New school, old fears for victims of bullying

IN THE DAYLIGHT before Mischief Night last year, kids leaving G.W. Childs School, in South Philadelphia, were pelted with eggs by pupils from nearby Barratt Middle School, a Childs teacher said.

It wasn't the first confrontation between the schools. In the past two years, at least four Childs pupils have suffered broken noses after they were jumped by Barratt pupils, said several sources at Childs, a pre-K-to-8 school at 17th and Tasker streets.

Now the Philadelphia School District wants to house the pupils from the two schools under one roof - at Barratt - in September. And parents of Childs pupils are fearful about it.

"Parents are worried about the safety of their children," said Kim Smith, the mother of a Childs fifth-grader and president of the school's parent council.

Smith, along with teachers and other parents, said that there is a long history of attacks on Childs kids by pupils from Barratt, four blocks away at 16th and Wharton.

"It's a different culture and a different climate," said a Childs teacher, who asked that her name not be published for fear of retribution from the district. "Our kids are scared to death of the Barratt kids."

The district notified Childs parents in late April that Childs, which has a leaky roof and other structural problems, is too unsafe to operate even for one more year.

Because the district has been phasing out most middle schools in the city, only about 90 Barratt eighth-graders will be at the school next year.

The district wants to move all 605 of Childs' pupils, teachers and administrators to the first three floors of Barratt, while the Barratt eighth-graders will have their own school on the fourth floor, district spokesman Fernando Gallard said.

He said that the two schools would operate separately, with separate entrances.

But that doesn't assuage Childs parents' concerns, nor are they happy about getting such short notice about the move.

Parents said that a couple of years ago, when Childs was threatened with closure because of its roof problems, they were promised a year's notice before the school was closed.

The notice at the end of this April was too late for them to transfer their children elsewhere.

Asked about the abrupt closing notice, Patrick Henwood, the school district's senior vice president for capital programs, said that Childs has been inspected monthly since March 2009, when a roof leak led to plaster falling into an unoccupied classroom. He said that water damage was a "cause of grave concern" after this past winter's heavy snow.

"At this point, we can't guarantee the safety of the children over the course of the next school year," Henwood said. "The building has outlived its usefulness."

Neither Barratt Principal Roy McKinney nor Childs Principal Alphonso Evans would comment for this article. A number of parents said that they refuse to send their children to Barratt, even for one year.

"I used to live on 16th Street, right across from Barratt, and they [the pupils] would hang out the window and yell out obscenities," said Patricia Dukes, who has a daughter in the third grade at Childs whom she says she won't send to Barratt next year. "They would curse at you. I've been called many names.

"I know how those kids behave. . . . I hate to slap a label on all the kids. I don't think every [Barratt] child is bad. The school just has a bad reputation."

Another Childs parent who grew up near Barratt also vowed to refuse to send her daughter to the school.

"It's the area," said Shameka Johnson, who has a daughter in kindergarten at Childs. "The neighborhood where Barratt is is bad, there are a lot of drugs there. . . . I would put her in Catholic school and pay tuition before I let her go to Barratt."

Johnson added that she refused to go to Barratt when she was in middle school, and instead attended William S. Peirce Middle School, at 24th and Christian streets.

Outside Barratt last week, two boys from Childs and two from Barratt played basketball on Latona Street, directly behind Barratt School.

Lonnie Jones, a sixth-grader at Childs, said that he had no problem going to Barratt next year.

"I know people in there," Lonnie said. Besides, he said, he lives directly across the street.

But a 13-year-old Barratt pupil, who gave his name as Malik, said that he isn't too happy about the Childs pupils moving into Barratt.

"I don't want them coming to my school," said Malik. "Some of the other kids said if they come here, they're going to jump them."

Asked why he doesn't like Childs kids, Malik said: "Because they don't like me."

Lonnie's mother, Lisa Williams, who was watching her son from an upstairs window, said that she doesn't agree with other Childs parents who don't want their children going to Barratt.

"It's old," Williams said of Childs. "It has no elevators and it's overcrowded."

Smith said that many of the Asian and Latino parents also hesitate to put their children in Barratt because they fear a more hostile racial atmosphere.

She said that Childs, which is racially diverse, is more like a family.

"We have 10 to 12 different ethnic groups and we all get along," said Smith, who is black.

"We celebrate Black History Month, Chinese New Year, and we just celebrated Cinco de Mayo," she said. "We are a big melting pot."

Childs is 64 percent black, 26 percent Asian, 7 percent Latino and 3 percent other ethnic groups, according to district figures. Barratt is 94 percent black, 3 percent Asian, 3 percent Latino and 1 percent white.

As Childs was letting out one day last week, Guadalupe Ladino picked up her daughter, a kindergartner, along with her daughter's friend.

"My people, they don't like it," Ladino, an immigrant from Mexico, said of the move.

"My daughter says she like it here," Ladino said. "She's happy. If we go to Barratt, oh, my God."

Ladino said that about 30 Latino children attend Childs and they all get along with other children.

"They have no fear," Ladino said. "They don't say I can't play with this boy because he's black. Everybody here talks and plays together."

Childs parents and teachers bragged about recent accomplishments, including planting trees for Earth Day and putting on a production of "The Wiz."

"Our school is a safe haven for these kids," said a Childs teacher who didn't want to be named. "It's a gem. The move is going to change things. It's going to disrupt everything."