West Phila. High begins a turnaround

The 10th-grade English class spilled onto the steps of West Philadelphia High School yesterday, armed with notebooks and pens for a poetry assignment.

Shamir Harper, 15, gazed up and wrote "how big and beautiful" the clouds were. Rasoul Knight, 16, felt the warmer-than-usual breeze and wrote that it "smells like fresh clothes out of the laundry." Another classmate inched closer to a tree to try to think of a metaphor or simile to describe it.

Passersby saw a far different scene last year outside the school at 4700 Walnut St., not far from the University of Pennsylvania campus.

West Philadelphia then was home to mass chaos, inside and outside the four-story structure. A rash of teacher assaults prompted the Philadelphia School District to change principals in midyear. That was followed by protests and arsons that forced rowdy students into the streets. It was so bad that the district refused to allow reporters to enter the building until recently.

No one this year is saying the school is perfect, or even close to it. A student was charged with arson last week and last month 23 students were arrested after a fight erupted inside. Also last month, two female West students were attacked by a gang of girls who were also believed to be students at the school. One 16-year-old girl has been charged so far in that attack. Academic offerings remain woefully inadequate, with no Advanced Placement courses and only two foreign language classes, none beyond the second year. Student performance on state exams is dismal, with about three-quarters of 11th graders failing to score at even basic levels in math and reading.

But staff, students and administrators say West is beginning a turnaround that will take time.

"There are more smiles than fears," said Maria Lam, the English teacher who took her students outside for the poetry assignment. "Everyone has hope for the school to become a better place."

At the heart of the effort is Principal Saliyah Cruz, 35, a graduate of the district's Abraham Lincoln High. Before coming to West, she spent three years as principal of a Philadelphia charter school and then six months interning at the district's High School for Creative and Performing Arts.

Staff members with 20 or more years of experience tell Cruz she's the 15th or 16th principal they've had. Student attendance is a revolving door: Nearly half the student body enters or leaves during the school year, making learning difficult. Enrollment has shrunk from about 1,800 in 2002 to just under 1,000 this year, driven in part by the district's opening of several smaller high schools.

Because of the level of reported violence, West is one of the district's "persistently dangerous" schools, as ranked by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. It also has failed for more than four years to meet federal targets for academic improvement.

As soon as Cruz arrived at West, she saw its blistering faults and its promise.

"I understood what it could be like when it was at its worst, when there was no guidance and no direction, but what I also saw was that there were lots and lots of good kids . . . and a lot of really dedicated teachers," Cruz said as she opened the school to a media tour yesterday, the first since last year's tumult.

She grew determined to change West's image as the school district's "poster child for dysfunction." Helping her are two assistants with military background and a veteran principal.

In September, Cruz knew she had to take steps to interest students, invigorate a staff that had been at odds with the previous principal, and make the building safer. And there was another challenge: Eighteen of 52 teaching positions were vacant: A third of her staff would be new or returning for a second year.

Under her direction, the third floor was cordoned off and eight stairwells sealed to make the school easier to patrol. To cut down on fires, she has asked the district to allow West to mete out harsher discipline to students caught bringing lighters or matches into the building. Assaults are down by half and fewer weapons have been confiscated.

To improve staff and student relations, the main building was divided into three smaller academies - business, creative and performing arts, and urban studies - so the staff could get to know students better.

Cruz started a school newspaper, along with a Saturday academic program for promising juniors, and a drill team.

She reached out to the community for help. At her behest, graduates reactivated an alumni association, which ran a career day and at the holidays rewarded high-performing students with gift certificates. The University of Pennsylvania sent professors and students to help an urban studies class that is making a documentary about the disruption that beset West last year and possible solutions. The "Mom Squad," a group of Christian mothers and grandmothers, is volunteering inside the school.

Cruz reorganized the school schedule to allow for time one day each week when teachers could meet with one another and administrators for training and discussion on how to improve their classrooms and the building.

The efforts are helping, students and teachers say.

"The administration is much more supportive, the best I've worked for in 10 years I've been in the system," said Christy Quinn, an English teacher in her second year at West.

Alisha Wesley, 16, an 11th grader who is active in the the Philadelphia Student Union activist group, appreciates the changes.

"I feel like they're actually starting to prepare me for college now," said Wesley, who also is active in drill team and participates in the Saturday program for promising juniors. "It's actually starting to feel like a high school."

Sadae Canty, 16, said she appreciated that disruptive students are removed from class more swiftly.

But both still hope for better.

As part of the student union, Wesley last week visited an innovative high school in the South Bronx that is low on heavy-handed security and rich in course offerings.

"It blew my mind, seriously," Wesley said during an interview at student union headquarters in West Philadelphia earlier this week. "The classes were actually interesting to me. They had a wide variety of electives. They had forensics."

"Oh, God. I would love to do forensics," Canty gasped.

"That's what I said," Wesley responded. "I wanted to transfer."

Cruz wants to enrich West's curriculum.

She hopes to add an instrumental music teacher and a dance program next year, in addition to more foreign language classes and AP courses in English, history and physics for the small number of students ready to take them.

Her challenges are likely to continue.

Last Friday, she was supposed to accompany Wesley on the visit to the South Bronx to see what could be imported to West.

But a fire was set in the school late on the day before and she didn't feel she could leave the building.

4700 Walnut St.

Enrollment

Students:

991.

African American:

98.6 percent.

Average daily attendance:

78.2 percent.

Violence (2007-08)

Weapons confiscated:

8.

Assaults:

23.

Fires:

12.

Academics (2006-07)

Percent of 11th graders who scored proficient or higher in math on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment: 6.

Percent who scored below basic level: 78.3.

Percent of 11th graders who scored proficient or higher in reading: 6.8

Percentage who scored below basic level: 77.2

Percent of 2007 graduates who enrolled in four-year colleges: 20

SOURCE: Philadelphia School District