Phila. schools chief vows action against violence

With a phalanx of city officials and community members behind her, Philadelphia School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman yesterday promised to take on violence in city classrooms and beyond.

The December racial violence at South Philadelphia High and last week's flash-mob violence in Center City underscored it, Ackerman said, but the problem is much worse than those two very public examples.

This school year, 18,243 of the district's 161,00 students have been suspended.

In the last 18 months, 274 students have been expelled.

About 12,000 students are truant each day.

"I sincerely believe that we can break the cycle of violence and aggression that, as far as I'm concerned, is reaching epidemic proportions," said Ackerman, who spoke at a School Reform Commission meeting.

She was joined by Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey, District Attorney Seth Williams, Philadelphia Human Services Commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose, and a small contingent of residents, activists, and city officials who pledged to help.

Ackerman said she and others would begin addressing the problem in four ways: reshaping how school police interact with students, establishing a chapter of a national youth violence prevention network, commissioning a panel to examine and make recommendations about violence, and requiring students sent to alternative schools to use "restorative justice" practices to learn about the consequences of their actions before they can return to district schools.

"We must not only change their behavior," Ackerman said. "We must change their hearts and minds and give them hope."

District and city officials said they would also accelerate efforts to fix the rampant truancy. In the coming weeks, more specific steps will be announced, Ackerman said.

She said she envisioned a "softer look" for school police - polo shirts instead of blue uniforms - and more interaction in the community between officers and students.

Too many schools resemble "a police state," Ackerman said. Officers, she added, ought "to be outside in the community, getting to know these young people."

Officers will still monitor school corridors, she said, but more will be asked to go outside school.

The restorative justice model, in place in a handful of district schools, will be introduced to students returning from disciplinary school in the spring.

Ackerman said she liked that the program requires offenders to face what their actions meant for others. Too often, students return from alternative placements and go on to offend again, she said.

"These children seem to be desensitized to the consequences of their actions to themselves, and the consequences of their actions as it relates to victims," Ackerman said in an interview. "They need to come back with a different attitude."

Mayor Nutter and Ackerman are compiling lists of whom they want to sit on the panel, which will begin its work in April, Ackerman said. She said she expected a committee of about 30 people, including parents, students, and community members.

Ramsey called on young people to "take responsibility for their own behavior."

But, he said, "it's our job to help show them the proper way to conduct themselves, the proper way to interact so they can take advantage of the educational opportunities that are there for them."

Williams, who took office last month, is a graduate of the city's Central High and the son of a public schoolteacher. Years ago, he said, his father was shot at while teaching at Sulzberger Junior High.

Violent criminals are overwhelmingly high school dropouts, Williams said.

"The number-one crime-prevention tool is a high school diploma," he said.

Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller, chairwoman of City Council's Public Safety Committee, said Council supported any antiviolence effort.

"It's a shame when young kids tell me they get up in the morning, they grab their wallet, they grab their keys, they grab their guns," Miller said. "Our children are our future, and we must protect them at any cost."

There are no easy answers, and the work can't be done individually, said Dorothy Johnson-Speight, executive director of Mothers in Charge.

Johnson-Speight's son, a 24-year-old school counselor, was gunned down over a parking space. He had a college degree and a bright future, but his killer never finished school, she said.

"No one reached out and supported him," Johnson-Speight said. "We have to bring everyone to the table."

Ackerman, who previously said the city's violence problem causes her to wake up angry and go to bed the same way, agreed. Antiviolence programs and zero-tolerance policies alone won't work, she said.

"Schools," she said, "can't solve this problem alone, and law enforcement can only do so much."

The Philadelphia School Reform Commission yesterday added four makeup days to the district's calendar, and warned that it might have to make amendments later.

As it stands, students and teachers will lose two days from spring break: Monday, March 29, and Tuesday, March 30. Students also will attend Tuesday, May 18, primary election day, which had been designated as a day for teaching training only. And the school year will stretch an extra day into June, with students finishing up Friday, June 18.

The final day for teachers is Monday, June 21.

But the new calendar isn't set in stone. With another snow day called for today, an additional day could be added.

And if the state approves the district's request for an exemption for making up snow days, time might be subtracted.

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