NEWS
May 23, 2012 | By Frank Kummer, philly.com
St. Mary School in Monroe Township, Gloucester County, will remain closed the rest of the week after a number of students either fainted, became dizzy or complained of feeling ill during a school assembly on Monday. Patricia Mancuso, the school principal, and the Rev. Cadmus D. Mazzarella, pastor of Our Lady of Peace Church, the sponsoring parish for the elementary school, notified parents of the closing. Originally, school officials announced this morning that the elementary school on Carroll Avenue in the township's Williamstown section would be closed for the day. However, diocesan officials announced in the afternoon that the school of 600 students would remain closed.
NEWS
May 16, 2012 | By Anndee Hochman, FOR THE INQUIRER
In high school, he was the guy who shaved his head in solidarity with a buddy who was going through chemo, then let the hair grow back in a mohawk. She was the girl who never wore a dress. So when Tom Burrows and Meghan Connolly showed up at the 2006 Cheltenham High School prom — he in a white tux and spectator shoes, dark hair in glossy spikes; she in a black spaghetti-strap gown with white accents, fingernails tipped in ebony lacquer — they made a striking pair. They also caught the eye of photographer Mary Ellen Mark, who included a photo of Burrows and Connolly in her new book, Prom, published in April.
NEWS
April 17, 2012 | BY REGINA MEDINA, Daily News Staff Writer
THE DAPPER, quiet-spoken man with a slight build and gray hair doesn't look like a typical superhero. But to some area Catholics, Peter Borre, a canon-law consultant based in Boston, has all the makings of one. The Harvard-educated Borre has been on a mission from Cleveland to Boston, fighting for fellow Catholics who seek to save their parishes and parochial schools from closure by their dioceses. He's already made an imprint here in Philadelphia, helping two groups of parochial-school parents appeal directly to the Vatican to overturn the Archdiocese's rulings that the schools close.
NEWS
February 27, 2012 | BY REGINA MEDINA, medinar@phillynews.com 215-854-5985
WHAT A difference $12 million in donations can make to four Catholic high schools slated for closure. And to West Philadelphia, which was facing the closure of the iconic West Catholic. Keeping that school open was especially important because the community is more "economically challenged" than the areas where the other schools were to be closed, said state Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams. "I think that people are confronted with an honest reality that if we don't have public, private and parochial schools, the system that educates students in Southeast Pennsylvania will collapse," Williams said yesterday.
NEWS
February 26, 2012
Don't be so sure Iran won't attack A letter Monday, "Provoking a war with Iran," asserted that "Iran is not about to attack anyone. " How does the writer know this fact? Does she have a mole in the CIA giving her this information? Are the recent bombings in India and Africa, and the arrest of five Iranians who were in possession of bomb-making material in Thailand, just a rehearsal for further attacks? Neither Israel nor the United States is engaged in saber- rattling. Quite the contrary, it has been the U.S. policy these past three years to attempt negotiations and sanctions rather then any military action.
NEWS
January 10, 2012
THE BRUNT of the impact of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia closing 49 of its schools will surely be felt by the teachers, students and parents of those schools closing - and most especially the high-school juniors who will be forced to find another school from which to graduate - and hopefully stay on course for college. But the Archdiocese's closure of 45 elementary schools and four high schools - affecting more than 22,000 students and 1,700 teachers - is a move that will affect the whole city.
NEWS
October 30, 2011 | By Karen Heller, Inquirer Columnist
Harrisburg is bankrupt in so many ways, and not just officially. When it comes to helping Philadelphia, funding public schools and social services, or banning assault weapons that have zip to do with hunting Bambi, state legislators barely look up from their BlackBerrys. Then, lo and behold, lawmakers started wringing their hands over the plight of our city's neediest, suggestive of a massive conversion experience or, barring that, something hinky in the Capitol's drinking water.
NEWS
September 27, 2011 | By Maya Rao and Claudia Vargas, Inquirer Staff Writers
TRENTON - High-performing private and parochial schools in failing districts, including Camden, could become taxpayer-funded charter schools under a bill that won final legislative approval Monday. The Senate voted, 25-13, for the legislation, which Gov. Christie is expected to sign. The proposal would let parochial schools, which have long struggled financially, avoid closure by eliminating all religious symbols and classes, and adopting a secular name. Existing faculty and staff would be given preference for jobs, and current students would avoid the charter-school lottery process.