Schools

Gerald Hodges' football career has been about adapting, persevering, and producing. And now it will be about adjusting - to the NFL. The Penn State linebacker and former all-South Jersey performer from Paulsboro was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in the fourth round, the 120th player chosen. "It's a blessing when my name was called, and now I get a chance to put a franchise on my helmet," Hodges said by phone. The 6-foot-1, 243-pounder began his college career as a safety but moved to linebacker.

HARRISBURG - Another member of Gov. Corbett's cabinet is on his way out. Education Secretary Ron Tomalis is looking for another job and does not intend to stay past summer as Corbett's education czar, two senior administration officials have told The Inquirer on condition of anonymity. An official timetable has yet to be set for his exit, but the sources said Tomalis would likely stay in his $149,804 job until after the July 1 deadline for getting a state budget passed and signed into law. He would become the fifth cabinet member to leave since Corbett took office in January 2011.

SCHOOLS Council to grill school chiefs School-district officials will be on the hot seat in City Council on Tuesday, when they appear before the city's legislators to explain their budget and why they need an additional $94 million in property-tax revenue. Council has raised questions about Mayor Nutter's proposed property-tax- reassessment plan, which would generate the extra money for the schools. With Council members wanting more information on how the schools will spend the dollars, this hearing — which starts at 10 a.m. in Council chambers in City Hall — could go long.

THE SCHOOL DISTRICT of Philadelphia is getting into the cyber-school business this fall in an attempt to win back city students who attend cyber-charter schools, which cost the district more per pupil. The Philadelphia Virtual Academy, for kids in grades six through 12, would offer some real-life perks, such as a drop-in center where students can meet up with fellow students as well as a support team for each pupil. Every team includes a teacher and technical specialist. "We want to begin competing for students," schools Superintendent William Hite said in a news briefing.

IN 1939, a 6-year-old boy moved to Detroit with his working-class parents - Lithuanian Jewish immigrants - and walked into the remarkable engine that propelled so much of America's prosperity in the 20th century, his neighborhood public school. That kid, Eli Broad, graduated from Detroit Central High School in 1951 and went on to become one of the world's richest people, a billionaire who made his fortune first in the post-World War II housing boom and later in insurance. Today, the 79-year-old Broad (it rhymes with "road")

Marie C. McMaster, 79, a kindergarten teacher at the Clymer School for 15 years and the mother of Army Gen. Herbert R. McMaster Jr., died Friday, May 10, at the LifeCare center in West Chester of complications from a blood infection. As an educator, Mrs. McMaster had a positive influence on many Philadelphians, said her son, who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. "Often, when people at the airport or elsewhere saw my name, they would ask me if my mom taught kindergarten at Clymer School.

TONYA SEARS SAID she felt "excitement" and "sheer pleasure" when she learned Tuesday of the district's reprieve for her beloved alma mater, Strawberry Mansion High School, from a controversial school-closure plan. But the fight for public schools isn't over, she said. "I do like to think of this as the beginning. It was saved from closure, but what about next year?" said Sears, who graduated in 1985. "It's my prayer that all the community, the principal, the alumni and families continue to work together to improve the school.

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.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Starting with the new school year in September, Gaza boys and girls in middle and high school will be breaking the law if they study side by side. Gaza's Islamic militant Hamas rulers argue that new legislation, mandating gender separation in schools from age 9, enshrines common practice. But women's activists warned Tuesday that it's another step in what it sees as the Hamas agenda of imposing its fundamentalist world view on Gaza's 1.7 million people. The Gaza rules appear harsh compared to Western practice but are not unusual in parts of the Arab and Muslim world.

An 18-year-old woman has been charged with simple assault after an "altercation" last week with Mayor Nutter's daughter, Olivia. Ciarra Ryan surrendered to Northwest Detectives on Monday, police said. The incident followed a track meet at a stadium on East Sedgwick Street in East Mount Airy on April 18, police said. According to court records, Ryan was accused of punching Olivia Nutter in the head and face and pulling her hair. Few details were available Wednesday about what led to the incident - police said there had been "a verbal altercation.

With just two days left before the Camden Board of Education is reorganized, Mayor Dana L. Redd appointed two Latino members Tuesday. Jose M. Brito, chief executive of a home-care agency in Cherry Hill, will take the place of Raymond L. Lamboy, whom Redd declined to reappoint. His three-year term expired this week. Taisha E. Minier, a sociology student at Rowan University, will serve the remaining year in the term of Kathryn I. Ribay, who resigned after Gov. Christie announced a state takeover of the district in March.

Investigators are trying to determine the cause of a crash Tuesday morning involving a school bus and a car in Burlington Township that left seven elementary-school students and the car's driver injured. All eight were released after receiving treatment at area hospitals. The bus carrying 15 students was on its way to Fountain Woods Elementary School about 8:15 when it was hit on the front passenger-entrance side by a white Toyota Camry at Salem Road and Cynwyd Drive, officials said.

DISCOVERY Charter School will pull out all the stops today to avoid closure based on what officials term a "billing dispute. " The school in Wynnefield, which has met the federal Adequate Yearly Progress standard the last four years and plans to open a new $14 million school building in September, will rally with students, families and alumni in front of district headquarters before today's School Reform Commission meeting. The SRC will vote on charter-school renewals recommended by the district.

To raise money for the desperate Philadelphia School District, Mayor Nutter proposed Wednesday to tax cigarettes at $2 a pack and raise the city's liquor-by-the-drink tax from 10 percent to 15 percent. Alongside School Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. and others at City Hall, Nutter also pledged to improve city tax collections. The mayor estimated that his plan would raise an additional $95 million for schools in 2013-14 and $135 million in the second year. Nutter stressed that the money would benefit not only students enrolled in district schools but those who attend the 84 taxpayer-funded charter schools in the city.

Tough little Union City's public school test scores and graduation rates rival those of comfortable suburbs. But in the late 1980s, the only schools with which Union City could be said to "compete" were in troubled Camden. While public education in Camden has won a sad race to the bottom - Trenton is taking over the city's schools - the success of Union City has inspired a laudatory new book. Improbable Scholars (Oxford University Press) offers something of a guide for Camden and struggling school districts nationwide.

HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania's 180 charter schools routinely ignore the state's Right-To-Know Law even though as publicly funded institutions they are bound to comply with it, the chief of the state's Office of Open Records told a Senate committee on Monday. Executive director Terry Mutchler said her office had received 239 appeals in cases in which charter schools either rejected or failed to answer requests from the public for information such as budgets, payrolls, or student rosters.

  A federal investigation of a Kensington charter school has not made headlines since a TV station showed video of agents carting off boxes of documents in 2009, but the probe is very much alive. Attorneys for Community Academy of Philadelphia Charter School in a whistle-blower's lawsuit stemming from the raid have urged a Common Pleas Court judge to keep the suit on hold because "it is beyond refute that the federal criminal investigation" of the charter is active. As evidence, Community submitted an affidavit from an administrator's defense attorney that said the assistant U.S. attorney overseeing the probe told him in mid-March "the investigation is ongoing.

The Philadelphia School Partnership will announce Monday that it's giving the Faith in the Future Foundation a $600,000 planning grant to aid the eight Catholic high schools in the city. The money will help the foundation develop strategies to increase enrollment at each of the those Catholic high schools and to design accountability systems that will help them collect and report data about their students' academic performance. Catholic high schools in the city enroll about 6,200 students, but have room for nearly twice that number.

By Jun-Youb "JY" Lee A recent gala headlined by John Legend celebrated the University of Pennsylvania's exceeding its $3.5 billion fund-raising goal by $800 million. But only blocks away, University City High School students quietly emptied their lockers following the Philadelphia School Reform Commission decision to close their school and 22 others to cover a $300 million budget deficit. It's ironic that a university can raise $4.3 billion during its five-year campaign, yet an entire city can't raise $300 million for its schoolchildren.

A former English teacher from Truebright Science Academy Charter School who alleged the North Philadelphia school discriminated against her on the basis of national origin and gender has reached a settlement in her civil rights suit. U.S. District Court records show that Regenna A. Jalon, a former head of Truebright's English department, and the charter school ended the suit last Friday because of the settlement. Jalon, who worked at Truebright for four years, alleged in a suit filed in February that the school had engaged in a pattern of hiring, promoting, and paying less-qualified Turkish nationals more than American-born educators who were certified and had more experience.