Schools

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Steve Addazio called the three proposals on divisional alignment presented to the Big East football coaches and athletic directors at the conference's spring meetings a win-win-win situation for Temple. One proposal would split the league into East and West divisions beginning in 2013. Another called for North and South divisions. And the third would have a non-geographic alignment, splitting the West Coast schools, the Texas schools, and the Florida schools.

So many parents and alumni of St. Denis Catholic School in Havertown supported merging with friendly CYO rival Annunciation B.V.M., the marriage should have gone off without a hitch. Instead, parishioners hoping to embrace the past and future in a name were told the regional school would honor the late Cardinal John Foley. The decision was, in their pastor's words, "nonnegotiable. " Children voted on a mascot, only to have their choices (Cardinals, Falcons, or Phoenixes)

For the last decade, Mount Laurel resident Joseph S. Zippilli shared his World War II stories at local schools. Mr. Zippilli wanted today's youth to understand what happened during the war and why the sacrifices he and his comrades made are important today. "People like me are trying to keep the events of World War II alive," he told an Inquirer reporter in 1998. Mr. Zippilli, 88, an engineer gunner who was captured by Germans after he parachuted into enemy territory and was held as prisoner of war for a year, died Sunday, June 13, at his home.

Small high schools came to Philadelphia in a big way four years ago, when four new ones opened their doors. Less than three miles apart, High School of the Future in Parkside and Science Leadership Academy (SLA) in Center City had vastly different beginnings. Expectations for both were high. Both awarded their first diplomas this month. But although leadership was identified as key to both, one had turmoil at the top and the other had a stable principal. Though both emphasized technology and were given freedom to innovate, one kept a close eye on district standards and the other initially veered from the path.

Vindication has finally come to a former Camden principal who was dismissed in retribution after blowing the whistle on rigged test scores. But six years later, the school district that fired him is still mired in mediocrity. Joseph D. Carruth has not only reached an $860,000 settlement, but an arbitration judge has ordered the district to rehire him by July 1, 2013, even if the Camden school board has to dismiss someone else to create a vacancy. Carruth said he was fired in 2006 for refusing to alter test scores despite pressure from an assistant superintendent.

Deion Barnes said it was all about the "comfortability factor. " And that played in favor of Penn State, not Georgia. In an announcement Thursday morning in his school's auditorium, the hard-charging defensive end from Northeast High committed to play for the Nittany Lions. Georgia was the runner-up for his services. "I wasn't an outcast when I went down to Georgia, but I felt like I was around 'my guys' when I went to Penn State," said Barnes, a 6-foot-5, 222-pound senior. "That was a big thing for me. " Barnes, celebrating his 18th birthday, said he had "been battling all week, going back and forth" between Penn State and Georgia, which he visited last weekend.

WOMELSDORF, Pa. - Infectious-disease investigators began this week the nitty-gritty phase of tracking back a flu outbreak among fourth graders: Who plays kickball with you? Who was coughing? During, say, arts and crafts, did you touch a piece of paper? Pass it? Lick it? A classroom seating chart already showed a cluster of sick kids. But members of the investigative team, most sent here to Berks County from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, needed more definitive evidence.

Mayor Nutter, himself a product of a parochial education, was on hand today to greet youngsters at a Catholic school in North Philadelphia as the 2010-11 academic year began for the 72,000 students attending schools operated by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. It also was the first day of school for Catholic schools in South Jersey. Nutter, a graduate of Transfiguration of Our Lord Catholic Elementary School in West Philadelphia and St. Joseph's Prep, greeted students at Incarnation of Our Lord Elementary School, 425 W. Lindley Ave., in Olney.

What qualities are important for a new Philadelphia schools chief? We'd like to hear from Philadelphia residents in 150 words or less. E-mail us at suburbanletters@phillynews.com or write us at Regional Commentary Page, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 800 River Rd., Conshohocken, Pa., 19428. All letters must include a full name, home address, and day and evening phone numbers.

Let me commend you for reporting that "the Eastern PA Organizing Project, a faith-based and community group... " rebuked the School District of Philadelphia. Faith groups can and should rebuke secular organizations, for faith groups are better at changing lives than secular organizations. We are accountable to the God who made us, whereas secular organizations leave out God all together. The only hope for improving the educational system in America is impacting the Word of God upon it. Thomas Muldoon, Philadelphia

WASHINGTON - The notion that Congress could consider pizza a vegetable may be just too much to digest. The SLICE Act, for School Lunch Improvements for Children's Education, has been introduced in response to congressional action last fall ensuring that two tablespoons of tomato paste slathered on pizza could continue to be classified as a full vegetable serving in the federal school lunch program. "Pizza certainly has its place in school meals, but equating it with broccoli, carrots and celery seriously undermines this nation's efforts to support children's health and their ability to learn because of better school nutrition," Rep. Jared Polis (D., Colo.)

For years, teachers and parents have insisted that smaller class sizes are crucial to kids' educational success. On Thursday, Mitt Romney visited Philadelphia and politely said they were mistaken. And on Friday, passions erupted - among partisans and professionals, from city classrooms to City Hall to Cherry Hill. "Out of touch with reality," Mayor Nutter fumed about the presumptive GOP nominee. "Just plain wrong," said Steve Baker, spokesman for the New Jersey teachers union.

Episcopal Academy scored 15 goals in its final game of the year. Jon Garino didn't account for any of them, yet still managed to be the dominant player in what Churchmen coach Andrew Hayes called the "biggest" win in program history. Garino won 20 of 28 face-offs to lead Episcopal to a 15-11 upset of top-seeded Haverford School and clinch its first Inter-Ac Invitational lacrosse championship in front of a sellout crowd Thursday night at Cabrini College. Garino's ability to dictate play by winning 71 percent of the draws allowed the second-seeded Churchmen (18-5)

In a booming voice able to deaden the rumble of the Frankford-Market El a half-block up South 61st Street, State Rep. Ronald Waters seemed to capture the feelings of his audience in a single sentence. "I'd rather hear the sound of a nail being driven into a beam than a gunshot," the veteran Democrat said as he stood before a newly renovated 24-unit apartment building that provides housing to formerly homeless West Philadelphians working toward better lives through education. This a neighborhood, like so many others in the city, where gunshots are heard too often, tearing down instead of building up and denying people the kind of security they need to make their lives better.

Relax, Philadelphia! Gov. Corbett's got this. Sure, those dire headlines and the protests in the street might lead you to think city schools are careering down a seemingly endless fiscal mine shaft. But thanks to an update this week on Corbett's Twitter feed, we now know otherwise: "the number one priority in the #pabudget is education. " The most remarkable thing about this statement is that, technically, it's true. Corbett's otherwise parsimonious budget does include a minuscule increase in K-12 funding (higher ed, not so much)

Shots were reportedly fired at the Oceanside Charter School in Atlantic City this morning. Few details of the incident were known. However, the Breaking News Network, which monitors police scanner activity, first reported the incident about 12:25 p.m. today at the school on 1750 Bacharach Boulevard. There were no reports of injuries. A woman who answered the phone at the school said she had no information to release. Police told reporters that the incident occurred just before noon and that two 10-year-old boys have been detained for firing a handgun in a bathroom.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is scheduled to discuss his vision of education reform Thursday morning in one of the most heavily Democratic neighborhoods in the nation: West Philadelphia. The former Massachusetts governor will visit the Universal Bluford Charter School in the 5700 block of Media Street, for a roundtable discussion and a tour of classrooms. The 8:45 a.m. program is not open to the general public. The visit follows Romney's rollout Wednesday in a Washington speech of policy changes that would encourage more charter schools, and turn $26 billion in federal grants for special-education and low-income students into a type of voucher they could apply to tuition at any public school in their state, as well as online schools and private schools.

There's a myth circulating in Philadelphia these days that families and neighborhoods don't want more public-school choices. A handful of activists with specific agendas use demonstrations, community forums, and City Council and School Reform Commission meetings to spread this myth. But there are a whole lot of people in Philadelphia who are too busy trying to take advantage of their educational options to stage rallies, attend meetings, or get on the phone with a reporter. Last week, I attended freshman orientation night at Central High School, a selective public school that U.S. News & World Report recently named the 10th best high school in the state.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney brought his plan to improve the American educational system to a West Philadelphia charter school Thursday, and suggested class size mattered little to pupils' achievement. Whereupon the teachers in the room immediately questioned his stance. Calling the gap in education performance between black and white students "the civil rights issue of our time," Romney said quality teaching and parental involvement were the keys to classroom success.

A former Norristown schools marching band technician has been arrested and charged with statutory rape and related offenses in connection with two sexual assaults that allegedly took place two years ago, Montgomery County officials said Wednesday. The suspect was identified by police as Steven M. Fitzgerald, 24, of Pennsauken, N.J. He was taken into custody Tuesday and ordered held at the Montgomery County prison when he could not post $100,000 cash bail, according to court records.