Education   

 

Spinelli took a different path to college presidency

Making a fortune changing oil is not the traditional path to a college presidency. But for Stephen Spinelli Jr., it helped seal the deal at Philadelphia University, the former textile college that has rebranded itself as a top-notch design school.

 

Lehigh receives record gift of $34.2 million

Lehigh University yesterday announced a $34.2 million gift, the largest in the school's history, from the estate of famed graduate and longtime board of trustees member Donald B. Stabler.

 

Student hacks district files

Police are investigating a computer hacking by a 15-year-old student who authorities say broke into an office at Downingtown High School West and downloaded files containing restricted information on several dozen teachers and thousands of district taxpayers.

 

Charter's financial controls faulted

There was no oversight at Phila. Academy, probers say.

Brien N. Gardiner, the founder of Philadelphia Academy Charter School, and the former chief executive officer, Kevin M. O'Shea, were the only people at the school with authority to write checks, and there was no oversight on how the money was spent, according to lawyers hired by the school's board.

 

Major changes at troubled charter

The board of Philadelphia Academy Charter School last night made sweeping changes in its leadership in a bid to ensure that the Northeast school's charter wins approval to continue operating for five more years.

 

Commission asked to delay approving new charter schools

No new charter schools will open in Philadelphia if the School Reform Commission heeds the advice of its Office of Charter Schools.

 

Report: School facilities unsafe

Phila. City Controller Alan Butkovitz found $15 million in hazards that need quick fixes.

Philadelphia's public schools are crumbling and suffer from fire and safety hazards ranging from locked fire doors to inoperable fire extinguishers and ventilation systems, City Controller Alan Butkovitz said in a report released yesterday.

 

Charter founder getting consulting fees

Philadelphia Academy Charter School founder Brien N. Gardiner's web of business relationships includes a $108,000-a-year consulting agreement with an education company that does business with the city's school district.

 

Report finds safety problems in Phila. schools

Violence in city schools is unacceptably high, and the Philadelphia School District needs to take immediate aggressive steps to stem the rising tide, a report released yesterday by state Secretary of Education Gerald Zahorchak concluded.

 

Crime is up this year at Edison High

Assaults and weapons possession are up this school year at Philadelphia's Edison High School, district statistics show, confirming statements by teachers that safety at the district's second-largest school has deteriorated.

 

Teachers at Edison say students are at risk

In a letter to the state's safe-schools advocate, they said recent problems left them concerned for their students' safety - and their own.

A group of teachers at Edison High School issued a plea for help yesterday, saying that a series of dramatic outbursts had left them with "deep concerns for the safety of our student population."

 

Swarthmore president leaving

Alfred H. Bloom, who started as a psychology and linguistics professor at Swarthmore College and worked his way up to president, announced that he will retire next year from "the dream job in American education."

 

Getting a look at city schools

"Lead in Philly" drew many interested in being a principal here.

Christina Brown is just what Philadelphia public schools want - enthusiastic, experienced, and committed to urban education. Perhaps most importantly, the sharp Washington principal is interested in coming to Philadelphia.

 

New chief for Pa. universities

The president of the University of West Florida in Pensacola has been tapped as the new chancellor of the system that oversees Pennsylvania's 14 state-owned universities, officials announced yesterday.

 

He shows no signs of a Beckian slip

For founder of cognitive therapy, it's still the thought that counts.

Had Tony Soprano been under his care, Aaron Beck says he could have cured his panic attacks in two sessions.

 

Report: City schools unsafe, unjust

The district safe-schools advocate said the lack of discipline violates the law.

Philadelphia public schools are unsafe places where students who commit violent crimes are rarely punished and rehabilitated and with a disciplinary system that is "dysfunctional and unjust," according to a report by the district's safe-schools advocate. Post a comment

 

Charter leader resigns

Kevin O'Shea stepped down as probes into finances near an end.

Kevin M. O'Shea, the recently demoted chief executive officer of Philadelphia Academy Charter School in the Northeast, has resigned, his lawyer announced yesterday.

 

A haven in her childhood, George School is rewarded

She returned this week to the place that helped shape her so long ago, her debt now squared beyond imagination.

 

A college diploma marks a promise long kept

Dottie McCain will graduate from college tomorrow, four decades - that's decades - after she started. Time and again her quest was derailed, by the joys of raising a family, and by illness and death, including a son's suicide.

 

One Dad Vail rower already triumphant

As she does nearly every day in good weather, Hilary Armstrong pushed off from a dock on the Schuylkill and used her powerful arms, legs and torso to begin rowing her four-person boat.

 

Members named for reform commission taskforce

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission yesterday announced members of a task force that will make recommendations on how to improve school-district oversight and communications with city charter schools.

 

No bias found in lunchtime detention

State education investigators have ruled that the Camden bilingual students who were made to sit on a gym floor and eat off paper mats during lunchtime detention were not victims of discrimination but rather of "an unacceptable and demeaning practice that placed the students at risk," according to a newly released examination report.

 

N.J. school official held in drug thefts

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER A vice principal at Gateway Regional High School was charged with stealing students' prescription drugs from the nurse's office, Woodbury Heights police disclosed yesterday.

 

City to ask colleges to help boost degrees

Mayor Nutter's chief education officer is planning a major push to get the region's more than 90 colleges and universities more closely involved in helping to boost the number of city residents who earn a college degree.

 

Penn leads nation's universities in buying green power

The University of Pennsylvania leads the nation's colleges and universities in the purchase of green power, specifically wind power, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced.