KENSINGTON
July, 2008
Brittney White, Sophomore During the 2007/2008 school year, Kensington worked on several things to try and make the Kensington Multiplex better small schools. One of the problems in our schools is overcrowding.
Previous students from YUC launched an initiative to transform large neighborhood schools into smaller ones. Our chapters agree with this plan and we are continuing to fight for small schools- schools with fewer than 400 students and 100 students per grade.
We felt as if we didn’t have enough room in our school. Students complained of bumping into each other in the hallways and there were not enough seats in the classrooms. This was causing too many problems so we had to take action. The YUC Kensington chapter came up with a plan that we felt would help this problem.
We decided to have a protest outside the school. We passed out flyers and stickers and posted things on the walls of our school to ask our classmates to support us. The day the protest came, we had students from all three Kensington Multiplex schools one hundred percent behind us. We marched around the three schools loud and proud. Channel 10 News and other media came out to cover the event.
At the end of the school year, the Kensington Multiplex YUC chapter gave the new Superintendent, Dr. Arlene Ackerman, a tour around our three schools. We showed the Superintendent the things that needed to change in our school-- small classrooms, overcrowding, lack of a library, too few books-- we are hoping she will work with to us fix them.
History
Founded in 1992, our Kensington High School Chapter is the oldest chapter in Youth United for Change. Our first successful campaign was to eliminate general math and general science so all students could take college prep sequence courses.
In 2002, frustrated with a sequence of 8 principals in 6 years, students began a campaign to break up Kensington High School into four small schools. Students began their campaign by taking newly appointed CEO Paul Vallas for a tour of their school with intentions of negotiating a new building for Kensington High School. YUC students then conducted a “Listening Campaign”, going from classroom to classroom to ask students what they wanted in a new building, collecting information from over 300 Kensington Students. As a result, YUC members identified common themes and developed a plan of action to meet the needs of Kensington students: a Kensington Campus with separate schools that share certain resources such as, track and field, courtyard, multi-media library, community-based theater, etc.
In March 2003, YUC presented the plan publicly to Paul Vallas at a community meeting at the Norris Square Child Care Center. Over 75 community residents were in attendance. By September 2005, Kensington High School was broken up into 3 small schools, with a fourth school opening when the new building is completed in September 2010.
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EDISON
HISTORY
In 1994, the YUC Edison chapter was founded. The Chapter’s first campaign centered around student safety due to the high number of students walking to and from school under a bridge that was used for illegal dumping and had no lights. Students demanded lighting under the bridge and periodic clean ups by the bridge owners. Additionally, YUC members negotiated police presence under the bridge during after school hours.
Since then, YUC students have successfully led campaigns around lack of textbooks within the school, improving the schools poor ventilation systems, developing a book on multicultural education in 2002, which they presented to Edison teachers during professional development day, participating in a campaign to stop companies from privatizing Philadelphia public schools and in response to vigorous military recruitment within Edison High School, YUC members led a campaign titled, the “Right to Know”, which focused on students’ privacy rights, as well as rights to know what options are available to students after high school. YUC Students reached out to universities in the surrounding area to strategize ways to enhance college recruitment at Edison.
During the 2005/2006 school year, students worked to get more access to counselors and college information. Students developed a Counselor’s platform that gives a description of a counselor’s role at the school. The platform was used during the interviewing of Edison’s current Principal. Students also developed a college platform to be used as a component of Edison’s required senior project. The platform requires that all students: 1) visit at least one college, 2) meet with at least one college recruiter, 3) register and take SAT exam at least twice, and 4) apply to a four year college. OLNEY
UPDATE
July, 2008
Jashua Crespo, Senior
Our school is in corrective action two which means it will be reorganized next year. We don’t want the district to make a decision about our school’s fate without us. We are the ones most affected by any decision that the district makes for our school. Our voice needs to be heard and we need a say in how our school is restructured.
To be heard we needed to organize. We reached out to Council Woman Sanchez and asked her to organize a meeting with Edison administrators, teachers, parents and students to discuss the school’s future. This meeting was cut short because students were prevented from participating because of alleged bad grades, attendance, enrollment in special education classes and cited disciplinary problems.
Another meeting with stakeholders was scheduled by Council Woman Sanchez where we were allowed to enter the meeting and speak. And that’s what we did. I took the opportunity to say that no one listens to youth and that we are the ones most effected by any decision that is made about the future of our school. Our voices need to be heard and we need a say in how our school is restructured.
My chapter will have another meeting in August where we will finish writing our proposal for the new Edison. This proposal will then be presented to the SRC. We are not going to give up until we get the Edison we want.
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OLNEY
HISTORY
In 1997 the Olney Chapter of Youth United for Change began its work in transforming Olney High School into a high achieving comprehensive high school. The first step students took was to meet with several organizations in the community to build a base of leaders in the community and school that would support such an agenda. In 1999 the Olney Community taskforce was created and the student led taskforce distributed a survey focusing on student safety to over 200 students. The results were presented to the school’s governance and school district officials, which resulted in…
After working to make their school a safer place, YUC students turned their attention towards gaining access to the school library and technology. This campaign was dubbed “the digital divide”. Thanks to the hard work of YUC students, Olney became home to a brand new computer lab with 20 I-Mac computers fully equipped with internet access.
YUC students at Olney then demanded, and won, a college access center for the school. Recently, the chapter has taken up whole school reform and began their campaign to create small schools at Olney High School.
UPDATE
October, 2008
The Olney High School Chapter of YUC continues to work towards creating Olney into small schools by passing out flyers, having membership drives and collecting signatures to raise awareness and support for our plan to achieve high quality, organized and equitably funded small schools.
At the start of the school year, YUC members distributed surveys to the student body and to eighth graders who would attend Olney the following year, asking what type of thematic small schools they would like to see at Olney. YUC received funding from the Bread and Roses Community Fund to hire a consultant to help develop a timeline and budget for our small schools campaign and we have been working with State Representative Tony Payton to draft a line item in the state budget to help fund the planning process for our small schools.
Additionally, YUC cosponsored the Logan Olney Community Political Forum with Let’s Love Logan and the Logan Olney Epic Stakeholder Group Inc., which brought together politicians, community organizations, parents, and students of the Logan Olney community to discuss issues regarding educational achievement in the community schools.
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MASTBAUM
HISTORY
The YUC Mastbaum chapter was founded in Spring of 2004. YUC students decided to tackle discipline practices in the school first, responding to widespread frustration among the student body over a practice of suspending students for as many as 10 days for being out of uniform. Students successfully negotiated a series of changes to discipline practices in the school, including ensuring due process, peer mediation, expanding teacher evaluations to include discipline practices, and funding for a new in-school suspension program.
In their next campaign, students began to explore what it meant to be a Career Technical School (Vocational school) and developed a platform dedicated to improving opportunities of Mastbaum High School graduates. The platform focuses on three areas: 1) building relationships with unions, 2) ensuring academic rigor at Mastbaum by linking high level academics to career opportunities, and 3) ensuring that the curriculum at Mastbaum supports students’ successfully entering 4 year colleges and industries of their choice. In December 2007 the Mastbaum chapter, negotiated and launched a partnership between the Nursing Shop at Mastbaum and a nurses union called the PASNAP – YUC partnership for the Nursing Shop at Mastbaum. PASNAP (the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals) is a state-wide union representing Nurses and Technical Professionals at Temple University Hospital. In October 2007, students also won a commitment from a coalition of the Apprenticeship programs from the Building Trades represented by unions to hold a Trades Fair & Training Day at Mastbaum. Finally, the principal invited students to present their platform of changes to the entire school faculty to ensure the teaching staff’s commitment to academic rigor.
UPDATE
The Mastbaum chapter was formed in the spring of 2004. YUC students decided to tackle discipline practices in the school first, responding to widespread frustration among the student body over a practice of suspending students for as many as 10 days for being out of uniform. Students successfully negotiated a series of changes to discipline practices in the school, including ensuring due process, peer mediation, expanding teacher evaluations to include discipline practices, and funding for a new in-school suspension program.
In their next campaign, students began to explore what it meant to be a Career Technical School (Vocational school) and developed a platform dedicated to improving opportunities of Mastbaum High School graduates. The platform focuses on three areas: 1) building relationships with unions, 2) ensuring academic rigor at Mastbaum by linking high level academics to career opportunities, and 3) ensuring that the curriculum at Mastbaum supports students’ successfully entering 4 year colleges and industries of their choice. In December 2007 the Mastbaum chapter launched a partnership it negotiated between the nursing shop at Mastbaum and a nurses union, the PASNAP – YUC partnership for the Nursing Shop at Mastbaum. PASNAP (the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals) is a state-wide union representing Nurses and Technical Professionals at Temple University Hospital. In October 2007, students also won a commitment from a coalition of the Apprenticeship programs from the Building Trades represented by unions to hold a Trades Fair & Training Day at Mastbaum. Finally, the principal invited students to present their platform of changes to the entire school faculty to ensure the teaching staff’s commitment to academic rigor.
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MANSION
HISTORY
Founded in 1999, Strawberry Mansion’s first campaign tackled building facilities that were so deteriorated students wore hats and scarves to class. Students fought for and secured money for new boilers and window repairs in the District’s capital budget in the 2001-2002 school year. Their next campaign focused on the whole school reform “Library Power” and in 2002 they secured funding for a full-time certified librarian from new CEO, Paul Vallas. Next, students organized to improve the rostering process at their school. They negotiated a better process for students to resolve roster problems and ensured that all students received completed rosters in 2003.
The next several years the chapter focused on reforming standardized testing practices at Strawberry Mansion. They successfully organized to stop school staff from pulling students out of their major subject classes for test prep and won a series of improvements to standardized testing practices District-Wide, holding a joint press conference with school district officials to announce those policy changes in January 2006.
Most recently, students tackled repressive policies at their school limiting students’ right to organize. Reacting to attempts by the school to prohibit YUC students from distributing petitions and signing students up to join YUC, the chapter partnered up with the ACLU. Strawberry Mansion students successfully affirmed students’ right to organize at their school and at all public schools in Philadelphia.
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