Forget "Snap" and "Crackle", 105 just POP(s)!!!!!!!!

Words cannot adequately capture the times that I've had with my students in room 105 at John B. Kelly Elementary School over the years! Each day was an adventure where some of the routines were the same but the experiences that would accompany those routines were unscripted, unexpected, and ultimately unforgettable!

As a teacher of English/Language Arts (my primary assignment for the last six years), it is easy to get into the same old, mundane, trite rituals and routines of the literacy block. But when I started referring to it as the "L-Block", when random foods were brought in to accompany the reading, when "Flem Flem" (my in-class rapper stage name...lol) busted out of no where or when I got my "Reverend" on while teaching, 105 transformed into more than just a room number!

105 became the room where EVERYTHING "popped." "105 get it poppin" became the chant! oNe Oh FIvE became synonymous with literary experiences to be remembered for a life-time; where "to become better readers we......READ.....we don't.....SWIM" (ALL CAPS indicate the class' choral response to my prompts) It became a place where kids wanted to come; where they wanted to learn; where announcements, meaningless assemblies, and the house phone all got in the way!

But make no mistake either. 105 was also a place to get tough love from a teacher who cared. Students were often sent to 105 for a little "Flem time". Where young boys needed to hear that we're not here for foolishness and games and that it "bet not" happen again that they need to be sent to 105. It became a place where young ladies needed to hear that they can go places in life and that acting a fool wasn't how to get there.

Ahhh yes! 105!

The thing is, there are "105"s all across the district, city, state, and country. Places where students are welcome to come, to be wrong and learn safely, to get the attention they crave, to hear what others didn't want to tell them yet need to be told, a place where the teacher will fight with all his strength and power and stop the sun, if he could, to give what his kids need to get, an education from someone who is knowledgeable and who cares!

As we sleep a little longer, clean out "that" closet, finally get to those stacks of papers, spend more time with our spouses and kids, all the while looking up resources for next year, and fighting for school funding that doesn't involve teachers' salaries being the solution, rest up! On September 9, 2013, there will be 30 (or more) smiling boys and girls or 5 classes of 30 (or more) sleepy teenagers that are coming. How will we ensure that our classrooms are places where they are welcomed? How will they know we care about them? How will we ensure that our classes "pop" with rich and meaningful teaching and learning experiences?

"Steve, what can I do?"

This morning as I was driving my baby sister to work, we passed by a nice, brand new Discovery Charter School building. As we passed that new building, I readily pointed out the school directly across the street, Leidy Elementary School. This school should sound familiar. It has closed for good as of June 30th!

Not 60 seconds later as we turned onto Girard Ave, I eagerly pointed out the recently erected Global Leadership Academy Charter School. A quick look to the left, Blankenburg Elementary School, a real public school that does not admit students via lottery along with huge media coverage.

After this brief rant, she turned to me and asked me, "Steve, what can I do?"

I answered, with no shortage of all the possibilities!

What to do with "all this money"???

Of course that is a rhetorical question, since I'm a teacher and comparitively speaking, we don't have "all this money"!

The School District of Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania want to cut teacher salaries by up to 13% to save money.

In a recent interview with the Huffington Post, Arne Duncan stated that the students didn't create this problem. Hey, Mr. Duncan, neither did the teachers!

If they want to cut 13% of our salary, then everything else needs to be reduced by that same percentage: class size, work load, case load, charter schools, rent, mortgage, phone bill, tuition, electric, gas, water, car note, insurance, classroom supply costs out of pocket, food/clothes prices, SEPTA fares (oh wait, they just went up), contributions to poitical campaigns (ha!), salaries in City Hall, Harrisburg, and DC, the defense budget, shall I continue?

In the Huffington Post...

I am grateful to the person who recommended me to a reporter for the Huffington Post. I was recently interviewed via phone and asked to comment on the budget crisis that exacerbates the issues of an already cash-strapped school district.

Here's the link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/03/arne-duncan-philadelphia-school-layoffs_n_3537952.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

6th Grade at John B. Kelly Elementary School

John B. Kelly Elementary has had 6th grade classes for seven years.

Each year that this teaching team has had 6th grade (6 of the 7 years), we've managed to maintain the highest of academic and behavioral standards. We've managed to build rapports with our students that remain to this day. We've also managed to tackle the minimal criteria for academic performance, PSSA test scores. Scores do not measure all that a child has learned, the reason for my use of the term "minimal".

Using that minimal standard for academic progress, the standard that the district and others use, we've managed to increase the students' proficiency in reading and math every single year that we've been a team! Some years the increase reflected single digit percentage point increase and other years reflected double digit percentage point increases, but ALL were increases!

From 5th grade to 6th grade, the students' percentage points as a whole class increased each year in both reading and math! In what may be the final year of 6th grade at J.B. Kelly, the preliminary results show us going out with a (((BANG)))!!

34% of the students were proficient/advanced in reading for 5th grade to 51% in 6th grade
36% of the students were proficient/advanced in math for 5th grade to 65% in 6th grade
Note: it was the same group of children from 5th to 6th, PLUS a few from private and charter schools


The result: Mastery Charter School at Pickett, a few blocks away, will now become a 6th - 12th grade charter school and John B. Kelly Elementary School will now be a K-5th grade elementary school.

Why?

We made it!

There is a verse in the Bible from the book of Acts that states, "And the rest, some on boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship. And so it came to pass, that they escaped all safe to land."
Paul and his fellow prisoners were shipwrecked and had to find a way to safety. Some made it to shore on boards and some on broken pieces of the ship.

Well, today was the final day for public school teachers in Philadelphia. It has been one "wreck" of a year! Even still, we made it....on broken pieces!

The fight isn't over yet, however. There are more than 3,800 essential personnel who provide essential services who need their jobs restored so that the services our children need are restored. For that reason, many are traveling to Harrisburg to continue the pressure on lawmakers to fund public schools, particularly in urbanized areas, as they should!

For this reason, many who may not be able to make the trip to Harrisburg, will be calling, emailing, tweeting, meeting, stirring up dialogue in barbershops, beauty salons, YMCAs, on buses and rails, all in an attempt to restore services and to adequately fund schools and districts!

Since we started with the Bible, I'll end with it too. Jesus had a special place in his heart for children! He issued strong warnings for those who would offend them!

My two favorite subjects

Earlier today, while taking a nice air-conditioned train ride through town, I reflected on my two favorite subjects in elementary school.

Art.
Music.

I remember the questionnaires we'd get and those two being my responses.

I remember learning to play the violin, viola, and cello.

I remember learning how to read music.

I remember winning an art contest sponsored by the Chapel of Four Chaplains. I remember having to go to the Adam's Mark hotel for a banquet and to receive my $100 check. (I also remember my 1st grade teacher making us open a savings account, the ultimate destination of that $100 check)

I remember Mrs. Serota, the art teacher, Mr. Shelton the music teacher, and Mrs. Christensen, the music teacher who stepped in after Mr. Shelton passed away.

Here's what troubles me; the School District of Philadelphia has passed a budget that cuts such things as art and music. What troubles me is the fact that many schools already had to make a choice between art or music and now those options aren't on the table at all.

There is no reason why a city such as Philadelphia, a culturally significant icon and staple for the arts in the United States and around the world, should have a public school system destitute of such culturally significant and iconic programs!

While celebrating a new mural that pays tribute to the Roots (well deserved), in the same news cast we lament the loss of music and art in our schools!

Smh