Philadelphia School District
The mix of snow, freezing rain, sleet and rain forced some big school district north and west of Philadelphia to close for Tuesday, instead of delaying their openings.
The big school districts in the Lehigh Valley were all closed by 8 a.m.
But other big schools like ‘North Penn’, ‘Pennridge’ and ‘Souderton’ also closed for the day on Tuesday.
Many private and parochial schools also closed north and west of Philadelphia.
The Philadelphia school district opened two hours late, as did ‘Philadelphia Archdiocesan schools’.
- School.
The Philadelphia School District is about to face a gigantic budget crisis and it’s automated calls like these that are just another sign of their waste and disorganization. The left hand has no idea what the right hand is doing, and the left hand has no idea what it’s doing either. School super Arlene Ackerman is paid a hefty $350,000/year salary (plus bonuses in excess of $60k) from Pennsylvania taxpayer money – since the district is State-run – and they have weekly bouts of violence, constant low test scores, an even lower graduation rate, and pull crap like harassing regular folks with phone calls. Charter Schools are a failure parading around as a success – until the teachers ultimately Unionize and ‘downtrodden’ people ‘Affirmative Action’ that system because it’s ‘unfair’ to someone, somewhere.
Whether it’s an honest mistake, the fact that it takes them 6 months to complete a task or a vendetta toward us, it’s still all very much a sign that we all need to change our attitudes toward the Philadelphia School District, and public schools in general. Why is our money wasted on this complete failure? Why are they going to run to new-Governor-as-of-tomorrow Tom Corbett and beg for more money and blame him for their problems when they don’t get more money? They should be selling these schools off to private entities. Simply put – we need to abolish the public school system in Philadelphia.
While we ‘appreciate’ the phone calls about guests speakers, half days and special lunches, they’re unnecessary and a waste of taxpayer dollars.
The chairman of the Pennsylvania House Education Committee has stepped up his efforts to get answers to questions about escalating problems in the Philadelphia School District.
State Rep. Paul I. Clymer (R., Bucks) sent letters January 7 to Robert L. Archie Jr., chairman of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission, and to the four other commission members asking for answers to several ‘serious concerns.’ One, he said, is Superintendent Arlene C. Ackerman’s December 13 decision to suspend six whistle-blowers ‘who were trying to save taxpayers’ money about controversial no-bid contracts.’
Shana Kemp, a district spokeswoman, said on Monday that Archie planned to respond soon.
“We need to address these issues; they’re very serious issues” – Clymer said in an interview on Friday. “We’re extending an olive branch, saying, ‘Let’s see if we can work together.’ If we don’t get a serious response, then we’ll have to pursue other alternatives.” He declined to elaborate on what those alternatives might be.
Clymer’s letter is the most recent development stemming from The Inquirer’s November 28 disclosure that Ackerman intervened on behalf of IBS Communications Inc., a small minority-owned firm in Mount Airy that was awarded a $7,5 million emergency, no-bid security contract.