Teachers

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.

Crystal Kuykendall, born on a kitchen table in a housing project on the West Side of Chicago, daughter of a teenage mother and a father with a seventh-grade education, became a teacher. Crystal Kuykendall, widowed with two small daughters after her husband was shot to death while jogging, earned a doctorate and became a lawyer, an author and executive director of the National Alliance of Black School Educators. She accomplished all that, and more, she said, because a handful of people, most of them teachers, believed in her along the way. At a conference on wellness as Ursinus College in Collegeville last week, Kuykendall spoke to a packed auditorium of 200 people, most of them teachers, about children who happen to be black and poor, children of every color who happen to be different.

Interboro School District teachers and school board members have reached a tenative contract agreement and expect to hold ratification votes next week. But at three other area school districts - William Penn, Penn Delco and Southeast Delco - negotiations continue as the scheduled opening day of schools draws closer. The threat of a strike and the long-term damage it can cause was on the minds of Interboro school board members as they negotiated with the teachers. "The Garnet Valley strike loomed over our decision process," said John Costello, Interboro school board president.

Ryan Baxter took an unusual career path: He earned a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, then decided to become a science teacher in the Philadelphia School District. Doreen Coleman has spent 34 years at the same neighborhood school, 24 of them as dean of students, viewing her job not as a way to mete out discipline but as a way to change lives. Sharon Jackson knows that teaching her students about making good choices is just as important as teaching them about math. Despite the often tough backdrop against which they teach, Baxter, Coleman, and Jackson are three strong examples of what can be found every day in Philadelphia public school classrooms: excellence.

Jenny Roca sat with her legs dangling off the stage as she urged 300 educators to close their eyes, clear their minds, and pay attention to their bodies. In the span of minutes, the teacher from Arise Academy Charter High School in Philadelphia hoped, those attending a summit Monday on the impact of poverty and violence on children's ability to learn would better understand how the body is stimulated and reacts. Children can learn to recognize physiological changes to fear, anger, or other emotions, Roca said.

The Philadelphia School District wants its teachers to lengthen their workdays, give back up to 13 percent of their salaries, and forgo pay raises at least until 2017. It wants to reduce the money paid out to departing employees, weaken seniority, and give principals full authority over hiring and firing teachers. Philadelphia Federation of Teachers officials on Tuesday confirmed some details of the district's initial contract proposal, which were obtained by The Inquirer. School leaders have been saying for months that they need up to $180 million in labor givebacks annually to avert a five-year deficit of more than $1 billion.

AFTER MAKING a deal to protect its own contract under Act 46, the law that allowed the state takeover of Philadelphia public schools, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers was rather quiet for months. They held a few demonstrations outside the media eye, but the attitude then was "wait and see. " This week, though, the city's teachers' union found its voice - and was it loud. And while it's fair to wonder where they've been until now, the questions the teachers are screaming need to be asked: Just what is a "reconstituted" school - as 19 of the 75 schools slated for "reform" will be?

STOP, STOP, stop! Enough already with the continuous declarations that children will only achieve if their educator and they share the same ethnicity. That theory holds about as much water as school segregation - and we all know how well that worked out. While I'm merely just an average cracker in the box, I have taught mainly Latino and African-American students, many of whom have been tremendously successful in school. As a matter of fact, the average student whom I've taught has scored either advanced or proficient in mathematics on the PSSAs.

  A for-profit company that runs alternative-education schools in the region said it was prepared for students to arrive next month - despite laying off its staff in July. "They are open and ready to go," said Alan E. Casnoff, an attorney who represents Delaware Valley High School. He said the school had agreements in place with suburban districts for its campuses in Reading and Warminster but does not have a signed contract with Philadelphia for the two sites it has operated in the city.

Twenty-six teachers and nine school board members in National Park are at an impasse after the board rejected a state-mediated tentative contract agreement between the parties last month. The teachers have been working without a contract since last July, and they have been negotiating for a new contract since December 1990. On Nov. 26, the teachers and the board reached a tentative agreement; and on Dec. 10, the negotiating members agreed to recommend ratification to their respective constituencies.

Five grew up on the hard streets of North Philadelphia, one in the killing fields of Cambodia. Two are social workers, one is a nurse, another a soldier who served two tours in Iraq. They are black, Latino, and Asian, all about the same age, all but two of them mothers, all bound to one another today through the happenstance of having long ago shared a particular middle-school teacher. Their intergenerational, multiracial friendship might be unusual in parts of the Philadelphia region, recently named among the nation's most segregated, but it thrives at Caryl Levin's house in Melrose Park.

William R. Hite Jr. knows it's a tough ask: $120 million from a state that historically views Philadelphia and its public schools "as a cesspool. " So, the superintendent figures, the only way the nearly-broke Philadelphia School District is getting the cash it needs from state coffers is to end teacher seniority. "If we stand any chance to get money from Harrisburg, it's going to have to support something that is different from what we have now," Hite told the Inquirer Editorial Board on Thursday, adding that legislators are unlikely to support a system where "individuals get another increase just because they're remaining on the job another year.

James M. Smith Jr. was not just a good quarterback. He was a championship quarterback at Collingswood High School and a record-setting quarterback at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, his son Andrew, a lawyer for players on the Eagles, said Thursday. On Wednesday, May 8, Mr. Smith, 66, of Collingswood, a high school teacher and coach in South Jersey, died of cancer at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Born in Camden, Mr. Smith graduated from Collingswood High in the mid-1960s, where he was the quarterback for three years.

Sister Marie Kramer, 98, a teacher and administrator in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for more than 50 years, died Saturday, May 11, in Assisi House in Aston. She was a professed member of the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia for 79 years. She was baptized as Marie, but took the name Clare Albertine upon entering the convent. When nuns were given the option of returning to their baptismal name after the Second Vatican Council, she did so. Born in Easton, Pa., she was a graduate of St. Joseph's Commercial Institute.

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.

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.

In a swift meeting Tuesday evening in which none of the Camden Board of Education members answered any questions from worried school employees, the board approved the layoff of nearly 100 teachers and support staff and all 113 lunch aides. The board also approved the layoff of Joseph Carruth, the principal who was just rehired by the district at the start of the school year after a tumultuous court battle to get his job back. More than 100 people showed up for Tuesday's meeting at the school administration building.

Ryan Baxter took an unusual career path: He earned a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, then decided to become a science teacher in the Philadelphia School District. Doreen Coleman has spent 34 years at the same neighborhood school, 24 of them as dean of students, viewing her job not as a way to mete out discipline but as a way to change lives. Sharon Jackson knows that teaching her students about making good choices is just as important as teaching them about math. Despite the often tough backdrop against which they teach, Baxter, Coleman, and Jackson are three strong examples of what can be found every day in Philadelphia public school classrooms: excellence.

Doris Goodfriend Frankel, 92, of Jenkintown, a former teacher and longtime volunteer for the Philadelphia Orchestra, died Sunday, April 21, of congestive heart failure at home. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Mrs. Frankel taught second grade at Illman-Carter School, a demonstration program run by the University of Pennsylvania. The school was in the 4000 block of Pine Street in West Philadelphia. Though it came later in life, Mrs. Frankel found real meaning in volunteer work, said her son, Robert P. Jr. Following the example of her father-in-law, Bernard L. Frankel, who was on the Philadelphia Orchestra board of directors in the 1960s, Mrs. Frankel gave of her time and energy on the orchestra's behalf.

Mike Lupoli's dyslexia nearly derailed his academic career. When he was in sixth grade, his school principal, unaware of his handicap, cautioned him not to consider college. Lupoli disregarded that warning. "I had to work a little harder," he says, "but I graduated with honors. " For the last 19 years, Lupoli, 56, has been a phys-ed teacher at Sabold Elementary School in Springfield, Delaware County. He believes his dyslexia has proved a professional advantage that has enabled him to contribute to the well-being of his youthful charges.