoken former Philadelphia School Reform Commission member, is taking a job as the chief academic officer of Milwaukee Public Schools. Ramirez, who currently heads the Urban Education Collaborative at Temple University, resigned from the commission last year after clashing with Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. She was known for asking tough questions of Ackerman and her staff. Of Milwaukee, Ramirez said, "the opportunities are there for us to make changes in a big urban system.

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.

The Philadelphia School District plans to revise its ethics policy to require a waiting period before contracting with former employees who work for a company doing business with the school system. "I think there should be a waiting period of at least a year . . . so that there's no perception of insider trading, so to speak," chief executive Paul Vallas said yesterday. He added: "When you leave to join a corporation and that corporation gets an expanded contract, you have a perception problem.

A Canadian theologian has been named the first provost of Eastern College, a small Christian college of arts and sciences in St. Davids, school officials have announced. W. Ward Gasque, a highly regarded New Testament scholar from Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, will begin his new job as chief academic officer on Sept. 1, officials said. As provost, Gasque will oversee the strategic planning and direction of the academic program at Eastern, which a year ago began graduate-degree programs in business and health administration.

A consortium of three African-centered Philadelphia charter schools are among the latest recipients of a federal grant designed to keep children safe and academically engaged in the after-school hours. The schools - members of the Sankofa Network of Charter Schools - will share about $2.4 million during the next three years, the founders of the schools announced yesterday at Freedom Theatre on North Broad Street. "This gives us an opportunity to do some bigger and better things, bigger and better programming, and [to]

Penny Nixon, the Philadelphia School District's chief academic officer, is taking an educational sabbatical, effective Nov. 1. The sabbatical was announced to principals Friday in an e-mail from Nixon, and to other staffers in an e-mail from William R. Hite Jr., the new superintendent. Nixon, who has overseen academics during a tumultuous time in the district, will finish her doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education. District spokesman Fernando Gallard said the sabbatical was solely for Nixon's studies and was not related to investigations of state exam cheating.

With the School Reform Commission poised to adopt a $2.5 billion budget Thursday, hundreds are organizing to protest what they say is a spending plan that shortchanges students. Philadelphia School District leaders say the SRC's hands are tied, that a bad economy and poor fiscal policy by prior administrations have left the school system on the verge of financial insolvency. They say the 2012-13 budget is the best they can do for now, that it's a painful but necessary step on the way to setting things right.

With the School Reform Commission poised to adopt a $2.5 billion budget Thursday, hundreds are organizing to protest what they say is a spending plan that shortchanges students. Philadelphia School District leaders say that the SRC's hands are tied, that a bad economy and poor fiscal policy by prior administrations have left the school system on the verge of financial insolvency. They say that the 2012-13 budget is the best they can do for now, that it's a painful but necessary step on the way to setting things right.

Less than a week before the School Reform Commission must adopt a 2012-13 budget, even the best-case scenario is ugly. If City Council green-lights $94.5 million in new money for the Philadelphia School District via the mayor's Actual Value Initiative plan, the district will get a $2.5 billion budget that still leaves many schools without full-time nurses or police officers, let alone robust extracurricular and athletic offerings. It also still would require the district to finance a $218 million shortfall through borrowing.

After days of listening intently to public responses to a draft plan that could transform our broken and broke public education system, I'm hearing one common thread in the conversation: All children in this city deserve better than the status quo. They are entitled to a high-quality public education that will prepare them for productive and satisfying adult lives. They are also entitled to a safe environment at school so they can focus and learn. And we, as a city, have not delivered.

PHILADELPHIA Jury selection in death The trial of Frank Tepper, an off-duty cop who fatally shot a neighbor in November 2009, begins today in Common Pleas Court with jury selection. Tepper, 45, is charged with murder, possession of an instrument of crime and recklessly endangering another person. Tepper was being attacked in front of his Elkhart Street home before he shot William "Billy" Panas Jr., 21, defense attorney Fortunato Perri Jr. has said. Tepper, who has been fired, was described as a bully with a temper by some neighbors following Panas' slaying.

How come dementia, a subject seldom explored by artists in the 20th century, has moved up into the fast lane with Fay Stanford's art show "Love and Dementia" at Lankenau Medical Center? The obvious answer is that this malady called "the Dementias" is now tagged as "the epidemic of the 21st century," because of so many more people living a lot longer. Following its debut at Soho20 Chelsea Gallery in New York, this display by Philadelphia's Stanford arrived at Lankenau, opening here in conjunction with the launching of a medical education course, "The Nuts & Bolts of Dementia," for health-care practitioners (part of a twice-yearly program on varied topics)

Arthur M. Feldman, who has been chair of the department of medicine at Jefferson Medical College, is moving to Temple next month. Effective Sept. 1, Feldman will become executive dean of the Temple University School of Medicine and chief academic officer of Temple University Health System. That makes him the second-in-command on the academic side of the health system to Larry Kaiser, who took charge of the system and medical school in April. Feldman, 61, earned a doctorate in biology and physiology before going to medical school and becoming a cardiologist.

Arthur M. Feldman, who has been chair of the department of medicine at Jefferson Medical College, is moving to Temple next month. Effective Sept. 1, Feldman will become executive dean of the Temple University School of Medicine and chief academic officer of Temple University Health System. That makes him the second in command on the academic side of the health system to Larry Kaiser, who took charge of the system and medical school in April. Feldman, 61, earned a doctorate in biology and physiology before going to medical school and becoming a cardiologist.

The search is on for the top administrators at two Gloucester County institutions of higher learning following the recent resignation of their presidents. Donald J. Farish left Rowan University in June - an expedited but not unplanned departure after 13 years in the job - and has taken a similar post at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. At Gloucester County College, Russell Davis, who had been president since 2008, left in April and has been charged by the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office with multiple counts of forgery related to the school's pension funds.