With school opening uncertain, Hite urges preparedness

Amid uncertainty over whether Philadelphia schools will open on time, Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. urged principals Monday to prepare for the new school year.

When it begins, he said, the district will focus on making sure schools are safe, provide high-quality instruction, nurture students' talents, and foster relationships with families and communities.

"We want parents to continue to prepare students for school," Hite told administrators at the district's annual leadership conference, held at Fels High School in Crescentville. "And we want students to continue to prepare for school."

Also Monday, as tensions mounted over whether schools will open as scheduled Sept. 9, 200 parents, teachers, students, and religious leaders demonstrated outside district headquarters.

Speakers called on Gov. Corbett and other state and city officials to provide the $180 million Hite requested in the spring to help cover a $304 million deficit.

"We have come here today to say enough is enough," said the Rev. Kevin R. Johnson, pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church and a member of the Power, an interfaith group. "We are not going to sit idly by and let you destroy our schools and our children."

Monday evening, about 280 interfaith clergy, parents, and students gathered at Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church to talk about strategies. During the meeting, they telephoned, tweeted, and texted city and state officials, including Mayor Nutter and Corbett, demanding a long-term solution to the school budget crisis.

"We are absolutely fed up with the lack of political leadership from Council, the mayor, and the governor in trying to find a fix for this broken funding system," said the Rev. Mark Tyler, Mother Bethel pastor. "We don't want partial funding. We want all the funding. We're not going to be satisfied with $50 million. We're looking for $180 million, no strings attached."

Parents discussed not sending their children to classes in September if the district is not fully funded.

Several members of Philadelphia's legislative delegation and City Council President Darrell L. Clarke have scheduled a meeting Tuesday at City Hall to discuss plans to address the financial crisis.

At the meeting at Fels, Hite said administrators would be talking all week about the practices of high-performing schools.

"But before we have that conversation, I think it's really important to talk just a minute about where we are today," he said.

He recalled that last week, he announced that unless the district received assurances by Friday that it would receive $50 million from the city, the district will delay the opening of 212 schools, open just a few, or operate them on half-day schedules.

"This $50 million is not an additional ask," he said. The money is part of a state plan that called for the city to borrow the amount against future collections of the city's extra 1 percent sales tax, which was set to expire next June, and turn the money over to the schools.

The funding is contained in legislation approved in Harrisburg and signed by Corbett extending the tax.

A rift has developed between Nutter and City Council over the distribution of the additional revenue in later years.

"At the moment, we are awaiting some action from either the City Council, the mayor's office, or both that provides an indication whether those moneys will be made available," Hite said.

Even though the money won't land in city coffers until after Jan. 1, Hite said the district needs to know it's coming so it can begin to recall nearly 1,000 of the 3,859 employees laid off, including some counselors, teachers, noontime aides, and assistant principals.

As part of the negotiations with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, Hite said, the district is trying to ensure that recalled workers return to the schools where they were employed in June rather than seeking jobs at other locations.

"We want individuals who come back to their schools - not individuals who get to select and go all over the place - because nothing could be more disruptive at this time during the school year," Hite said to the principals' applause.

And, if and when additional city and state funds become available, Hite said, the district will distribute the money based on several criteria, including school size and whether schools are absorbing students from other buildings that closed.

Hite, who is beginning his second year as superintendent, also announced that after experimenting with different arrangements in recent years, the district would return to eight administrative areas based on geography that will be known as "learning networks."

He drew sustained applause when he reported that preliminary information from the state indicates that only two district schools have been deemed "persistently dangerous" based on rates of violence. A year ago, six schools were on the list.