February 11, 2008

Chickens Loose At Northeast High!

Pranksters, you are going to have to do a lot to top this one. The prank of the year: 50 live chickens were let out in the halls of Northeast High School.

Some time this morning, someone broke into the school and released 50 live chickens and chicken feed into the school. Maintenance men discovered the chickens just before light this morning. A school spokesman said: "At this point, we don't know when someone broke into the school but someone did break into at the start of school this morning and dropped off fifty or more chickens into Northeast High School and spread chicken feed all over the school."

Someone is going to have to put penguins in Audenreid in order to top this, honestly. I think we have a unbeatable front-runner right now.

50 Live Chickens Set Free Inside NE High School [KYW 1060]

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September 11, 2007

Kids Learn Important Pissing Lessons

Classes started yesterday in the public schools in Philadelphia, and the kids are already learning important life lessons:

As the school year opened at Logan Elementary in Philadelphia yesterday morning, teacher Jeneen Crawford, as one of her first tasks, reviewed with her second-grade pupils the rules for good behavior when visiting the bathroom.

"Do not scream out the window," one student said, getting a nod of approval from Crawford.

"Do not go on the floor," said another.

"Don't pee out the window," added a third.

They were also told not to take a wide stance in the lavatory; you just don't know if there's an officer in the stall next to you.

Adding rules to the three R's [Inquirer]

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June 14, 2007

School Officials Don't Eat Cafeteria Food

As we all know, whenever an official is accused of spending too much public money on something, the official returns fire with something about how the $50,000 he or she spent on giant marionettes was actually a very important public service. Such i the case with James Nevels, head of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission, who has spent over $15 grand on the SRC credit card on meals since 2004.

In this case, Nevels couldn't be reached for comment, but his associates told lies for him anyway.

"All of these expenses have been audited by [City Controller] Alan Butkovitz," Carey Dearnley, the commission's spokeswoman, said yesterday.

"Yes, Alan Butkovitz got all of it, pored through it, and tried to find something out of line, and didn't. He didn't disapprove," concurred commission Chief of Staff Frank Siefert.

Reached at home last night, Butkovitz said that although he has asked, he has not been provided with any commission members' credit-card statements.

On the plus side, we can be happy he's not slumming it at Perkins or anything.

"Those aren't people who do business at IHOP," Dearnley said. "This is where business is done in this city."

I know. Morning Glory for breakfast, baby!

Nevels' wining & dining: 15G+ [Daily News]

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April 12, 2007

Vallas To Exit; District Looks For Kid-Friendly Leader

Paul Vallas is packing his things, has rented a U-Haul truck and will be outta here as soon as possible. The superintendent of the school district, the guy with a plan to turn every other building in Philadelphia into a magnet school, says five years is enough.

His loss will most likely be celebrated by some, and sadden others, but the main thing is: The School District of Philadelphia needs a new superintendent who cares about the students.

"I think it's a major blow to the city of Philadelphia and the school district," Greg Wade, president of the Home and School Council, the district's parents' group, said of Vallas' departure. "Say what you want about the man, he had our best interests at heart. I truly believe that."

Yeah. I mean, what about all those school superintendents who hate kids and routinely beat them with rulers? Paul Vallas wasn't one of them. Whoo!

Vallas to leave city schools post [Inquirer]

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March 20, 2007

Parental Guidance From 1997 Sci-Fi Movie

From Phillyblog comes the end of the debate about how to make Philadelphia schools better. The solution: Parents should spank their kids! From a user we'll call RuggerAl, since that is his username:

My parents hit me when I messed up bad, the total number of times could be counted on two hands or less. And as a direct result, the thought went through my head before I did something questionable... "Am I going to get a whopping for this?" My sister, much wiser and four years younger, learned many a lesson through me. To quote my dad quoting my grandmother "A soft head makes a soft behind."

Okay, fair enough. But, I mean, do you have any reasoning for it besides of the fact you were hit? Oh, you do? Carry on, then.

Continue reading "Parental Guidance From 1997 Sci-Fi Movie"

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March 12, 2007

W. Philly High Getting Lots Of Practice With New Policy

After a teacher was assaulted outside the school on Friday, West Philadelphia HS began a zero tolerance policy as well as new evacuation procedures. (Before, I guess, attacking teachers was worth a slap on the wrist.) The policy meant, uh, zero tolerance for foolin' around.

Well, they had a pretty easy job of testing it.

West Philadelphia High students were evacuated Monday after two small fires were intentionally set inside the school. These incidents were the latest in a string of violent acts involving students on campus.

Lt. John Walker of Southwest Detectives said students were evacuated at about 11 a.m. while firefighters extinguished a fire in a second floor locker. Students reentered the building and moments later were re-evacuated when a second fire was set inside another locker on the second floor.

"Both fire have been ruled incendiary and the fire marshal is here with us and the police department's conducting the investigating as to who's going to be responsible for starting these fires," Walker said.

Expect about two or three more fires by the end of the day.

West Philadelphia High Violence Continues [CBS 3]

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March 09, 2007

215-400-SAFE Is A Joke

Jill Porter's column in today's Daily News describes how, just two days after a policy of allowing the teacher who was attacked to choose whether to press charges instead of the principal, the rules pretty much entirely changed. A tip hotline, 215-400-SAFE, for reporting violence also was instituted.

First, let's go back to Wednesday's Daily News:

And from now on, principals no longer decide whether a student - or parent - who harms or threatens a school employee is arrested, Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said.

If police are called to a school because a teacher or school worker has been assaulted, only the person making the complaint gets to say whether to press charges, Johnson said.

In the past, principals decided whether a student was arrested, the commissioner said.

Now, today's column by Porter describes an incident yesterday at a Southwest Philly middle school:

A teacher at a Southwest Philadelphia middle school, for instance, called in late in the morning yesterday to report that a student had menaced her with his fists and threatened to "get her." The teacher reported it to her principal. The principal called police.

But when the detective arrived, he declined to take the student into custody, explaining that Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson was trying only to "make people feel better" when he promised to arrest students, "but that's not what we're going to do."

Now, I don't know if a policy of arresting students is a bad idea. But what I do know is that saying you're going to arrest students on Tuesday and then saying on Thursday the Police Commissioner was only trying to "make people feel better" is most certainly a bad idea.

Okay, so student not arrested, let's move on, right? No. The district's safe-schools advocate, Jack Stollsteimer, phoned Southwest Detectives to straighten things out after the incident. And, later, the student was arrested for threatening his teacher. So, basically, it appears Jack Stollsteimer is controlling who gets arrested now in schools. Hooray for progress!

Jill Porter | Teachers' safety is on the line [Daily News]
A threat would bring a felony charge; principals no longer decide on arrests [Daily News]

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Memo Madness Re: Philly Schools Report

You might remember Ellen Green-Ceisler from such posts last week as this one. She's a lawyer who is running for a judgeship this year, but she also monitored the police department as head of the city's Integrity and Accountability Office and prepared a report on discipline in the Philadelphia School District released earlier this month.

But whoops! Gar Joseph reports today on a memo accidentally attached to the report when it went out. It was penned by Green-Ceisler, and she wrote about how she felt the commission she did was simply a way for Paul Vallas to attack ex-school safety head Harvey Rice.

Accidentally stuck to the end of the report ("a large, stupid error," said a schools spokeswoman) is a June memo exchange between Ceisler and Heather Frattone, the district's director of policy and planning.

In it, Ceisler writes, "At different points during this project, Paul and [other] personnel expressed significant consternation about the OSSA [Rice's Office of Safe Schools Advocate]... . As my study progressed, I sensed that Paul and [others'] main concern was that I discredit the OSSA. In fact during one session with an... employee, I requested some data regarding student arrests. That individual, in my presence, called an employee from the School Police and stated something to the effect that I needed this information because I was hired to 'trash Harvey Rice's Office.' "

Ceisler goes on to say, "If I had reason to believe, at the outset, that the sole purpose of my contract was to 'trash' a critic of the School District, I never would have agreed to undertake this study."

Even though the woman who authored the report admitted in a memo the district was mainly concerned with trashing Harvey Rice, a school district spokesperson lied, "To suggest that we would go to those lengths is a little absurd... the agenda was clearly not to trash Harvey."

In other news, whoever accidentally attached that memo to the report has totally been fired.

Gar Joseph | Memo says Vallas hired consultant to fry Rice [Daily News]
[Photo via Al Día]
March 3: Ellen Green-Ceisler Will Attempt To Reform City's Institutions One-By-One If She Has To

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March 02, 2007

Ellen Green-Ceisler Will Attempt To Reform City's Institutions One-By-One If She Has To

Inquirer, today, A call for help - then things got worse, about a lawsuit filed against the police department:

The Estevez case echoes the findings of a court-mandated monitor who reviewed six years of officer-involved shootings in a 2005 report.

Ellen Green-Ceisler, then head of the Integrity and Accountability Office, found that the "majority" of internal shooting investigations were "satisfactory."

However, she wrote: "In some cases, investigators did not ask necessary and probing questions regarding issues relevant to the shooting, did not always address inconsistencies and ambiguities..."

She added, "In some investigations, physical evidence and civilian eyewitness statements that contradicted officers' version of events appeared to be disregarded. These practices raise questions regarding the impartiality of some investigations."

The Green-Ceisler report covered cases from 1998 to 2003.

Inquirer, today, Report: District losing control, about the state of the Philadelphia school district:

The Philadelphia School District's student disciplinary system is plagued by inconsistencies, high turnover in personnel, and a lack of training, staff and resources - all leading to a breakdown in procedure and an insufficient transfer of problem pupils out of the schools, according to an independent consultant's report released yesterday.

Some school personnel have become so frustrated that they have given up carrying out discipline in all but the most serious cases, said the 47-page report prepared by Ellen Green-Ceisler, who previously monitored the Police Department as head of the city's Integrity and Accountability Office.

Her report describes classrooms where "little or no learning was actually occurring" and "many of the students in attendance were listening to headphones, sleeping, doodling or wandering around the room talking or shouting."

Good job with the police and schools, Ellen Green-Ceisler! Now can you get to work on PGW, SEPTA, the Streets Dept., the Zoning Board and the Sixers?

Oh, and, of course, she's running for a judgeship.

Report: District losing control [Inquirer]
A call for help - then things got worse [Inquirer]

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February 23, 2007

Philly Schools Not Good Place To Invest In, Teach At

Great news for the Philadelphia School District!

First off, the school district's bond rating has been lowered from Triple-B to Triple-B Minus (whatever that means). Triple-B Minus is Fitch Ratings' lowest investment-grade rating. And pretty soon, an analyst says, the school district is going to be lowered again to junk-bond status, which means nobody should ever lend the school district any money ever.

And! The school district's financial outlook has been lowered from "stable" to "negative."

Meanwhile, a teacher at a Germantown High School was attacked by students because the teacher confiscated an iPod and the 60-year-old suffered two broken bones in his neck.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I write "great news"? I meant to write "horrible disgusting news."

Philadelphia Schools Drop To 'Negative' Status [AP/CBS 3]
Police: Students Injure Philadelphia Teacher [CBS 3]

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October 25, 2006

Pot, Kettle Call Each Other Black

There was some sparring at City Hall yesterday between World's Greatest Leader Paul Vallas and Mayor John Street.

Vallas and Street's back and forth was not really all that unexpected. The school district, you see, recently realized that (whoops!) it had a $70 million dollar deficit. It's easy to realize how that could be misplaced. Street was not only angered at the deficit -- he called it "a financial failure of the greatest magnitude" -- he was angered that they just found out about the deficit now:

”I can’t think of a set of circumstances where somebody in the finance department wouldn’t know. I just can’t imagine that you just wouldn’t know that. Its just too much money. It's 70 million dollars!... I have never seen anything like that in all of my 27 years in local government. I have never seen anything like that.”

Think about that for a second: John Street says he's never seen anything this stupid. John. Street. Let that sink in. Yes, that's how bad, uh, misplacing $70 million is. I guess.

Vallas, though, had some responses of his own, warning Street that “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones." He's using the nice old strategy of saying "Oh, you suck too, so it's okay if I suck." Excellent.

But Vallas' real zinger came later:

“If I want schools to be adequately funded, I’d be better off petitioning Bloomberg in New York to make Philadelphia the sixth borough.”

Jesus. That was, like, what, a year ago? Last summer, even! People aren't still quoting, say, Anchorman or making Napoleon Dynamite references, are they? (Uhh, don't answer that.)

Mayor Street, Schools CEO Vallas Bicker Over Budget Shortfall [KYW 1060]
Monday: Enron, Adelphia Also Win Awards

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October 23, 2006

Enron, Adelphia Also Win Awards

Currently on the front page of Philly.com:

Gee, was Terrell Owens on the list, too?

Vallas named among top U.S. leaders [Inquirer]
$70M in school cuts could soar to $100M [Daily News]

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October 20, 2006

Leftovers: Don't Let The Door Hit You, Etc.

• You go, Inquirer! Just a few days after the paper's report on the city's Department of Human Services' failures in the deaths of several children, the head of the DHS resigns. Cheryl Ransom-Garner -- who said, "I think DHS is doing a great job" in Sunday's Inquirer report -- escaped the fate of her deputy, John McGee, who was relieved of his duties. [Inquirer]

• A substitute teacher at Creighton Elementary school lost three of her fingertips after a defective window slammed down on them. There is one thing worse than being a substitute teacher in the Philadelphia School District. Being a substitute teacher in the Philadelphia School District and losing three of your fingertips to a defective window. [Daily News]

• A West Chester man is suing the makers of Second LIfe for confiscating his property after he figure out a way to buy it for a much cheaper price. (Or something like that.) Reuters' Second Life bureau -- yes, they have one -- will surely be on this right away. [Inky]

• That Bill Giles trophy presentation last night? Apparently, the trophy is named after his father. Heh, who knew? [The 700 Level]

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