This will be a stressful weekend for a lot of parents in the neighborhood. Registration for the upcoming school year begins at the Penn Alexander School (4209 Spruce St.) on Monday and many are still unsure if their child will get a spot, even if they live in the school’s well-publicized catchment area.
The school has become so popular that it’s lower level grades have filled up, prompting a grassroots organization, Advocates for Great Elementary Education, to seek answers about how the school will operate in the future. Will parents have to queue through the night to get their child in? Will there be a lottery? Can they make the school bigger? The group has drafted a petition asking for answers, which has reignited a debate about gentrification, class and race that always bubbles just under the surface around here. This brings anxiety to parents who are balancing their desire to get the best for their children with their desire to see everyone’s children get the best.
One parent, Jon Grabelle Herrmann, whose daughter will be eligible to attend Penn Alexander’s kindergarten next year (if she gets a spot), shared the following commentary on the neighborhood e-mail listserv UCNeighbors. He graciously allowed us to republish it here.
I have lived in UC/West Philly now for 15 years, the first part as a Penn student. I’ve seen the neighborhood change dramatically for the better, despite the roadblocks facing some. Less crime, less blight, increased wealth for many long-time residents — and yes, some displacement too. I was thrilled that the creation of PAS meant that I could stay in the neighborhood that I love when I got married and built a family. And I’ll be in line this fall, or doing a lottery, or whatever comes to pass, to get my daughter into a school that I still see as of a lower quality than the public school I attended growing up, and in a neighborhood where things are much better but there are still many risks for a school-aged kid walking around. I am committed to living in the City and willing to do whatever I can to do that.
But private school is not an option. Moving out of University City is an option.
I have always considered the PAS a blessing, not a right. Here is an attempt by the University I attended to provide new options for families like mine that otherwise might sadly end up in the suburbs, families for whom moving to the suburbs would break out hearts. And for families who live in the neighborhood of various backgrounds. It’s a blessing I will fight for and even pay for, but of course I need to keep an eye open to the realities of Philadelphia’s broader school system.
Because I know that my family can and will move for the best educational opportunities, I balance my liberal viewpoints on supporting public urban education with pragmatic realities. I am willing to pay more taxes to support the Philadelphia school system. I am willing to be supportive of efforts to improve neighborhood schools. I am willing to research charter school options, though somewhat skeptical. I am willing to give up my right to stand in line for PAS in favor of a fairer lottery system. But I am not willing to pretend that in Fall 2012 my daughter has another option for free kindergarden in my neighborhood. Maybe my son will have another option in 2016, and I’m happy to help make that possible — as long as I still live in this neighborhood and my daughter gets to attend PAS. And only if someone who knows about schools tells me it’s possible and there are other models of success to replicate.
But the connections between my kids’ education and the education of those whose parents grew up in the City in the modern era are frankly not that tight. That ship sailed 50 years ago when my parents generation disrupted urban education by leaving cities. As a citizen, as an activist, and as a liberal, I think it is my responsibility to do what I can as an individual to support systematic change and improvements to Philadelphia’s school system. I’ll vote, pay taxes, maybe even get involved with a nonprofit. But that will have very little to do with where my kids go to school or more broadly kids of the middle and upper middle class. It just so happens that I have the opportunity to send my kids to PAS, for which I am thankful and hopeful that my daughter gets in.
So I admire Amara Rockar’s activism [editor’s note: Rockar is a volunteer organizer with West Philly Coalition for Neighborhood Schools, which is helping improve the Henry Lea School] and hope to learn more about her work. I’m skeptical that work will impact the choices I have in front of me this year. I would like to hear from an educational expert about what really is going on at PAS — what would it mean to expand capacity, setting aside how it would be financed and whether the facility would look ugly? What are the options for Lea and Powell? What is the potential there? What am I sacrificing to send my kids to PAS versus a suburban school, even with no changes? Can we provide catchment zone financing to continue full enrollment, even with an additional tax? It certainly would be offset by our increased real estate values… Can UCD [University City District] help with that?
I don’t want people to have to move away. And I don’t want people who have chosen to live here to have to lose their chance at going to a good school. I also think the system needs to be fair and transparent. And I’m going to make damn sure that my kids gets a good education no matter the answer to any of these questions.
Bottom line: in the absence of answers to these questions, I am willing to sign the petition — not necessarily because its path will solve our problems, but because we need to stand up and work for a solution however possible. And with a 6-week-old infant in my house, signing an online petition through Facebook and sending this email is about the best I can do right now.
Thanks,
Jon
Philadelphia’s new weekend curfew didn’t help a West Philly man who was attacked by a group of teenagers early Saturday morning near 47th and Walnut. Luckily, plainclothes police were able to help, catching all four teens before they could injure the man badly.
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