Olney students protest charter plans

Two more schools protested the Philadelphia School District on Wednesday, with teachers, community members, and students at Olney High Schools East and West rallying against district plans to turn their schools into charters.

Protesters said the district had failed their schools for years and was now giving up its responsibility to improve them. They also said that the schools had improved dramatically in the last year but that officials were dismissing the changes.

They asked officials to hold off on converting the schools for a year. The School Reform Commission is expected to vote on the overhauls this spring.

Wednesday's protest was the fourth to target Superintendent Arlene Ackerman's Renaissance plan, which will transform 18 schools in the fall. Rallies were previously held in support of West Philadelphia, Martin Luther King, and Audenried High Schools.

Standing in the cold outside their school on Duncannon Street, the crowd of about 75 waved signs and shouted, "Save our schools!" Several school police officers stood behind the protesters, who gathered after classes.

An emotional Yelonda Gainor, a junior at Olney West, held a bullhorn and addressed the superintendent, who was not present.

"My question to you, Arlene Ackerman, is: Why are we not good enough?" Gainor shouted. "Charter schools have money. They're attached to businesses, and they have a significant amount of money, and we don't."

Math teacher Lauren Vargas said the schools deserved the things long promised to them, such as security cameras and laptops. "We've gone without enough resources for too long," Vargas said.

The students and staff deserve a chance to show what they're capable of, she said. "The School District has not shown us that these charter schools have made significant gains. We have," Vargas said.

To bolster their argument, the teachers handed out test results that they said the district had provided. A pretest given last month predicted that 30 percent of Olney West's 11th graders would score at grade level in math and 31 percent in reading when the state tests are given this month.

Those would be increases of 8 points and 10 points, respectively, and exceed the district's targets for the school. The teachers did not have the data for Olney East.

Once a single school, the two were broken up in 2005, with a wall put down the middle of the building.

Community member Charlene Samuels acknowledged that the schools were struggling and had struggled for a long time.

"I'm not saying that we don't need change," Samuels said. "But I object to the way they're doing it. This school has been ignored for years, and now they're saying, 'Well, we don't want to be bothered to fix it. Give this school to a charter.' "

Samuels said the community had not had enough of a say in what happened to the school. Advisory councils of parents and residents have been appointed at both schools to interview and make recommendations for charter providers, but that's a ceremonial role after most of the decisions have been made, she said.

"There was no choice for us," said Samuels.

The protest drew raised eyebrows from the schools' administration, said Olney West sophomore Andre Houslin, a member of the student organizing group Youth United for Change.

When they got wind of the protest, two administrators and several school police officers pulled Houslin out of class, he said.

"They said, 'Who is leading the rally, and how long is it going to be, and is the media going to be there?' " Houslin said, adding that the questioning had made him feel "awkward."

Youth United for Change did not organize the protest but supported it. Houslin said community members and teachers had organized it.

Responding to the protest, spokeswoman Shana Kemp said that "the district is sensitive to the fact that emotions are running high in the face of this change, but we are confident that the end result, which is increasing academic achievement for our students, will be met with welcome."

Meanwhile, a group of students from Audenried High School took their protests over the district's Renaissance plans for their school to Wednesday's School Reform Commission meeting. The community has been angry since the district announced in late January that it intended to turn the school over to Kenny Gamble's Universal Cos. Inc. to become a charter.

Outspoken critic Hope Moffett, an English teacher whom the district has moved to fire, was among teachers at the SRC meeting.

"As the captain of the mock-trial team and an aspiring lawyer, I have been taught to seek the truth," Anika Richardson, a junior, told the SRC. "How long has this been in the works?"

She challenged the data that the district released Tuesday to show the criteria used to determine that the school was failing.

Afterward, Ackerman met with Richardson and other students, and raised voices could be heard through the closed doors.