262 school council members come on board
by Paul Socolar on Mar 16 2010 Posted in Breaking news
In a reversal, the School District has announced that it is accepting all 262 individuals who applied by the March 9 deadline to serve on the School Advisory Councils at the 14 Renaissance Eligible schools.
The District is continuing to seek parent members for the councils at the eight schools where parents do not yet make up the requisite majority of the membership - Bluford, Daroff, Douglass, Smedley, Stetson, University City, Vaux, and West Philadelphia.
"We're not going to accept any other applications other than parents - to get to 51 percent at each school," said Yvonne Soto, who coordinated recruitment of the councils for the School District.
In total, 40 percent of the 262 council members are parents. Representatives of community-based organizations make up 23 percent of the total, and other community members 18 percent. School staff represent 5 percent of the members and students 2 percent; student participation was allowed only at the three targeted high schools.
The incoming council members will gather Saturday, March 20 at William Penn High School for an all-day training session from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The School Advisory Councils are being created to oversee a "turnaround" process at the 14 schools, which were targeted for transformation because of poor academic performance. Original guidelines said that the councils would have seven to 21 members, a majority of them parents. The District is waiving the maximum council size rule, Soto said.
Membership on the 14 councils currently ranges from a low of 10 to a high of 34 members at West Philadelphia High School.
District documents had originally said that applicants would be screened and had described the primary task of the councils as selecting the best available and approved provider to manage the