New campaign gives students voice in funding debate

SASHEIKA DUFFUS is pleading to rehire counselors and teachers. Mayegan Brown is advocating for more administrators.

Now the two 11th-graders have a chance to be heard - or read or seen - thanks to a campaign launched yesterday by Mayor Nutter called "Students Speak!" that allows students to submit a written or video essay on the need for full and fair funding in the city's public schools.

"Education is about these young people," Nutter said in announcing the initiative at A. Philip Randolph Career Academy in Nicetown during a joint news conference with Superintendent William Hite and Philadelphia Federation of Teachers president Jerry Jordan. "[Students] want an education. They want their voices to be heard."

Nutter noted that his proposed property-tax hike would raise an additional $103 million for the city school district, calling it the "only funding option out there" that does not rely on "one-time gimmicks" or major legislative changes - an apparent dig at the Democratic candidates vying for mayor, and perhaps at City Council members, who oppose a tax hike.

Entries must complete the following prompt: "Fully fund my education because . . . ," and can be submitted online at studentsspeak.phila.gov or in person at the Mayor's Office of Education, Room 115, City Hall. The deadline is May 5.

A panel of judges will choose six winning submissions, two each from elementary school, middle school and high school.

Duffus, who is studying culinary arts at Randolph, said the school has lost a guidance counselor, two assistant principals and other personnel since her freshman year because of budget cuts. Last year she nearly lost her mentor - a culinary-arts instructor - but he was retained. She fears that his job could be in jeopardy this year.

"Do you know what it feels like to worry that your mentor will no longer be around to see you at graduation?" she asked the crowd of dignitaries and students. "Do you know what it feels like to fret every September if school will open on time? High schools need funds."

Brown, student-body president at Mastery Shoemaker Charter School in West Philly, said her school has benefited from added resources and lamented that every student does not have that opportunity.

"The issue we face is that many students are driven to believe that a high-school diploma is the ceiling and [that] there should be no striving beyond that point," she said. "Students deserve to be encouraged, and that can only happen when more administration is added to schools."

Of the six winners, one grand-prize winner will receive an Apple Watch. The other five winners will receive two tickets each to the Eagles' 2015 home opener. Also, the winning written essays will be featured in the opinion section of the Daily News, on Philly.com and on the Newsworks Speak Easy website. Winning videos will be posted on Philly.com and on the Mayor's Office of Education website.