Principal retires to save jobs of 2 music teachers

PRINCIPAL Angelo Milicia loves the Girard Academic Music Program school so much that he's leaving it.

By retiring early, and having assistant principal Jack Carr run the school next year without an assistant principal, Milicia allows GAMP to put $180,000 back into its music program.

That means the jobs of two music teachers at the South Philadelphia school for grades five through 12 have been saved. There are six music teachers at the school this year.

"It would have been devastating to that program," Milicia said.

GAMP, at 22nd and Ritner streets, was one of five schools Mayor Nutter visited yesterday on a whirlwind tour to press his case for City Council to provide more money to help the district plug its $629 million deficit.

After listening to the concert choir, Nutter praised the students, who he said "almost made me cry in public."

He then invited the choir and others to go to Council tomorrow to let members hear the music themselves.

All students at GAMP are required to participate in choir and take three music-theory classes a week.

Although the music programs were mostly saved, GAMP will lose its two-year-old theater-arts program, which produced the musical "Hairspray" last November. Some Advanced Placement courses also have been cut as the school deals with a 28 percent funding cut.

Milicia has been GAMP's principal for 16 years. He's worked in the district for 24 years as a principal and 17 as a teacher.

Milicia said he was happy to save most of his staff - all but one teacher will keep their jobs. But he added: "I didn't have a penny to spend for extracurricular activities. We need about $80,000 worth of extracurricular activities - to sing, to do productions [and] travel."

Carr is a founder of GAMP and has been there since it opened in 1974 as part of a desegregation program.

Milicia said it was critical for Carr to take over "because we share the same vision."

Milicia said that 97 percent of GAMP's high-school students make adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law. "And in the middle school, it's 100 percent," he said. "We've been building a system that works, and I wanted to make sure I was leaving it in the right hands."

Milicia, 62, will take advantage of the early-retirement plan that the district is offering to save $8 million, but he said he wasn't motivated by the incentive of 18 months of health care.

He pointed out that the benefits won't last until he's 65 and eligible for Medicare.

To one student, he has set a remarkable example of sacrificing for others.

Ja'Sonia Hinton, one of the 66 GAMP seniors graduating tonight, said the school will miss Milicia, whom she described as "like a father figure to everyone."

"Here's a man who makes a sacrifice for the students that he loves. That's amazing," she said. "You can't get any better than that."