Friday, July 27, 2012
The Hill District Education Council today said it is putting Pittsburgh Public Schools on notice that the district must do better for Hill District students or the council will seek the ouster of school board members, administrators and teachers.
How many of you would enroll your child/ren in one of the Hill District schools considering where those schools are academically?The three PPSD schools located in the Hill District - Pittsburgh University Prep 6-12, also known as Milliiones, Pittsburgh Miller PreK-5, and Pittsburgh Weil PreK-5 - are all on the PA Department of Education's list of low-achieving schools.
It is highly unlikely any Board member would send their children to any one of these schools.
Eric Ewell, similarly testified and presented a statement at the hearing on behalf of the Hill District Education Council with signatures from 96 members of the community. The statement listed concerns for the schools in the Hill including: high teacher turnover, low academic scores, leadership turnover, and constant feeder pattern changes.
Rev. Dr. Johnnie Monroe, co-chair of the Hill District Education Council, told the Board, "Enough is enough" and asked for a plan for the 3 Hill District schools to be submitted to the Hill District Education Council by September 1, 2012, with positive results by 2013.
Derrick Hardy also thanked the Board for approving his plan to implement a Success Schools program at University Prep and declared this commitment to his students.
We will continue to implement systems of success for moving all of our children in to college and beyond!
I have to wonder what "systems of success' Mr. Hardy can name.
Data for Pittsburgh Milliones 6-12 (University Prep) from the A+Schools 2011 Report to the Community show the following 2011 PSSA test results:
- 36.5% of eighth grade students tested proficient/advanced in math compared to 66.4% for the District
- 50% of eighth
grade students tested proficient/advanced in reading compared to 73.4% for the District
- 25.3% of eleventh grade
students tested proficient/advanced in math compared to 47.5% for the District
- 34%
of eleventh grade students tested proficient/advanced in reading compared to 59% for the District
Other testimonies from the Hill community on Monday stressed a concern for the implementation of the Success Schools program, yet another initiative for Hill District schools.
Success Schools, according to a contract approved by the Board in May 2012 totaling $513,000, will implement a positive behavior program in 3 PPSD schools.
Marilyn Barnett Waters, Ph.D. and Education Chair of the Pittsburgh Branch of the NAACP, asked the Board to listen to students and parents. She cautioned that the implementation of a Success Schools program would send a message that students are the problem. Dr. Waters ended her testimony with this statement:
This evening members of the NAACP are going on record to oppose your plan to institute the "success model" at UNIVERSITY PREP, FAISON and any other school in the district. Our children can be successful with carefully thought out programs and the kind of supports that yell out to them that YOU care about them and that you are willing to surround them with the appropriate academics interventions that are culturally relevant and researched based.
Tywanda Zeigler, a parent of a PPSD student, expressed her frustration at the lack of information from the District regarding the new Success Schools initiative. She pointed out that waiting until the new school year starts to inform parents of new programs is too late.
Typically, new initiatives are presented to the Board of Directors in a public Education Committee meeting. Several Board members asked for such a presentation for the Success Schools program but nothing has been presented publicly to date.
You can read more about Success Schools here.
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