Quakertown Community School District Superintendent Matthew Friedman is on leave effective immediately, a district spokesperson said Friday.
The spokesperson, Melissa Hartney, said the district’s school board could not comment further.
“Because this is a personnel matter, the board is limited in the amount of information it can share at this time,” Hartney said in a statement.
Friedman did not return a request for comment.
Friedman took over the 4,600-student district in Upper Bucks County in 2023, after serving as superintendent of the Ocean City School District in New Jersey.
The Quakertown school board in November granted him a $10,000 raise, bringing his salary to $233,000, and extended his contract until June 30, 2028.
Assistant Superintendent Lisa Hoffman is taking over day-to-day operations of the district, Hartney said.
“The board is confident that district operations, instructional programs, and student services will continue without interruption,” Hartney said, adding that it “remains committed to transparency, accountability, and maintaining the trust of our students, staff, families, and community.”
Phil Sumpter, 95, formerly of Philadelphia, celebrated sculptor, artist, art teacher, TV station art director, veteran, mentor, urban cowboy, and revered raconteur, died Thursday, Jan. 1, of age-associated decline at his home in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
A graduate of John Bartram High School and the old Philadelphia College of Art, Mr. Sumpter taught art, both its history and application, to middle and high school students in Philadelphia for 27 years. He was an engaging teacher, former students said, and a founding faculty member at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts in 1978.
He started teaching in 1955 and, after a break in the 1960s and ’70s, finally retired in 1992. “You are very lucky to have a teacher in your life that believed in you, nurtured you, challenged you, and loved you,” a former student said on Facebook. “Mr. Sumpter did all that and more.”
Other former students called him their “father” and a “legend.” One said: “You did a lot of good here on earth, especially for a bunch of feral artist teenagers.”
Mr. Sumpter (left) talks about his sculpture of Underground Railroad organizer William Still in 2003.
Outside the classroom, Mr. Sumpter sculpted hundreds of pieces and painted and sketched thousands of pictures in his South Philadelphia stable-turned-studio on Hicks Street. Prominent examples of his dozens of commissions and wide-ranging public art presence include the bas-relief sculpture of Black Revolutionary War soldiers at Valley Forge National Historical Park in Montgomery County, the action statue of baseball star Roberto Clemente in North Philadelphia, the Negro Leagues baseball monument in West Parkside, and the Judy Johnson and Helen Chambers statues in Wilmington.
He worked often in clay and paper, made murals, and designed commemorative coins and medals. He especially enjoyed illustrating cowboys, pirates, Puerto Rican jibaros, and landscapes.
His statue of Clemente was unveiled at Roberto Clemente Middle School in 1997, and Mr. Sumpter told The Inquirer: “I think I’ve captured a heroic image, an action figure depicting strength plus determination.”
He was among the most popular contributors to the Off the Wall Gallery at Dirty Franks bar, and his many exhibitions drew crowds and parties at the Bacchanal Gallery, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Plastic Club, and elsewhere in the region and Puerto Rico. He hung out with other notable artists and community leaders, and collaborated on projects with his son, Philip III, and daughter, Elisabeth.
Mr. Sumpter worked often in clay and paper, made murals, and designed commemorative coins and medals.
He even marketed a homemade barbecue sauce with his wife, Carmen. His family said: “He is remembered for mentorship, cultural fluency, and presence as much as for material works.”
He founded Phil Sumpter Design Associates in the 1960s and worked on design and branding projects for a decade with institutions, educational organizations, and other clients. He was art director for WKBS-TV, WPHL-TV, and the Pyramid Club.
“The word for him,” his son said, “is expansive.”
Mr. Sumpter was friendly and gregarious. He became enamored with Black cowboys and Western life as a boy and went on to ride horses around town, dress daily in Western wear, and depict Black cowboys from around the world in his art. His viewpoints and exhibits were featured often in The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Tribune, Philadelphia Magazine, Dosage Magazine, and other publications.
Mr. Sumpter (in white cowboy hat) views his statue of Roberto Clemente in 1997.
He was an air observer for the Air Force during the Korean War and later, while stationed in England, studied sculpture, ceramics, and drawing at Cambridge Technical Institute. His daughter said: “He taught me how to open the portal to the infinite multiverse of my own imagination, where every mind, every soul can be free.”
Philip Harold Sumpter Jr. was born March 12, 1930, in Erie. His family moved to segregated West Philadelphia when he was young, and he earned a bachelor’s degree in art education at PCA.
He married and divorced when he was young, and then married Florence Reasner. They had a son, Philip III, and a daughter, Elisabeth, and lived in Abington. They divorced later, and he moved to Hicks Street in South Philadelphia.
He met Carmen Guzman in Philadelphia, and they married in 2001 and moved to San Juan for good in 2003. He built a studio at his new home and never really retired from creating.
Mr. Sumpter (second from left) enjoyed time with his family.
Mr. Sumpter enjoyed singing, road trips to visit family in Pittsburgh, and bomba dancing in San Juan. He was a creative cook, and what he called his “trail chili” won cook-offs and many admirers.
“He was a larger-than-life person,” his son said. “He was fearless in his frontier spirit.” His wife said: “His joy for life was contagious, as was his laughter.”
In addition to his wife, children, and former wife, Mr. Sumpter is survived by other relatives.
A celebration of his life was held earlier in Puerto Rico. Celebrations in Philadelphia are to be from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 14, at Dirty Franks, 347 S. 13th St., Philadelphia,Pa. 19107, and from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, March 15, at the Plastic Club, 247 S. Camac St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19107.
Mr. Sumpter’s work was featured in The Inquirer in 1994.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is suing Harvard University, saying it has refused to provide admissions records that the Justice Department demanded to ensure the Ivy League school stopped using affirmative action in admissions.
In a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court in Massachusetts, the Justice Department said Harvard has “thwarted” efforts to investigate potential discrimination. It accused Harvard of refusing to comply with a federal investigation and asked a judge to order the university to turn over the records.
Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the department’s Civil Rights Division, said Harvard’s refusal is a red flag. “If Harvard has stopped discriminating, it should happily share the data necessary to prove it,” Dhillon said in a statement.
A statement from Harvard said the university has been responding to the government’s requests. It said Harvard is in compliance with the Supreme Court decision barring affirmative action in admissions.
“The University will continue to defend itself against these retaliatory actions which have been initiated simply because Harvard refused to surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights in response to unlawful government overreach,” the university said.
The suit is the latest salvo in President Donald Trump’s standoff with Harvard, which has faced billions of dollars in funding cuts and other sanctions after it rejected a list of demands from the administration last year.
Trump officials have said they’re taking action against Harvard over allegations of anti-Jewish bias on campus. Harvard officials say they’re facing unconstitutional retaliation for refusing to adopt the administration’s ideological views. The administration is appealing a judge’s orders that sided with Harvard in two lawsuits.
The Justice Department opened a compliance review into Harvard’s admissions practices last April on the same day the White House issued a series of sweeping demands aligned with Trump’s priorities. The agency told Harvard to hand over five years of admissions data for undergraduate applicants along with Harvard’s medical and law schools.
It asked for a trove of data including applicants’ grades, test scores, essays, extracurricular activities and admissions outcomes, along with their race and ethnicity. It asked for the data by April 25, 2025. The lawsuit said Harvard has not provided that data.
Justice Department officials said they need the data to determine whether Harvard has continued considering applicants’ race in admissions decisions. The Supreme Court barred affirmative action in admissions in 2023 after lawsuits challenged it at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
Trump officials have accused colleges of continuing the practice, which the administration says discriminates against white and Asian American students.
The White House is separately pressing universities across the U.S. to providing similar data to determine whether they have continued to factor race into admissions decisions. The Education Department plans to collect more detailed admissions data from colleges after Trump signed an action suggesting schools were ignoring the Supreme Court decision.
Trump’s dispute with Harvard had appeared to be winding down last summer after the president repeatedly said they were finalizing a deal to restore Harvard’s federal funding. The deal never materialized, and Trump rekindled the conflict this month when he said Harvard must pay $1 billion as part of any deal, double what he previously demanded.
The Abington School District has placed Abington Senior High School Principal Alice Swift on administrative leave amid an investigation into social media posts.
“I am writing to inform you that, effective Feb. 12, 2026, Dr. Alice Swift has been placed on administrative leave,” Superintendent Jeffrey Fecher wrote in a message to parents Thursday. “The district received allegations of inappropriate social media posts and is investigating the matter.”
It was not immediately clear what Swift had posted on social media that led to the district’s action. Attempts to reach Swift for comment Friday were unsuccessful.
Fecher declined to comment further Friday, calling the issue a personnel matter. He said support was in place at the high school to ensure stability for students.
Swift, a 1983 Abington graduate and former teacher and administrator in Maryland schools, became principal of Abington Senior High School in 2024.
Fecher said the district “will share additional updates regarding Dr. Swift’s return as more information becomes available.”
Confronted with the possible closure of their beloved school, the Motivation High community came prepared to fight back.
As community members entered their Southwest Philadelphia school’s auditorium Wednesday night, students waving signs and carrying blue-and-yellow pompoms handed out leaflets: on one side were Motivation’s stats — building condition, graduation rate, attendance, suspensions.
On the other were stats for Bartram High, the school they would be assigned to attend if their school closes in 2027, as proposed under the Philadelphia School District facilities plan. The data for Motivation, a magnet, are stronger across the board, sometimes starkly so — Bartram is a neighborhood school with no admissions criteria, and its attendance and graduation rates are lower, and its suspensions higher.
Motivation High students hold signs they made to protest the Philadelphia School District’s planned closure of their school.
Motivation has only 150 students enrolled this year. The school system cited low enrollment as one reason for the closure. But district officials have been clear: The recommendation was also driven by a desire to reinvigorate struggling neighborhood high schools.
“Why are we put in with Bartram to make Bartram look good, when we stand out on our own?” one Motivation student asked district staff pointedly.
The opposition from the Motivation community lays bare an issue at the crux of the school system’s plan: To reach its stated goal of advancing all students, the district says it must displace some. Often, that has pitted communities against one another.
Residents in a restless crowd at Motivation on Wednesday, including one of the state’s most powerful politicians, PennsylvaniaHouse Speaker Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia), said they were not having it.
“It’s like you want us to water flowers that just weren’t growing from the beginning,” one parent told officials. “You want to uproot kids who have found their place. You can count my child right out of that plan. She ain’t going to Bartram.”
‘It’s the lottery system’
Motivation began as a Bartram program, housed in a separate building, for academically talented students. But in 2004, Motivation became its own school, eventually moving to the former Turner Middle School building at 59th and Baltimore.
The district that year moved to a centralized lottery system, taking away from principals any discretion over who got admitted to the schools. It said it did so for equity reasons andto solve for demographic mismatches at some schools — though Motivation’s student body had been representative of its neighborhood and the city as a whole.
In the past, schools like Motivation filled most of their ninth-grade classes with students who met the district-set criteria, and also admitted students who were close but came with a strong recommendation from another school, or had compelling personal circumstances that explained why they missed meeting the magnet standards.
Those extra admissions ended with the district policy change, and Motivation’s enrollment plummeted. It was never a huge school, by design — topping out at 400 students prior to the pandemic.
It doesn’t seem fair, said Nehemiah Bumpers, a Motivation 10th grader.
“Why are you guys moving us for having low enrollment scores?” Bumpers said. “It’s the lottery system that drastically changed our enrollment.”
McClinton, who attended the Wednesday meeting, was similarly frustrated.
“When you talk about the enrollment being diminished, it’s because you changed the playbook for principal Teli,” McClinton said of veteran Motivation principal Rennu Teli-Johnson, whom the Housespeaker praised.
“She knows every one of these kids,” said McClinton, whose House district includes both Motivation and Bartram.
This week, most Motivation students walked out of school, staging a protest over the district’s plan.
Students walk out of Motivation High School in Southwest Philadelphia on Monday, protesting that their school is one of 20 that the Philadelphia School District has tagged for closure.
Zanaya Johnson-Green, an 11th grader, said students were beside themselves, even those who will graduate before the school is planned to be folded into Bartram in the fall of 2027.
“Motivation has given me so many opportunities, and I don’t want to see it go,” Johnson-Green said. “No one wants the school to close. This is having a bad effect on all of us.”
The district has, in recent years, invested millions in sprucing up the Motivation building, which if the school does close would become district “swing space” — a place where schools can move to accommodate building repairs or other overflow needs.
“Why spend all that money just to push us into Bartram and use this school as a swing space?” Bumpers asked.
Motivation High School in Southwest Philadelphia, on Baltimore Avenue in Southwest Philadelphia, is shown in this 2025 file photo.
But much of the energy at the meeting was spent talking about the safety at Bartram — with parents and students pressing the district on how they could guarantee staff and student welfare, and district officials saying they would use a planning year and community wisdom to address concerns.
“Disaster!” someone in the audience shouted when Associate Superintendent Tomás Hanna talked about his hope that those with worries would step up to the plate to help plan for a Bartram transition.
A Motivation student shook her head.
“Why do we have to reap what you sow when you stopped paying attention to neighborhood schools all those years? Why do we have to suffer the consequences, lose opportunities?” the student said.
Monica Allison, a Cobbs Creek neighbor and ward leader, made it clear that though she was fighting against the Bartram closure, wounds inflicted from prior school closures, dating back to John P. Turner Middle School and George Wharton Pepper Middle School, were also on people’s minds.
“You closed John P. Turner and you didn’t ask us,” Allison said. “Now we’re back with another closure. It’s ridiculous. You keep talking about elevating Bartram at the expense of other kids. The neighbors are really tired of this.”
The speaker speaks out
John Young, a Motivation teacher for the last decade, said his students were living their civics lesson by protesting the district’s plan. The district is in a tough spot, he said — coping with the fallout of charter schools that took students from traditional public schools, dealing with its own decision to create greater high school choice.
But, Young said, “this decision is going to continue that trend of pushing our students to homeschool, pushing our students to charter schools. This decision is not going to solve the problem, it is going to hollow us out.”
Pa. House Speaker Joanna McClinton blasted the Philadelphia School District at a public meeting Wednesday night, saying its officials had disadvantaged Motivation High by changing rules around special admissions, then used low enrollment as one reason to close the school.
A visibly upset McClinton spoke last on Wednesday night.The district must invest in both schools, she said — not just one.
The district officials she addressed all had good jobs, McClinton emphasized. They could afford to send their children to whatever kind of school they felt was best for them. Southwest Philadelphiaparents might not be wealthy, but they deserve to make choices, too, the speaker said.
“It’s not fair that you’re pitting Black children in Bartram against Black children in Motivation,” McClinton said. “Not one of your children go to Motivation or Bartram. I don’t get millions of dollars in Harrisburg for you to waste it away to make this a swing space.”
As U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein gains new scrutiny, questions have emerged on Haverford College’s campus about how to address their mega-donor’s involvement.
Lutnick, a 1983 Haverford graduate who has donated $65 million to the college and whose name is on the school’s library, had contact with the late financier as recently as 2018, long after Epstein pleaded guilty to obtaining a minor for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute, according to documents released by the Justice Department. And during congressional testimony this week, he said he visited the sex offender’s private island with his family in 2012. That’s even though Lutnick previously said he had not been in a room with Epstein, whom he found “disgusting,” since 2005.
At Haverford, where the library at the heart of campus is named after Lutnick,two students have floated a proposalto remove Lutnick’s name from the building and wrote a resolution that could be discussed at a forthcoming student-led meeting, according to the Bi-College News, the student newspaper for Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges. Fliers that say “Howard Lutnick is in the Epstein Files — What Now?” have been posted around campus, according to the publication.
And in an email to campus Thursday, Wendy Raymond, president of the highly selective liberal arts college on the Main Line, said she and the board of managers are monitoring the situation.
“We recognize that association with Epstein raises ethical questions,” she wrote. “While Secretary Lutnick’s association with Epstein has no direct bearing on the College, as an institution, we are committed to our core values and cognizant of broader ethical implications raised by these disclosures.”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick listens during an event with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House earlier this month.
A Commerce Department spokesperson told the Associated Press last month that Lutnick had had “limited interactions” with Epstein, with his wife in attendance, and had not been accused of “wrongdoing.” Lutnick told lawmakers this week: “I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with him.”
Lutnick, formerly chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., a New York City financial firm that lost hundreds of employees in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, served on Haverford’s board for 21 years and once chaired it. In addition to the library, the indoor tennis and track center bears the name of his brother Gary Lutnick, a Cantor Fitzgerald employee who was killed on9/11, and the fine arts building carries the name of his mother, Jane Lutnick, a painter. He also funded the college’s Cantor Fitzgerald Art Gallery.
In making a $25 million gift to the college in 2014 — which remains tied for the largest donation Haverford has received — Lutnick told The Inquirer the college had helped him during a particularly difficult period. He lost his mother to cancer when he was a high school junior, and one week into his freshman year at Haverford, where he was an economics major, his father died as the result of a tragic medical mistake.
The then-president of Haverford called Lutnick and told him his four years at Haverford would be free.
“Haverford was there for me,” Lutnick said, “and taught me what it meant to be a human being.”
Lutnick’s gift was used to make the most significant upgrades to the library in 50 years. Lutnick left Haverford’s board in 2015.
He was confirmed as commerce secretary a year ago, after President Donald Trump took office for the second time. Since the Epstein documents were released, Lutnick has faced bipartisan calls to resign.
Some in the Haverford community have spoken out online about Lutnick’s ties to Epstein.
“How soon can we petition to make Magill Magill again,” one alum, who said they were at Haverford when Lutnick attended, wrote anonymously on a Reddit thread, referring to the library’s prior name. “More urgently, does Haverford plan to express compassion and support for the survivors and publicly condemn Lutnick for his involvement?”
The Haverford Survivor Collective’s executive board, a group founded in 2023 and led by Haverford students and survivors of sexual assault, also called on the college to “re-examine” its ties to Lutnick.
“At what point will the College confront its relationship with this individual?” the group asked. “At what point will it say, unequivocally, ‘enough is enough’? At what point does a reluctance to do so extend beyond mere negligence into a moral failing?”
The outside of the Lutnick Library at Haverford College
Push to rename the library
Earlier this month during a Plenary Resolution Writing Workshop — part of Haverford’s student self-governance process — students Ian Trask and Jay Huennekens put forth a resolution that would change the name of the library, the student newspaper reported.
At plenary sessions, which take place twice a year in the fall and spring, the student body discusses and votes on important campus issues. On March 23, a packet of plenary resolutions will be released to the student body, with the plenary session scheduled for March 29.
“We feel that it is important that the college reflect the values of the student body, and that those values do not align with the Trump administration or the associates of Jeffrey Epstein,” the students told the Bi-Co News.
Attempts to reach Trask and Huennekens were unsuccessful.
If the student resolution passes, it would go to Raymond for signing.
But even then, it’s no easy feat to remove a name from a college building. There would be a review process involving the board of managers that could take a while.
Under Haverford’s gift policy, the school can rename a building if “the continued use of the name may be deemed detrimental to the College, or if circumstances change regarding the reason for the naming.”
Raymond would have to convene a committee, consider that committee’s recommendations, and make her recommendation to the external affairs committee of the board of managers and its chair and vice chair. The external affairs committee then would make its recommendation to the full board of managers.
At nearby Bryn Mawr College, it took years before M. Carey Thomas’ name was removed from the library. Thomas, who was Bryn Mawr’s second president, serving from 1894 to 1922, was a leading suffragist, but also was reluctant to admit Black students and refused to hire Jewish faculty.
In 2017, then-Bryn Mawr president Kim Cassidy issued a moratorium on using Carey’s name while the college studied how to handle the matter. A committee in 2018 decided students, faculty, students, and staff should no longer refer to the library using Thomas’ name, but decided to leave the inscription and add a plaque explaining the complicated history.
The college faced continued pressure from students to take further action and removed Thomas’ name in 2023.
Other colleges have taken similar actions. Princeton University in 2020 stripped former President Woodrow Wilson’s name from its public affairs school and presidential college.
Philadelphia drivers are about to get a new incentive to obey the flashing caution lights and 15 mph speed limit near schools.
On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Parking Authority plans to turn on automated speed-enforcement cameras in five school zones, targeted because they have had a relatively high rate of crashes. All are on major roadways.
Violators will get warnings until April 20, when the cameras start enforcing the law. Driving 11 miles faster than the school-zone speed limit will carry a $100 fine.
“The goal is to protect students,” said Rich Lazer, executive director of the PPA. “Speed cameras work. They reduce dangerous behavior.”
The high-priority school zones were selected based on an analysis of Pennsylvania Department of Transportation crash data by the Philadelphia Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems.
From 2019 through 2023, the five locations recorded 10 crashes in which a person was killed or seriously injured, and 25 pedestrian crashes, as well as several speed-related vehicle-on-vehicle crashes, the PPA said. (Victims included people of all ages; it was not clear how many were students.)
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“We have tried many traffic-calming methods to stop people from driving dangerously fast in school zones, but many drivers still speed,” said Michael A. Carroll, a deputy managing director for the city who is in charge of OTIS.
“Speeding is the No. 1 cause of fatal crashes,” he said. The cameras will protect students walking to and from school, as well as crossing guards, “who often put their lives at risk,” Carroll said.
Automated speed enforcement remains controversial, despite studies that show it is effective, particularly on major urban roadways like the Boulevard.
The Pennsylvania legislature, historically skeptical of automated enforcement, in 2024 gave Philadelphia permission to use school-zone cameras through Dec. 31, 2029, on a trial basis.
There was some hesitation last March when City Council considered an ordinance to authorize the cameras. Three members held up the measure in committee, expressing concerns about a “money grab by the city.” The members also said they did not have enough information about the bill.
After they met with Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, the chief sponsor, the legislation was enacted.
“Everybody thinks it’s a money grab, but it’s really not,” Lazer said. “Resources are stretched; police are dealing with a lot of things. … If we can use technology, and it works, why not? Don’t speed, and you won’t get a violation.”
Unlike the speed cameras on the Boulevard and those along 13 miles of Broad Street since November, the school-zone units deployed by the PPA are squat and at street level.
Some people say they look like mailboxes or small refrigerators.
They are meant to be portable, PPA officials said, so that cameras can be moved to other schools with problems, as long as they are operating in only five school zones at any one time.
That limit is fixed by state law. Cameras can operate only when school zones are active, meaning weekdays when students are arriving in the morning or departing in the afternoon.
The Cherry Hill School District has decided against redrawing its elementary school maps to redistribute students and ease overcrowding.
Instead, the school board will consider adding additions to the two schools with the highest anticipated growth— Clara Barton Elementary and Rosa International Middle School — and continuing to monitor enrollment at four other elementary schools.
The decision was announced Tuesday night when the district presented a highly anticipated report on rebalancing school enrollment. The South Jersey school system had been considering adjustingthe boundaries assigned to each of its 12 elementary schools to handle an anticipated increase in students — a move that sparked opposition from some parents.
The recommendation is “a huge win,” said Bruck Lascio, whose children attend Barton. “We’ll take their proposal.”
“The administration is not recommending boundary adjustments at this time,” said George Guy, director of elementary education.
Guy said both schools now potentially slated for expansion are expected to have a severe shortage of seats by the 2028-29 school year. Clara Barton would be 69 seats short, and Rosa Middle 51 seats, he said.
The additions, if approved by the school board, would be ready for the start of the 2028-29 school year, Guy said.
The report also recommends that the district monitor enrollment trends at Horace Mann Elementary, which is also expected to have more students than seats. And it calls for another demographic study in 2026-27 to assess needsat all schools.
Guy left open the possibility that Mann could also get an addition to ease overcrowding. The district also plans to monitor enrollment at Joyce Kilmer, Richard Stockton, and Woodcrest Elementary Schools.
Why was rebalancing under consideration?
A demographic study conducted in 2024 showed that five of Cherry Hill’s 12 elementary schools are expected to have a total shortage of 337 seats in the 2028-29 school year, and prompted the school board to look into rebalancing.
Cherry Hill began the rebalancing project with a possibility of changing the boundaries for students at five of its 12 elementary schools. Some elementary schools are nearing capacity, and a few have surplus seats.
In developing a recommendation, Guy had to consider parameters set by the board. It was also important to considertransportation and avoid having students spend longer periods of time on buses.
Board president GinaWinters said the board basically had two choices: shift students where there were available seats or add more capacity to keep students in their neighborhood schools.
Rosa International Middle School in Cherry Hill.
Changing the boundaries would have affected 534 children in the district, which enrolls about 11,000 students, Guy said. Clara Barton and James Johnson Elementary Schools would have faced the biggest impact, he said.
The sprawling 24.5-mile community of nearly 75,000 is divided into elementary school zones. Most students are assigned to a neighborhood school within two miles of where they live.
The district also dismissed possible relocation of some special education programs to ease overcrowding because that would further stress students and staff, Guy said.
Guy said creating new English as a second language (ESL) programs at more schools was also considered, but that option was rejected because it would not have adequately addressed the overcrowding.
According to Guy, the costs would not affect the property tax rate. Winters said there could be additional budget costs in the future to hire additional teachers and administrators.
How did parents react to the proposal?
Parents who had lobbied heavily against having their children moved because they like the convenience of neighborhood elementary schools welcomed the recommendations.
“We love our school,” said Katie Daw, whose children attend Clara Barton in the township’s Erlton section. “This is the best-case scenario.”
Marie Blaker said she had braced for bad news Tuesday. She is part of a Clara Barton group that has organized other parents.
“We didn’t think it was going to go like this,” Blaker said. “I’m thrilled they listened to us.”
What’s next?
The nine-member board did not vote on the recommendations Tuesday night. Winters said the board appeared to support the recommendation.
Winters said public hearings would be held at Barton and Rosa. A final plan is expected by the summer, at which point the board will vote on the proposal.
Guy has said officials are not yet examining future enrollment needs at the remaining middle schools and high schools.
“The reality is that we will be faced with very difficult decisions,” board member Renee Cherfane said.
A student-made sign hangs in the Conwell Middle School auditorium. The Philadelphia School District is attempting to close Conwell, a magnet 5-8 school in Kensington, and 19 other schools. The community is fighting the closure.
Conwell, in Kensington, is a very small school by any standard. This year, just 109 students are enrolled in a building that holds 500. That’s down from 490 students in the 2015-16 school year and 806 in 2009-10. The school used to occupy two buildings; it has since shrunk to one.
But it is also a rarity — a standalone magnet middle school. Community members and local officials are mounting a fight against closing the school, which they say has committed teachers and staff members who help students excel against the odds.
The district’s plan, which the school board is expected to vote on this winter, calls for Conwell students to move to AMY at James Martin, another citywide admissions magnet in Port Richmond, which just opened in a new building with only 200 students. Meanwhile, the district has proposed closing its only other free-standing magnet middle school, AMY Northwest. No changes have been proposed for Philadelphia’s four other magnet middle schools, all of which are attached to high schools.
Neighborhood issues, enrollment declines
Conwell’s enrollment issues are tied closely to its setting.
The building sits on Clearfield Street in the heart of Kensington. Fewer and fewer parents have been choosing to send their kids into ground zero of the city’s opioid epidemic, despite Conwell’s myriad partnerships, the outside investments it has attracted into its facility in recent years, and the school’s long history of excellence.
The exterior of Conwell Middle School in Kensington, photographed in August.
Parents, neighbors, students, and politicians, however, are furious that the district is choosing to abandon Conwell and the neighborhood.
“If this school closes, it won’t just be students who feel the loss,” Conwell student Nicolas Zeno told officials at a district meeting Thursday. “It’ll be the community. If the concern is safety, then invest. If the concern is environment, then repair.”
Community member Vaughn Tinsley, who runs Founding Fatherz, a nonprofit mentoring group, suggested closing Conwell would harm its students.
“These students have been victims,” Tinsley said. “These students have seen and witnessed things they shouldn’t have witnessed. Most adults haven’t seen some of the things that these kids have seen, and yet still they come here, yet they’re still committed to excellence, yet they still stand up and still do what they’re supposed to do in the classroom. How dare we take that away from them?”
Watlington has proposed using Conwell as “swing space” — district property that other schools can move into temporarily if their buildings require repairs.
Tosin Efunnuga, Conwell’s nurse, wiped tears from her eyes as she beseeched district officials to keep the school open.
“To have those doors close would be such a disservice,” Efunnuga said. “We need 100 years more.”
Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, whose district includes Conwell, said she was “angry” and “frustrated” by the recommendation to close the school.
“It’s underutilized because of what’s happening on the outside,” Lozada said at the Conwell meeting. “There’s nothing wrong with what is happening on the inside other than successful academic learning, support for families. We are saying to these families, we are punishing them because as a city, we can’t respond to the public safety issues that we have on the outside, and that is just not fair.”
‘What are y’all doing?’
Emotions ran high inside the Conwell auditoriumlast week.
Even before Deputy Superintendent Oz Hill finished his presentation about the rationale for the closures and the specific plan for Conwell, parents burst out with concerns.
“What are y’all doing? Y’all making a mess,” one parent shouted. “You say the building is old. So what? It’s clean in here.”
Another said her child would not be going to AMY at James Martin, formerly known as AMY5.
“I don’t think you understand how much of a battle there is between Conwell and AMY5,” the parent said. “You don’t know the battles these kids have with each other.”
Conwell has a strong alumni network — a rarity for a middle school — that has turned out in force to support the school since the proposed closure was announced.
Alexa Sanchez, Class of 2017, grew up in Kensington and came to Conwell as a bright but unruly student — sheacknowledges that she got in fights, egged the school, and disrespected teachers. But Conwell is rooted in its neighborhood, Sanchez said, with dedicated staff who helped her rise to earn a college degree and a good job in business.
“They didn’t give up on students like me,” Sanchez said. “My future didn’t look promising at first, but in the long run, it did. You shouldn’t really close the school on a community that doesn’t look promising if you’re not from here.”
Other alumni, including Robin Cooper, president of the district’s principals union, and Councilmember Isaiah Thomas, chair of Council’s Education Committee, have spoken out for Conwell.
Conwell “shows up” for Kensington and the city, running a food pantry, hosting Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel’s swearing-in ceremony and an event marking Cherelle L. Parker’s 100th day as mayor, noted Erica Green, the school’s award-winning principal. Staff and students participate in neighborhood cleanups and advocate for help amid the opioid crisis.
“We are what the city needs,” Green told the school board recently. During Green’s tenure, she has helped win money for a new schoolyard, a new science, technology, engineering, and math lab, and more.
“These investments were made for Kensington students,” Green said. “We owe it to them, to their neighborhood. Do not push them out once the neighborhood changes and thrives. Conwell’s success is rooted in its people, its history, and its impact.”
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker speaks during an event to mark her 100th day in office at Conwell Middle School in Kensington in April 2024.
Esperanza Academy Charter High School teachers and staff have unionized.
The brand-new Esperanza High School Collective, a chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, now represents nearly 80 staff at the school.
The move comes during a period of turmoil at the school, after some employees were laid off abruptly in December. Current and former staff say there have been sudden and arbitrary changes at the school, including larger class sizes and fewer staff working directly with children.
Union recognition was hard fought — a majority of the staff signed union cards in the fall, but the Esperanza administration declined to voluntarily recognize the collective.
Instead, the AFT had to go through the National Labor Relations Board, which held an election in late January. In all, 87% of the Esperanza Academy Charter High School staff voted to unionize. (Staff at Esperanza’s elementary and middle schools have not unionized.)
Wendy G. Coleman, president of AFT Pennsylvania, said the organization was “thrilled” to welcome Esperanza Academy high school staff.
“These dedicated educators and staff work tirelessly to ensure that their students receive the best possible education, and AFTPA is ready to work just as diligently to help them secure better class sizes, higher wages, and adequate resources for every member in their first contract,” Coleman said in a statement. “As we know, our members’ working conditions are our students’ learning conditions, and we’re excited to see what the future holds for the Esperanza High School Collective in their first contract.”
Esperanza is the sixth of Philadelphia’s 81 charter schools to form a union; the vast majority of Pennsylvania charters are not unionized.
