Miriam Hill
If you would like to ask the new head of Philadelphia schools a question, here’s your chance: Hite will appear with Second District Councilman Kenyatta Johnson to talk about schools and take audience questions at 6 p.m. Dec. 12 at Tenth Presbyterian Church, 17th and Delancey Streets.
The Center City Residents Association and the South of South Neighborhood Association, which are sponsoring the event, are asking that people submit questions ahead of time. You can do that by e-mailing your question to centercity@centercityresidents.org. Put “Dr. Hite” in the subject line.
I’ll be out of town, but if I could go, I would ask:
Miriam Hill
If Halloween leaves you wondering whether all that trick-or-treating merely guarantees your child a lifetime of cavities, here's a chance to make the holiday a little more fun and nutritious.
Spring Garden resident Noam Kugelmass has created a character, Mr. Halloweenster, who teaches kids that there is more to Halloween than Snickers Bars and Jolly Joes. Mr. Halloweenster - video here, web site here - rescues the kids from an evil candy maker and helps them create fun costumes.
He's an animated character, but like Mickey Mouse and others before him, Mr. Halloweenster appears in person. He'll take part in a Halloween event at Smith Playground Saturday Oct. 27. More information on that here.
Miriam Hill
A reminder about this Wednesday's schools fair:
WHAT: Center City Residents Association (CCRA), Logan Square Neighborhood Association (LSNA) and South of South Neighborhood Association (SOSNA) are pleased
to announce the first annual CCRA, LSNA & SOSNA School Fair
Miriam Hill
A lot of parents will be able to relate to Karen Lewis. She wanted to find a good school for her son, Cooper Harbol. She tried public, was unhappy and transferred her son to Greene Street Friends this year.
Read/listen to her story, told by Benjamin Herold on WHYY, here.
Miriam Hill
Trying to figure out possible school options for your child? Check out the FREE School Fair from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Oct. 17 at the Ethical Society, 1906 Rittenhouse Square.
So far, representatives from these schools have agreed to attend and answer questions:
1) Public Schools: Albert M Greenfield, Bache-Martin, Chester A. Arthur, Edwin M. Stanton
Miriam Hill
Starting Saturday, Sept. 29 (apologies for filling you in on this one so late, but there are other opportunities), Young Involved Philadelphia presents its Education (un)Conference, a daylong conversation and education session on how to improve educational opportunities in the city.
It's at the Kimmel Center, as is an Oct. 3 Young Involved Philadelphia event called "Philly Education 101: How to Navigate the Philly School System by the Philadelphia Public School Notebook and Great Philly Schools."
It features Kristen Forbriger from GreatPhillySchools (a project of the Philadelphia School Partnership) and Brett Schaeffer from the Philadelphia Public School Notebook.
Miriam Hill
The news that Lea Elementary in West Philadelphia is adding kindergarten and first-grade classes seems like a positive sign for the effort to get Philadelphia children to go to neighborhood schools.
By now, the success story of Penn Alexander, the public school in West Philadelphia supported by the University of Pennsylvania, is well known. In fact, Penn Alexander is so popular that parents line up overnight to try to nab a limited number of spaces in the kindergarten class there.
Partly as a result of overenrollment at Penn Alexander, parents and neighbors have rallied around other elementary schools in that part of the city, including Lea.
Miriam Hill
Trying to figure out where to send your child to school in Philadelphia? Wondering how charter schools are changing the educational landscape?
Then come to this free discussion at 6 p.m. Sept. 6 at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University,
2001 N. 13th Street.
Dale Mezzacappa, editor and contributor of the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, will moderate a panel discussion designed to shed light on the options Philadelphians have to educate our children.
Miriam Hill
Is momentum for public schools building in Philadelphia? Or will families largely continue to flee to the suburbs once their children reach school age?
This story by my colleague Kristen Graham about Jill and Mark Scott and son Henry offers hope that for the first time in decades, families will stay in the city and send their children to the local public school.
The Scotts could have afforded private school. They even won the lottery to get into Independence Charter, a school so popular that hundreds of families apply for a small number of seats there every year.
Miriam Hill
It happens, even to good kids with lots of friends: Some children don't get into the private kindergarten or grade school of their choice.
I always knew this could happen, but until some friends I knew experienced this kind of rejection, I didn't really understand that it could happen to any kid, not just to those who are struggling in school or exhibiting behavior problems.
With more children living in Center City, it seems inevitable that getting into private school will grow more competitive. At least we're not New York, where many parents start plotting a child's kindergarden destination long before pregnancy.
But only one topic has become a passion: the pleasures and challenges of raising a young child in the city.
Not too long after her son was born four years ago, she started hunting around for day care, which triggered her ongoing search for a good primary school. Public, private or charter? Stay in the city or move to the suburbs?
And then there are the more mundane questions, such as how many games can you play while sitting on a stoop?
Please join her in the conversation about raising children in Philadelphia and about making this city better for kids. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, but her only personal obsession is not football, but Bruce Springsteen. As he might have said, it’s hard to be a parent in the city.
You can also follow Miriam on Twitter here.
