Continued Deficiencies in Reopening Safety and Transparency [Open Letter] – Parents United for Public Education

Continued Deficiencies in Reopening Safety and Transparency [Open Letter] – Parents United for Public Education

Continued Deficiencies in Reopening Safety and Transparency [Open Letter]

Dr. William Hite, Superintendent, School District of Philadelphia
Philadelphia Board of Education
Philadelphia Federation of Teachers

3/7/2021

Dr. Hite, Board of Education members, and Philadelphia Federation of Teachers executive officers:

On the eve of the reopening of 53 school buildings, we are writing to share our concerns with readiness and transparency, and to request the proactive sharing of data and detailed information on facility safety, COVID testing results, and reopening progress. We want children back in school buildings only when it is safe, and it is your collective responsibility to do more to ensure that safety.

In our reviews of the information released by the district and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, we have observed that there are still numerous holes. Parents are not being given timely access to clear, detailed information with which to make decisions about returning their children to school buildings.

Here are a few examples of areas in which we see urgent deficiencies:

• Many schools have information listed in linked ventilation reports from the contractors that are not updated or reflected in the district’s ABR reports, making it hard to determine overall building status
• There is no way to know when ABR reports are updated or replaced other than checking the folder, individual reports, and linked attachments CONTINUE READING: 

School Buildings are Reopening but Where’s the Data? – Parents United for Public Education

School Buildings are Reopening but Where’s the Data? – Parents United for Public Education

School Buildings are Reopening but Where’s the Data?

The first 53 school buildings are reopening tomorrow for children for the first time in almost a year, despite ongoing concerns about the amount of information and up to date data that is not publicly available for parents to review. Reports on social media of filthy and mold-covered vents and classrooms show that many of the conditions of reopening have not been met.

We’re glad that the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers has provided public information about their “vetting” process, such as this excerpt that shows the criteria used to “clear” classrooms and schools for occupancy by students:

Screenshot of PFT document outlining procedures for “clearing” rooms for re-occupancy with added annotation. Source link: https://www.pft.org/sites/default/files/reoccupancyprocedure.pdf

However, we have not seen clear, up to date evidence that the PFT’s requirements CONTINUE READING: School Buildings are Reopening but Where’s the Data? – Parents United for Public Education

Considering Opting Out Your Child from High-Stakes Testing? – Parents United for Public Education

Considering Opting Out Your Child from High-Stakes Testing? – Parents United for Public Education

Considering Opting Out Your Child from High-Stakes Testing?

With the recent guidance issued from the Department of Education that says that states must give standardized tests this school year (despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the many other reasons testing should be cancelled), we’ve decided to republish this post about opting out of testing.

We will continue to update the post and resources as more information becomes available about adjustments to the processes for this school year.

Data on teacher’s perceptions of the PSSA’s effectiveness as an indicator of student achievement from the June 2019 “Standardized Tests in Public Education” report by the PA General Assembly’s Legislative Budget and Finance Committee

Over recent years, there have been a handful of parents, district wide, who contentiously objected to the high stakes attached to the state’s standardized tests: PSSA and Keystones. In some years, there have been more organized efforts, like those in 2014-15 that lead to over 17% of families from Feltonville School of Arts and Science opting out of the PSSAs.

We fully support the right for parents to opt their children out of high stakes standardized tests. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is one of a few states that has a legal provision for parents to opt their children out of the PSSA and Keystone exams.

Standardized testing has been at the forefront of what is going wrong in public CONTINUE READING: Considering Opting Out Your Child from High-Stakes Testing? – Parents United for Public Education

Open Letter Regarding Continued Hybrid Reopening Plan Failures – Parents United for Public Education

Open Letter Regarding Continued Hybrid Reopening Plan Failures – Parents United for Public Education

Open Letter Regarding Continued Hybrid Reopening Plan Failures

Dr. William Hite, Superintendent, School District of Philadelphia
Philadelphia Board of Education
Philadelphia City Council

2/18/2021

Dr. Hite, Board of Education members, and Council members:

We are glad to hear that the School District of Philadelphia has pushed back the date for return to school buildings. Like the majority of parents across the district, we were never excited about sending our children back into toxic, poorly ventilated buildings without a solid plan in place. We are very concerned about putting staff members who have not had the opportunity to get fully vaccinated at risk of illness and death, as well as the potential for children to get sick themselves and/or to spread the virus to their own family members at home.

We believe that delaying the reopening of buildings to ensure safety is the right choice, however we are disturbed with the district’s leadership’s insistence in saying that the delay is due to the ongoing mediation with the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. 

In seeking to unfairly shift the blame to teachers via the union, the district continues to minimize the role and the voice of parents and caregivers across the district who have said “no” to this reopening plan. District leadership has also refused to take any responsibility for their failures in planning, collaboration, and CONTINUE READING: Open Letter Regarding Continued Hybrid Reopening Plan Failures – Parents United for Public Education

COVID Reopening and Building Safety Questions – Parents United for Public Education

COVID Reopening and Building Safety Questions – Parents United for Public Education

COVID Reopening and Building Safety Questions

During our recent set of webinars about Philadelphia schools’ facility conditions and safety, we had the opportunity to share information and hear questions from many caregivers and educators. (View a video of the Facebook Live recording of the webinar.)

Folks continue to be very concerned about long-term issues such as lead, asbestos, mold, and water quality, while also facing many unanswered immediate questions about safety precautions for reopening buildings in the midst of COVID-19.

Unfortunately, while we were able to gather many of these questions, we ultimately cannot answer most of them. They should be answered, but by district leadership, in public.

We’ve compiled a list below that summarizes the questions that were asked during our webinars. We encourage caregivers to reach out to city council and the school board to continue pushing for answers. It is critical that parent voices are heard!

In addition, please sign up to testify at the City Council hearing “Safely Reopening Schools” on 2/17/21 by emailing Nick.Spiva@phila.gov or calling 215-686-3420. You can also share your questions and concerns about the district’s current hybrid re-opening plan with Councilperson Gym via this form. 

The questions below are lightly edited for clarity and to combine/ remove duplicate topics. They were submitted via the Q&A function during the webinars and do not necessarily reflect the questions or priorities of Parents United as an organization.

Questions About General Facility Safety CONTINUE READING: COVID Reopening and Building Safety Questions – Parents United for Public Education

Open Letter to Dr. Hite Regarding School District Facility Issues + Parents United Response to the SDP Reopening Plan – Parents United for Public Education

Open Letter to Dr. Hite Regarding School District Facility Issues – Parents United for Public Education

Open Letter to Dr. Hite Regarding School District Facility Issues

Dr. William Hite
Superintendent, School District of Philadelphia

2/20/2020

Dr. Hite:

We, Parents United for Public Education, are deeply concerned with multiple aspects of the facility issues notification process, clean up procedures, and lack of parental involvement in the district’s latest school closures. There is a continued lack of transparency around how hazards are identified, and the procedures for and outcomes of the testing that deems that threats have been cleared. We have spoken with parents in the affected schools about the information given to them by the facility managers and they have expressed similar concerns.

As members in the Philly Healthy Schools Initiative coalition, we are attempting to work with your staff to develop effective information sharing, communication, transparency, and stakeholder involvement. We are aware that there is a great deal of poor communication and miscommunication between the district staff and the school communities. There are also noted inconsistencies between the individual environmental inspectors who are tasked with identifying “imminent hazards.”

In addition, there is a general lack of forethought and planning for how to answer logical questions and provide information regarding the health and welfare of individuals in the school communities impacted by these closures or remediation work. As we have seen over and over again in person and in reporting on these issues, the front line district officials are not adequately able to inform parents and teachers about the level of exposure or any potential medical follow up CONTINUE READING: Open Letter to Dr. Hite Regarding School District Facility Issues – Parents United for Public Education

Parents United Response to the SDP Reopening Plan

We, like so many, are spending a lot of our time thinking about reopening schools safely. We are still trying to process last week’s Board of Education meeting in which over a hundred parents, students, and staff spoke about the need for a consciously safe return to education, only to be met with what appeared to be a coordinated plan to dismiss their concerns and delay Board action. There are clearly significant questions about the district’s ability to provide an adequate education and minimize COVID-19 exposure risk.

Parents and students have reason to be leery of the district’s reopening plan; the district’s trust problem with its stakeholders is not new. The School District of Philadelphia has a history of decision-making that ignores the input of families and educators while putting students and educators at risk. It is not hyperbole to say that people have died and will die due to the conditions in our schools.

In 2011, due to draconian cuts in state funding, our district shuttered libraries and after school programs and eliminated thousands of essential positions including school nurses. We were told then to make do with less. We were told that high CONTINUE READING: Parents United Response to the SDP Reopening Plan