Tag Archives: Philadelphia School District

06

Oct. ’16

Lisa Haver: When School Choice Means No Choice in Philadelphia

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Superintendent William Hite allowed parents at two North Philadelphia schools to vote on whether to allow a charter company of the district’s choosing to take control of the schools.

Lisa Haver, retired teacher in Philadelphia, points out that that families in Philadelphia have experienced closures of their local public schools, leaving them no choice but charter schools.

“Two years ago, Superintendent William Hite allowed parents at two North Philadelphia schools to vote on whether to allow a charter company of the district’s choosing to take control of the schools. Parents at both schools voted overwhelmingly to remain public. Thus, in 2015, parents and students at three more district schools were given no vote, but simply informed that their schools were to be placed in the Renaissance program. The choice had been made for them.”

The goal of “choice” is to give parents no choice at all.

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Retired teacher Lisa Haver and librarian and library advocate Deborah Grill

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13

Dec. ’14

SRC takes contract fight to Pa. court

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Dr. Hite

HARRISBURG – With much at stake, lawyers for the School Reform Commission on Wednesday asked a panel of five Commonwealth Court judges to affirm their power to cancel the Philadelphia School District teachers’ contract.

The law that created the SRC acknowledged that in times of distress, the commission must have at its disposal special powers, argued commission attorney Mark Aronchick.

“The polestar is the children, not the protection of some collective bargaining interest that protects the interest of teachers,” Aronchick told the judges.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers lawyer Ralph Teti said the SRC lacks the authority to abrogate its contract.

“I think they overstepped their boundaries greatly,” Teti said. “Their view of it is, if we have a contract on Monday, we can cancel it on Tuesday.”

The SRC wants to make teachers begin paying a portion of their health-care costs, a move it said would save $54 million annually. Those savings would be sent directly to cash-strapped schools, officials said. Teachers would pay from $72 to $700 a month depending on their salary, the plan they choose, and their family status.

The district had hoped to make changes to 11,200 PFT members’ health care effective Dec. 15, but a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court injunction halted those changes for now.

On Wednesday, the Commonwealth Court judges peppered both sides with questions around their central arguments, and about their interpretation of Act 46, the state law that created the SRC.

Several judges, including President Judge Dan Pelligrini, noted that the SRC had negotiated four contracts with the union since the commission was created in 2001. If the SRC can simply impose terms, Pelligrini asked, what good are the contracts?

“Why would anybody enter into any negotiations with you?” Pelligrini said, adding that he thought the SRC was relegating the union to “a meet-and-discuss unit rather than a bargaining unit.”

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20141211_Phila__school_district_takes_its_case_to_Commonwealth_Court.html#B0dM2E9ZyDGiMerW.99

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OPINION

William Hite Jr took the same nonsense to the Philadelphia School District from Prince George’s County. In the above scenario, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (P.F.T) must tendentiously make known that, Unilateral contract cancelations are illegal everywhere in the United States.  While further contributions to member benefits package may be reasonable, they must be part and parcel of collective bargaining along with raises, step increases and most importantly, working conditions. As is told, the district’s fiscal instability was not of the teachers’ making but of the School Reform Commission  (S.R.C)’s as a forensic audit of district financials would surely establish. Teachers and other staff members sacrificed much more over the years and have thus done their part. It is not incumbent upon P.F.T. to be held hostage either by Ackerman or Hite’s mistakes or anyone else’s.

Funding priorities have often missed the point while S.R.C. behavior missed the form. Law suits and further short-term cuts will solve nothing. A fairly negotiated resolution will so rooting out waste and abuse in Bill Hite’s morbidly top-heavy central administration is essential.

Philadelphia once had great schools. They can be so again once Corbett, Hite, Nutter and Green wise up and treat people fairly by negotiating in good faith. The folks have legitimate grievances and deserve better.

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08

Nov. ’14

Teacher is knocked down to the floor under Dr. Hite Leadership.

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Video still showing that on Thursday, November 6, 2014, a substitute teacher was knocked to the floor at Bartram High. The teacher suffered a concussion. It was the third staff assault at the school in a month. 

A teacher at Bartram High School was attacked by a student and suffered a concussion this week after being thrown to the ground in an incident that was captured on video and widely shared on social media.

It was the third such assault in a month at the violence-prone school, which in recent months had made some strides in safety that teachers say seem to be eroding.

This week’s incident happened Thursday afternoon, when a student attacked a substitute teacher who had asked him to leave a classroom earlier in the day, Philadelphia School District officials confirmed.

The student waited for the teacher and threw the 68-year-old man to the ground. The student fled, and the school nurse attended to the teacher, who was later taken to a hospital.

In an interview Friday night, the teacher, Pewu Johnson, a Liberian immigrant with deep roots in Philadelphia and its schools, described the attack.

He said he had a run-in with his assailant early in the day when the boy behaved “inappropriately” with a female student, and he ordered him to stop.

Later, during seventh period, the teen found Johnson and angrily tried to block his way.

“He grabbed me, then lifted me up, then dropped me on my back, on the floor. I became unconscious. I wasn’t hearing anything. My eyes were closed,” Johnson said.

He said he had intense neck pain and was bleeding from his elbow, and ended up spending hours at the hospital.

He isn’t sure when he’ll be able to return to work, he said, adding that he was still quite sore.

>>>Read more at philly.com

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Under Dr. William Hite leadership, teachers are being knocked down unconscious by students at a rapid rate in Philadelphia School District. There is no transparency and accountability under his watch. The whole school district is in big debt. Breach of contract is the order of the day. Same kind of scenerio he is repeating from his years in PGCPS District. Read more >>> Education advocates are poised to take SRC to court over lack of transparency

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09

Sep. ’13

Back to school: It’s worse than you think in Philly.

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Philadelphia public schools are opening for the new school year today Monday September 9, 2013 without many of the basics any reasonable person would expect. Paper, for example. Guidance counselors. Nurses.

Amid an agonizing financial and leadership crisis, the appointed School Reform Commission, which has run the district since the state took it over a dozen years ago, passed a “doomsday” budget this past summer that included cuts so drastic there was no money for schools to open this fall with funding for things such as paper, new books, athletics, arts, music, counselors, assistant principals and more. Teachers were laid off. This came after the closure of a few dozen schools.

How did this happen? The state government has financially starved the district for years, and the city’s public school system has been subjected to one reform experiment after another.

How bad is it? Superintendent William Hite made some accommodations to allow schools to open, but parents say the answer to the question is this: Worse than you think.

According to our own considered opinion, it appears Dr. William Hite et al organized a secret plan to promote charter schools as a solution to the Philadelphia public school problem, making the situation ungovernable as he did in PGCPS through the Unions and others. This way, he can advance corruption in Philadelphia public schools and rule by decree while simponing money through the back door using his conspirators. The collapse of rule of law in the Philadephia public school management under Dr. Hite is most egregious scandal in the United States. Only this time it is bigger than PGCPS MESS…

We strongly feel that this is all by design to defame high salary teachers and dismiss them through a coordinated effort using newly hired staff from PGCPS. Many of these teachers and staff being fired are not part of the “good old boys club” which is patently obvious in many district-those teachers who went through the district or are married into it (or are lower in the salary scale) are given the best students and those that are not of the former are given students who need more help. Is there any recourse many have? We are convinced that the local, state and national unions will only afford one a token gesture of support to teachers in their plight for the sake of politics including in Maryland. Time will tell….

(Read more)

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Dr. William Hite Jr

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Posted by . Categories: Accountability, Corruption and cover up Report in PGCPS, Lawlessness, Protest, Public Rally. Tags: , , , , , . Leave a comment

15

Jun. ’13

Superintendent of Philly Sued again by Former Principal.

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The Bed hopping love – Rat – Roving eyes at younger female Principal

Former Superintendent William Hite is now the new Superintendent in Philadelphia but he still got legal ties in Washington DC Metropolitan area: Several lawsuits against Prince George’s County Public schools (PGCPS) and Dr. William Hite Jr are currently pending in both Prince George’s County Circuit and Federal Courts in Greenbelt Maryland. The School Reform Commission (SRC) of The School District of Philadelphia made no mention of Hite’s spotty history nor of the suits when they hired him in 2012. Reading this post made me tired. There really is so much drama and cronyism involving Dr. Hite and what he did during his tenure in Prince George’s County. A serious look and an exposé by Philadelphia newspapers and others about Hite is long overdue.  Hite also has connection with Broad Foundation. We are sure many more facts will come up in Philadelphia as the time goes on.

On this note, Carol Barbour, former assistant principal/principal alleges that Dr. William Hite removed her name from a list of candidates to be considered for PGCPS positions after receiving an extremely negative review of her work from a colleague in North Carolina, where Barbour once worked. Barbour is Latina, a fact that Dr. Hite said he was unaware of despite meeting with her in her office, and she is alleging discrimination. In fact, Carol Barbor was criticized as being missing in action by the parents at the North Carolina school where she was principal (at the instigation of Dr. Hite’s friend). See story HERE. (Carol Barbour Affidavit)

Make sure you read it all because at the end of the post includes information on YET ANOTHER lawsuit filed by PGCPS Principals which we brought to your attention in November 2012.  I’ll paste it right here:  There have been new developments in that $100 million federal lawsuit alleging racial and sex discrimination by Hite and the Prince George’s County School Board. At the initiation of Association of Supervisory and Administrative School Personnel (ASASP) Union, the law suit was filed in November and it was withdrawn by the group in April 2013. (See our previous blog on the case here) Doris Reed, director of the Association of Supervisory and Administrative School Personnel, said last week that she and Prince George’s officials are working to get their members, who were part of the class-action suit, back to work.”

From Philly.com, “Carol Barbour, 44, of Upper Marlboro, Md., is slapping Hite, 51, with a Second federal lawsuit, accusing him of defamation and other charges including conspiracy. (See the entire complaint ~>Second federal lawsuit<~here) The claims stem from a federal lawsuit Barbour filed in March 2012 against Hite and his previous employer, Prince George’s County Public Schools, alleging racial and age discrimination as well as retaliation. (See First complaint here – the other case)

Barbour, who is Latina, worked for Prince George’s County schools as an assistant principal and principal from 2002 to 2005. She claims to have applied for more than 20 jobs there since 2008. Hite worked for Prince George’s County schools from 2006 until 2012, when he came to Philly. What is not fully being disclosed is also a hint of sexual harassment – a  trade mark of the infamous and capricious Hite.

It was during the proceedings in the first case that Hite, who “had agreed, then unagreed” to answer email questions from Barbour’s attorney, Richard Patrick, signed a sworn statement that is the basis of the most recent lawsuit, said Patrick, of Fairfax, Va. In the affidavit signed March 28 by Hite, the superintendent acknowledges that he knows Peter Gorman, the head of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in North Carolina, where Barbour once worked, and is also named in the suit.

Dr. Hite Sideways

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Hite categorically stated he called Gorman for a reference and Gorman “specifically said that Ms. Barbour was ‘one of the worst principals he had ever been associated with’ and he said she was ‘terrible.’ “Gorman’s negative reference prompted Hite to instruct the Prince George’s County former human-resources chief Synthia Shilling who was caught drunk driving to remove Barbour’s name from “any list of candidates for positions to ensure that she was not hired,” according to the affidavit. (See Affidavit of William R. Hite Jr here)

Hite said he had no idea Barbour was Latina. “We were baffled,” Patrick said yesterday. “We did not know until his affidavit that that was why Ms. Barbour did not get any job at Prince George’s County.” Barbour’s evaluations from Charlotte-Mecklenburg, filed in the first lawsuit, show that Barbour received a “proficient” rating in her only year as principal of Winget Park Elementary School. The evaluation was signed by Elva Cooper. She was eligible for rehire by the North Carolina district, according to notations made on the school’s letter accepting her resignation.

“You really don’t know why it was said,” Patrick said, referring to Hite’s remark. “The second lawsuit is going to find out.” To the county employees victimized in similar fashion during Dr. William Hite’s reign of terror in Prince George’s County public schools, Carol Barbour is a “hero” to many. She deserves recognition for going after the barbaric and self-serving behavior exhibited by former king pin of public school system PGCPS and thatcher Law firm heads on. How can Dr. Hite say he did not know Carol Barbour was Hispanic or latina when he met her and he is very familiar with people of Hispanic origin with a large Hispanic population in Prince George’s County? It begs the question, did this lady stop Dr. Hite’s advances?… Time will tell.

Philadelphia School District spokesman Fernando Gallard referred comment to Hite’s Maryland attorney, Robert Baror. Phone calls to Baror were not returned.

It’s high time we exposed Dr. William Hite Jr. Students, parents and staff of Philadelphia deserve better. He already messed up PGCPS before moving on to the next victims. It’s high time to stop the behavior heads on!

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From left: Karyn Lynch, chief of student service for the Philadelphia school district, Dr. William Hite Jr., school superintendent, and Dannielle Floyd, interim senior vice president of capital programs, answer attendees questions at the School District of Philadelphia’s Facilities Master Plan Meeting held at the Martin Luther King High School on Jan. 15. (Photo by Sue Ann Rybak)

Posted by . Categories: Accountability, Corruption in Education, Dr.William Hites jr., Education Forum, Embattled Superintendent, Morally dead situation, PGCPS Audacity to squander, Pgcps corruption, Rot that is PGCPS Sasscer, Union corruption, William Hite & His women, workplace bullying. Tags: , , , , , , . 4 Comments