Three weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend a poetry slam organized by one of my colleagues at Parkway Center City High School, a public high school that draws students from all over the city. I doubt that my English-teacher colleagues missed the irony that while dozens of students stayed after school to watch their peers take the microphone and share their stories of love, triumph, and teenage turmoil, the School Reform Commission was preparing to discuss a budget for the next school year that would wipe out funding for extracurricular activities.
I have watched so many of our students find their voice and a sense of accomplishment through extracurricular activities, including our drama club, our robotics team, and our sports teams. Some of our students have literally run marathons, and many others have figuratively done so to program bots, build sets, memorize lines, or organize a prom. They have helped create the glue that binds us together so that our school is more than a building. It is a community.
My fellow teachers have done a lot to contribute to that success, but as teachers we do not do our work alone. We rely on school counselors, who help our seniors navigate the college admissions and financial aid processes and help all of our students when the pressures of their lives become a little (or a lot) too much to bear. They help our students find programs and mentors to build their skills outside of school, and intervene when they see trouble brewing.
Our students also rely on the aides and staff who walk the halls and keep the school running smoothly. They are ready to step in and defuse a situation before it gets out of hand or provide a supportive nudge to a student who needs it. And that is on top of the often-thankless work that they do to keep the proverbial trains running on time.
So many of these vital resources are gone in the budget that the SRC is currently contemplating. The public school students of Philadelphia face the very real possibility of coming back this September to buildings that are mere shells of the schools they left in June.
So two weeks ago high school students from several schools in the city met after school in front of the school district’s headquarters to rally support for their cause. Students at the school where I did my student teaching, Constitution High School, staged a walkout before classes were over for the day, citing their right to peacefully assemble and air their grievances. They found the budget plan for next year to be unacceptable, and they demanded their voices be heard.
Indeed, this should be unacceptable to every citizen of the city and of the commonwealth, and we should all be making our voices heard. We must demand accountability from the SRC, and ask how they are spending the resources that they have. The district has already signaled that it wants large concessions from its employees. While I hope and believe that the district will move beyond its extreme opening offer to the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, I will be surprised if the next contract maintains the status quo. But it is worth remembering that the District pays its employees less, and provides its students with fewer resources, than many neighboring suburban districts. Unless we believe that districts like Lower Merion and Council Rock are throwing their taxpayers’ money away, we should wonder why Philadelphia is not able to provide its students with a similar level of resources.
We constantly hear that we need to be doing more with less. I realize that necessity is often the mother of invention, but isn’t it just a bit insulting to suggest that Philadelphia educators have been deliberately being inefficient, and now that we’re truly desperate we will somehow find ways to do more of the things we are already trying to do?
Of course, I do not want to sell the creativity and drive of Philadelphia’s students short. One week ago I was once again in the auditorium after school. The officers of Parkway’s student government had taken on the responsibility of organizing our annual multicultural day talent show. As their adviser, I was with them to help out and offer what support I could. But this is their show. It has to be. As I said to the students, I can not carry a tune in a bucket, so it was up to them to organize the tryouts and figure out what they wanted the show to be. It would be nice if we had some music teachers to help out, but the students are getting something done with less.
Today my students have the day off because of election day. I am still wondering how I should vote. The leaders of this city and this commonwealth are entrusted with the responsibility for so many people’s lives, including the students who have worked so hard these past Tuesdays. I am looking for the leaders who are worthy of that responsibility, waiting for them to prove themselves. The clock is ticking; we can not wait until next year to solve these challenges. When another May rolls around, I hope my Tuesdays are just as full as they have been this year.