School district pledges action to clear up problems at military academy

Following numerous student complaints culminating in a protest last Friday outside the Philadelphia School District headquarters, a district official said yesterday that improvements will be made at the Philadelphia Military Academy at Elverson.

Some problems at the North Philadelphia school are the result of a 1930s-era building; others are the result of student vandalism and a lack of adult supervision, said Al Bichner, the district's deputy chief academic officer.

"There is a need for discussions about mutual improvements on all fronts," Bichner said yesterday, a day after touring the school at 13th Street and Susquehanna Avenue.

"In any school community," he said, "you have to come together to determine: How do we make this school better for the students? How do we improve the product?"

Students at Elverson, which opened in 2005, said their issues include poor-quality lunches and funny-tasting water, classroom temperature problems, textbooks with missing pages, dirty bathrooms, a lack of sports and teachers who don't appear interested in teaching.

"We need a voice," 10th-grader Romell Galloway, 16, said during the protest, which drew about 60 of the school's 252 students. "Certain teachers know how to teach, but certain teachers sit back and let us do whatever we want. It's not good."

Principal Robert Manning, however, said instruction at the 9th-11th-grade school is good, despite some physical problems.

"Many parents have called and have said they are pleased with the change in their students," Manning said yesterday. "The workload is very demanding because we don't want the students to go to college with fictitious A's and not be able to handle the work."

Bichner said plumbing and heating problems will be corrected over the holiday break.

The water quality was tested and determined to be safe, he said, but water-pressure problems were found on two of the three floors, making the water fountains hard to use. That will be corrected, Bichner said.

Damaged textbooks, computers and bathrooms are the result of students' not taking care of school property and adults' not monitoring students closely enough, he said.

Beyond vandalism, Bichner said plans are under way to add computers to give students more access to online research, and to establish sports teams.

He said that although the lunches are USDA-certified, they can, and will, be improved. And allegations regarding teachers will be investigated, he said. *