Family School Pride Duked by SRC

Parent involvement has been manipulated by the powers that be. Gassing the public up to believe we have a choice when in reality the powers that be have chosen to do what they want and leave the public out of the conversation. Manipulating the public to fatten their wallets.

Parents who by the way have the most power when we know who is not on our side and come together to fight for our right to public education that is transparent, accountable, allows the parents to be part of the process and not pawns in corporate America’s scheme.

Charter schools are genocide on public education, they are illegally taking our allocated funds for pretend private education when in fact the only thing privatized is the funds and property.

ASSESSMENT OF 7000 VILLAGER CASE SITUATION

Pennsylvania Constitution

Public School System

Section 14.

The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.

Public School Money Not Available to Sectarian Schools

Section 15.

No money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school.

NOTE – CONSTITUTION PRECEPTS TRUMP PRECEDENT, STATUTE, CODE AND REGULATIONS IN ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAW!

Poor communities don’t invest in their public schools as do affluent communities do and that’s the difference and gap in quality education aka PARENT INVOLVEMENT. Public education is all about social reform. Dr. Maria Montessori saw potential in vulnerable communities and fought for public education, her schools have mostly been stripped of their original purpose and privatized to keep from the vulnerable communities she created for. The vulnerable were thrown away again much like the building of prison communities versus educated safe productive communities.

Here is a recent email from the corporate greed for our public funds and property:

Feb 6 (4 days ago)

Subj: IMPORTANT ACTION NEEDED!!! Fwd: 2/5/15 Charter Call Takeaways

We were invited to be on a conference call this afternoon with leadership of the Philadelphia School Partnership and with school leaders of operating charter schools in their "portfolio" (meaning those schools they've funded and consider high performing). There has been incredible activity this week with regards to advocacy efforts from PSP with SRC members, Bill Green, William Hite, the legislature and their leadership and the governor's office.

With PSP pledging to erase the financial impact on charter approval they believe that there is room for the district to potentially approve 11 - 12 charters in February. They provide their advice re: follow up in the forwarded email below.

Our task in the next ten days is to make sure that WE are one of the 11-12. How do we do this??


1. We need to get our community members - meaning you and your constituents - to call and write to members of the SRC. They need to hear that the community wants Germantown Community Charter School in Germantown. We need to give them a strong reason to accept our proposal and having the strong community backing is what sets us apart from the rest. The next ten days are critical for our charter chances.

I have attached a script that your folks can use but it always helps to give it your own individual flair. If we could get each coalition member to get three people to make a phone call or email the SRC we will be making headways.

2. We need our elected officials to reach out to the SRC again and reiterate their support of our school and the importance to the community - particularly Sylvia Sims and Farah Jimenez.

3. We need some folks to call in to Radio Times tomorrow per the instructions in bullet 3 below and represent for GCCS. Mention our school name and our frustration at having educational options stripped from our community. We want a community driven school back in Germantown. Please call - that is a key initiative.


Please let me know what you can do to help this effort. Every little bit helps! Thanks as always. 

Julie

All-

Thank you for your participation today.

Based on recent conversations, these are our main recommendations for encouraging a large number of charter approvals from the SRC: 

1. Be flexible. It is possible that the SRC may ask you to make changes to your application concerning catchment area, enrollment phase-in, and opening dates. It is critical to be open-minded in this regard.

2. Mobilize supporters to contact the SRC. Try to have parents send personal letters—not form letters—to the members, particularly Sylvia and Farah. Encourage your board members, advocates, and funders to do the same, though focusing on Bill and Feather.

To contact the SRC, email Nicky Charles (ncharles@philasd.org) and Claire Landau (clandau@philasd.org) and specify which member(s) you want to receive your message. The phone number is 215-400-4010.

3. Call in to Radio Times tomorrow morning. Parents would be ideal, but principals, board members, or any other charter supporters should feel free as well.

· The show is from 10:00 AM -11:00 AM tomorrow; it can be heard on either 90.9 FM or online at http://www.whyy.org/91FM/live.php 

· Typically they will start asking for people to call in starting at around 10:20 

· The call-in number is (888) 477-9499. If you can’t get on air, you can also tweet questions to @whyyradiotimes.


Thank you all again for both your open-mindedness and dedication to this effort. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any further questions.

Best, Jacob 

--

Jacob Waters
Philadelphia School Advocacy Partners
150 S. Independence Mall West, Suite 1200
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106
jwaters@philaschooladvocacy.org
(c) 609-658-8147

--

Julie Stapleton Carroll


This is the letter they want community members to bring:


Dear Commissioners Sims and Jimenez,


I am writing you today as a member of the Germantown Community Charter School Coalition. For almost two years now over 30 organizations have been meeting and planning to bring quality educational options for all our children back into our neighborhood.

Our proposal seeks to provide our students with practical skills, sound judgment, quality character and a strong academic focus.

We are community driven and committed to seeing that our school is run with high expectations for students, high accountability to the public and strong connections to our local institutions and partners. We envision a school that creates vibrant relationships and returns our neighborhoods to the villages that they once were.

We envision a school that can be a model to improve comprehensive neighborhood high schools across the city. Our schools need to get back to educating the whole child.

Please consider approving our charter – the support is here.

Germantown Community Charter School.

Thank you.

My response: 

we don't want charter schools in our community, we want:

• teachers from our communities who can relate to our demographics 
• budgets posted at entrance and in parent/community space, this gives open transparency and accountability measures 
• support services such as, nurse in each school, counselors for families, SES, Title 1 workshops, arts, computer science, vocational training, sports, all science and math, parent and community support, healthy food 
• public domain over public funds and property 
• fairly funded education 
• no more school reform commission, we would like to elect our school board and stop the corporate corruption 
• pride in our schools - because when are schools are closed, our culture is altered. 

Please share your thoughts!!