Ackerman pledges visit to the Childs school

Superintendent Arlene C. Ackerman made two promises to parents of the G.W. Childs School yesterday.

She pledged to visit Childs, at 17th and Tasker streets, to reassure its 605 pupils that unsafe conditions there pushed her to decide quickly in April to move them to Barratt Middle School in September.

She also promised at a hearing on the planned relocation of the school to include parents on a transition panel.

For instance, parent leader Kim Smith said the school may need to select a new principal and parents want to be part of the process.

Principal Alphonso Evans has not yet said whether he will remain at Childs.

The Childs pupils will share Barratt, at 16th and Wharton, with about 80 Barratt eighth graders.

Danielle Floyd, Ackerman's assistant chief of staff, said the district will wait until a facilities management plan is completed before it puts the Childs building up for sale.

In other news:

* Housing Authority Executive Director Carl Greene outlined an ambitious plan to operate two charter schools, including the first boarding charter high school near the PHA-built Lucien E. Blackwell Homes.

Greene said the authority doesn't want to build a proposed $10.5 million community center there with a gym that would be used by the high school without an agreement with the district.

PHA wants to operate the Martha Washington Elementary School and the Thomas Suzberger schools as charter schools.

He said the Suzberger boarding school would be modeled after Girard College or the SEED school, a boarding school for poor children in Washington, D.C.

* The SRC delayed a vote on matching a partner to operate West Philadelphia High School as a Renaissance School.