City school's transition brings chaos
Camera icon DAVID MAIALETTI / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Tinze James (from left), Octavia Abney, Ty-Shone Mitchell, Debra Eddy, Tasha Mitchell, Shereda Cromwell and Lorraine Falligan outside Kenderton Elementary in Philadelphia.
Shereda Cromwell stood in front of an auditorium, tears in her eyes. She didn't know where else to turn.
She wanted people to know what was happening at Kenderton Elementary, the North Philadelphia school her three children attend: the fights and the children walking the hallways, even first graders. The mess. The deep academic problems.
"Our school needs help," Cromwell told the School Reform Commission. "These kids need help."
Kenderton has ping-ponged between operators multiple times in the last two decades, a product of the Philadelphia School District's myriad reform initiatives. For a time in the early 2000s, it was operated by Edison Schools, a for-profit education firm. In 2013, the Philadelphia School District gave it to Scholar Academies Inc. to run.
But the charter operator abruptly abandoned Kenderton in June, blaming the high cost of educating the school's large special-education population. For a time, Mastery Charter Schools was in talks to take over Kenderton, but Mastery was unable to handle the full school population, and it reverted to district control.
The school system had less than 90 days to get Kenderton up and running before the start of classes.
Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. is well-aware of the rocky transition at the Tioga school: He has visited multiple times, ordered a long list of supports, and has directed the assistant superintendent responsible for the school to visit daily.
"We realize that something significant has got to change, and we are working to do that," said Cheryl Logan, the district's chief of academic support.
But for now, Octavia Abney worries about sending her two daughters, a third and a sixth grader, to Kenderton, at 15th and Ontario.
"It's complete chaos," Abney said.
The K-8 school has struggled to get basic rules in place, some parents say: Some of its City school's transition brings chaos:
