Parents United for Public Education is an independent group of parents working for fiscal accountability; a public process and parent voice in decision-making; and setting priorities that place kids and classrooms first in the School District's budget. For more information, please contact Aissia Richardson, 215-236-2100, or Helen Gym, 215-808-1400. If you do not wish to receive emails, please respond back to parentsunitedphila@gmail.com. Visit us online at http://parentsunitedphila.googlepages.com/.

Posted on Fri, Mar. 7, 2008

City schools chief wants budgets redone

By Susan Snyder

Inquirer Staff Writer

Philadelphia School Reform Commission Chairwoman Sandra Dungee Glenn has ordered the district's administration to redo budgets for each school, with the goal of keeping class sizes as low as possible and art and music, counselors, librarians and nurses intact.

Dungee Glenn, through a spokeswoman, announced the action this week, following complaints from Parents United for Public Education, the Home and School Council and other parent and community groups.

The announcement also followed an article in The Inquirer last week about the district's budget directive to principals to create "split classes," if necessary to meet class-size limits. Split classes have students from more than one grade and can lead to larger class sizes.

"The budgets did not reflect the SRC's priorities as they were outlined," said commission spokeswoman Heidi Gold.

Dungee Glenn had instructed staff to make revisions before the complaints from parents and before The Inquirer article, Gold said. But Dungee Glenn's directive did not become public until after the complaints emerged.

When Dungee Glenn became chairwoman of the commission last fall, she said art and music, counselors, librarians and nurses no longer would find themselves on school cut lists and that class sizes would be kept low, especially in the primary grades, whenever possible.

She called the priorities "basics" that had been neglected for too long.

When school budgets went out last week, principals and teachers were buzzing about cuts they would have to make.

Powel School in West Philadelphia, for example, was faced with losing several teachers, which would endanger the school's long-standing commitment to keeping class sizes low.

Cecilia Cummings, speaking on behalf of the school district's administration, said yesterday: "We're just going to continue to chip away at the budget in an extremely tight budget year to incrementally fund the commission's priorities in a manner that is fiscally responsible."

Parent advocates said they were pleased the commission ordered the budgets to be redone.

"We're very glad that the school district heard the concerns and understand how much of a priority it is," said Helen Gym, of Parents United for Public Education.

District officials last week said they really didn't intend to have split classes. It was a routine budgeting procedure and ultimately split classes would be removed, they said.

However, a district budget directive sent to principals ordered them to meet class-size limits in the teacher contract even if it means putting students in two different grades in the same room. The policy applied to students in grades one to four. It meant, for example, that if there were 36 first graders at a school, the principal would have to place six of them in a class with second graders rather than creating two classes of first graders or allowing one large class. The class-size limit in kindergarten and grades one to three is 30 students; it is 33 students in upper grades.

Parent groups and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers were skeptical of the district's explanation.

In their letter to Dungee Glenn, the groups wrote: "Quite frankly, the news that the district allocated teachers according to the class size maximum, resulting in split grades, has many of our schools outraged."

The group also said several schools were going to lose art and music teachers because of the budgeting.

Contact staff writer Susan Snyder at 215-854-4693 or ssnyder@phillynews.com.

Posted on Fri, Mar. 7, 2008

SRC will fund 'priorities'

By MENSAH M. DEAN
Philadelphia Daily News

deanm@phillynews.com 215-854-5949

Responding to concerns raised by parent organizations, the chairwoman of the School Reform Commission has reaffirmed a promise made in the fall to fund smaller class sizes and other "priorities" in next school-year's budget.

"The SRC remains committed to the priorities we articulated last fall and has requested that [district interim Chief Executive Officer Tom] Brady and staff prepare a revised budget - including school-based budgets - that begin to advance the outlined priorities in fiscal year 2009," Chairwoman Sandra Dungee Glenn said in a statement issued Wednesday night.

Although Dungee Glenn did not give specifics, such as how much more funding would be provided for reducing classes, she did caution that money is tight.

"Given the structural underfunding in basic education in Pennsylvania, we will still be confronted with tough choices, but we stand by our priorities," her statement concluded.

When the district gave each school its individual 2008-09 budget last week, the documents did not reflect smaller class sizes in elementary grades as had been promised, according to leaders of parent groups.

The documents also did not say whether schools lacking art and music teachers and librarians would be getting them. Those positions also had been described as "must-haves" by Dungee Glenn in the fall.

On Tuesday, in a written statement, the parent groups demanded that the school-based budgets be redone. But yesterday, responding to Dungee Glenn's announcement, the parents were cautiously optimistic that schools would get what they need this fall.

"They need to come up with a plan so we can see how they're going to do that," said Greg Wade, president of the Home and School Council. "We want art and music in the budget - but where is the money coming from? Where are the teachers coming from?"

"I think [Dungee Glenn] is right, that we're going to have to look at some hard choices," said Helen Gym, a member of Parents United for Public Education. "The thing is, we should talk about what the hard choices are.

"The SRC continues to sign off on a lot of contracts. We need to put some of the contract signing on hold until we figure out how much it will cost to run the kind of schools that we want."

Gerald Wright, another Parents United member, said: "We should be able to go back and look at the priorities against the new budgets that are being released to see if, in fact, the priorities are being met."

In October, Dungee Glenn had said "top-tier" priorities that would be included in next year's budget were reduced class sizes in kindergarten through third grade, and art and music teachers in every school.

She also had said that as much as possible would be spent on increasing the number of guidance counselors - especially in high schools - and the number of nurses and certified librarians in elementary schools.

"They should be there - it has nothing to do with a promise," said Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. "It has to do with what's right for kids.

"These are not frills. They are services that children in suburban districts have," he added. "It's just what well-educated young people have when they go to school."

The PFT's contract stipulates that class sizes in kindergarten through third grade should have no more than 30 students, and no more than 33 students in fourth through 12th grades. But often, those caps are exceeded.

The parents also said that they want the schools to receive enough staffing to avoid split classes - combining students in two grades in one classroom.

On March 19, school officals must send to City Council and Mayor Nutter a budget statement containing anticipated revenues and expenditures for 2008-09. The budget must be adopted by May 31.