Photo courtesy of the Bicycle Coalition

UPDATE: Ride for Reading has been postponed until Thursday, May 12 due to rain in the forecast for Tuesday.

The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia is hosting a variety of events for Bike Month this month. On Tuesday, May 10 Thursday, May 12 they are hosting their fourth annual Ride for Reading, which will support Andrew Hamilton Elementary School in West Philadelphia.

Currently, the Bicycle Coalition is recruiting volunteers who can help transport books to the school located at 56th and Spruce. Volunteers will gather at Rittenhouse Square at 7:45 a.m. The ride will be followed by a short presentation about healthy minds and healthy bodies at 9 a.m., and then the volunteers will distribute the books to children. Every child will take home at least one book.

The mission of Ride for Reading is to promote literacy and healthy living by donating books via bicycle to schools. Check out this link for more info and to sign up.

Thanks to the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children (WePAC), 13 local schools that lost their librarian due to budget cuts, now have a library run by volunteers. On Monday, one of these schools, Morton McMichael school in the Mantua section of West Philadelphia, hosted well-known local children’s author and illustrator Andy Myer. WePAC arranged the visit.

Myer spoke with a group of fourth grade students about his life as a writer and illustrator and the process to move from concept to published book.

“The children were mesmerized, and they were especially excited to each get a copy of Myer’s latest book [Henry Hubble’s Book of Troubles] signed by the author himself,” writes Heather Farber, WePAC Interim Executive Director.  Continue Reading

Click on the images below to view breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus to be served in Philadelphia public schools in May 2016. Click here if your school uses the Satellite menu.

May 2016 K-8 breakfast, lunch and dinner menu

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The School Reform Commission last night approved the conversion of the three more public schools to charters, including the Samuel B. Huey School at 52nd and Pine.

The Global Leadership Academy Charter School, which currently operates a school at 4601 W. Girard Ave., will take over Huey beginning in the fall. The SRC also voted to convert Cooke (Logan) and Wister (Germantown) Elementary Schools into charters. The charters are tasked with turning around the “chronically under-performing” schools, often against the wishes of parents. Huey has an enrollment of about 550 students.

Meanwhile Councilwoman Helen Gym, who was elected last fall in part for her dedication to public schools, called for a moratorium on charter conversions.

Bids to convert three Philadelphia public schools, including Samuel B. Huey Elementary in West Philadelphia, into charters have received support from the District’s Charter Schools Office (CSO). The CSO has recommended the School Reform Commission to approve with conditions all three charter school applications. The SRC will vote on the applications on Thursday, which will determine whether Global Leadership Academy would take over Huey in the 2016-17 school year.

Samuel B. Huey Elementary School (Google Street View image).

Huey parents gathered outside the school at 52nd and Pine last week to protest its proposed conversion into a charter, saying that the school instead needs more resources, according to a report by The Notebook. They also said that they are not getting enough input on the school’s future.

Global Leadership Academy currently operates a K-8 school at 4600 West Girard Ave. The CSO found that the application for Huey, a low-performing school, from Global Leadership Academy is “rooted in culturally competent, progressive education that improves academic performance but also increases attendance and family engagement while decreasing student violence and suspension rates.”

Read the full report about the recommendations by the Charter Schools Office on The Notebook.

The Charter Schools Office recently released its first Annual Charter Evaluation (ACE) for all Philadelphia charter schools as part of its Authorizing Quality Initiative. The ACE includes school-specific performance evaluations based on academic success, organizational viability and compliance, and fiscal health and sustainability. The ACE can be viewed on the School District’s website.

Samuel Powel Elementary School students and teachers are planning a series of marches against gun violence and are inviting the community to join them.

“4th graders at Powel School… have been studying Gun Violence in our neighborhoods and city this year. They have decided that they wanted to march through our communities to raise awareness about gun violence,” writes teacher Joe Alberti.

The 4th graders at Powel will be marching through Powelton and Mantua on Thursday, April 21 from 1-2 p.m.

They will be marching up 36th St. to Spring Garden, then up 35th St. to Aspen before walking down 37th St. and back to school, located at 301 N. 36th St. The children created fliers about the march to invite neighbors. Here’s one of them:  Continue Reading