Power play: Parent group has big fans

Hearing the knock on the front door, the members of Parent Power, huddled in Sylvia Simms' living room, squealed with excitement. TV crews flooded the room in light. Greeting parents with flowers and hugs was Mayor Nutter.

For this occasion Wednesday night, the parents had reserved the mayor a green plastic lawn chair at the head of the small room on Opal Street near Lehigh Avenue, in North Philadelphia.

Simms, 49, founded Parent Power as a Facebook group just five months ago, to hold schools accountable. The group now claims about 900 fans across the country. Add the mayor to that list.

Nutter thanked the group for being diligent, and said that he had come to listen to their concerns.

The parents wasted no time. Juanita Dennard, a self-described "parent ombudsperson" at Martin Luther King High, said that she wanted her grandchildren to receive the same quality education in public school as the mayor's daughter, Olivia, receives at Julia R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School.

Nutter replied that even high-ranking public schools like Masterman are struggling amid dwindling budgets and shrinking staff.

Cecil Parsley, a father of six and a Parent Power member, said that he takes a day off from his T-shirt printing business every week to coach football at the Moss Athletic Association rec center, in Wissinoming.

Parsley spoke of children turning to stealing and selling drugs to pay for football equipment because the center is underfunded.

Sahaba Thompson, of North Philadelphia, said that his 33 years of working as an energy-efficiency inspector for the city showed him the alternatives to cutting chunks off the school budget and cutting low-paying city jobs.

"There are supervisors who only supervise one person, and managers who don't manage anyone," he said. "You can save money from cutting a little bit off the top everywhere. They're always cutting the people at the bottom, when there is much waste at the top."

With 15,000 students absent each day in the city, Nutter said, the community must find ways to elevate the quality of underserved public schools and increase student attendance.

Superintendent Arlene Ackerman "needs all the help she can get right now," Nutter said. "When parents are engaged, it is a better outcome, and it makes for a smarter, safer city."

Simms presented the mayor with Parent Power T-shirts and asked him to issue her group an official proclamation.

"I can tell you guys are serious," he said as he departed.