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Video related to this article is available below.Issue date: 3/27/08 Section: News
Planned partnership under fire
Initial proposal for Penn, Drexel to partner with a renovated U. City High criticized at public forum
Katie Karas
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At the forum, held to share plans with the community about renovations, Philadelphia School District leaders officially said they have been in discussion with Penn and Drexel for the past two years about the possibility of a partnership with University City High once it is renovated.
The talks with Penn and Drexel so far have involved the creation of a hybrid school, part neighborhood and part magnet. In the hypothetical school, 70 percent of students would be taken from the neighborhood and 30 percent from the rest of the city, as in a magnet school.
School district Chief Academic Officer Cassandra Jones said discussions with Penn involved the creation of a focused curriculum dealing with international studies, an idea that was not popular among the crowd.
"The students who go here are not interested in international business," social-studies teacher Lashundra Dixon said, suggesting a more vocational curriculum, such as nursing or mechanics.
"We have students who don't need a Ph.D., they need the skills to take care of the kids they already have," she said.
Jones stressed that no plans for a collaboration have been set in stone. But those present at the meeting still expressed dissatisfaction with certain aspects of plans to refurbish the school.
The renovations to improve the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems at University City High are scheduled to begin in 2010 and will require that the school be shut down for two school years.
Students will have be relocated during that period, which has sparked anger among parents, teachers and students.
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 4
Alan Krigman
posted 3/27/08 @ 8:34 AM EST
Penn's self-congratulatory "Vision of the Anointed" seems to have been blurred by a severe case of myopia.
gentrify now!
posted 3/27/08 @ 4:22 PM EST
"Why can't we entertain the idea of letting this thing ride out for two more years so no students have to be transferred?"
Because, we are sick of the kind of incompetent schools that breed drug use, teen pregnancy, and gang violence. (Continued…)
Partnership, not gentrification
posted 3/27/08 @ 5:10 PM EST
In response to 'gentrify now!', the population of West Philadelphia is not community chattel to be expelled to the nether regions of the metropolis. Partnership means that the populations should work to service each other's needs. (Continued…)
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