Questions, Curiosities, Concerns Surrounding Germantown High's Changing Status

There was certainly some concern among members of a crowd assembled at  Thursday night about ways in which the school could change next year.

Germantown is slated to become a Promise Academy next year as part of the School District of Philadelphia's Renaissance Schools initiative, which is aimed at improving consistently underperforming schools.

That means at least half of its faculty will be let go, and each and every teacher at the high school must reapply for their jobs for the upcoming school year. All that is geared toward keeping kids in school and improving test scores, among other things.

There was definitely some apprehension in the school's auditorium during a meeting with district officials to discuss the change, which will take effect after this school year ends in June.

"I feel this whole Promise Academy experiment ... has been dropped on us," Germantown High School junior Kwame Miller told a crowd that filled up about one-third of the sizeable auditorium. "It's not really fair."

But even though Miller's uncertainty was shared by many in the room, a sense of optimism pervaded the meeting, which was led by Germantown High Principal Margaret Mullen-Bavwidinsi, Turnaround Principal Specialist for Promise Academies Lois Powell Mondesire and Vaux High School Principal William Wade. (Vaux became a Promise Academy this school year in the first year of the Renaissance Schools initiative.)

Much of that optimism came from Mullen-Bavwidinsi, who received a large ovation from the crowd when she said she would officially remain the school's principal next year.

Germantown, she said, has not shown the rest of the city how good it can be. Its graduation rate is 48 percent, and it hit 39.3 percent of its 2010 academic targets (mostly measured by test scores).

The principal said the school's conversion to a district-run Promise Academy gives it an opportunity it didn't have before. Because of that, she said, she clapped when she heard the news.

"When you have 12th graders who walk out of here not knowing what a flash drive was, that's a problem," she said, referring to what she has recently observed. "(Becoming a Promise Academy) was the best shot in the arm Germantown needed, to show ourselves. We're not showing ourselves."

Some of the changes associated with the Promise Academy model include:

• Schools days that are one hour longer
• New uniform policies
• Summer school programs
• Twice-a-month Saturday classes
• A parent-run School Advisory Council and town hall meetings with students.

Wade also said administrators will meet students at the front of the school as each day begins.

He said the school he took over—Vaux—was "at rock bottom" when he started there.

"In Vaux, success was happening in isolation. We go above and beyond," he said of what's changed there over the past few months. "What's the difference? We're hitting the reset button."

Parents, though, said they were concerned that so much was being modified in a school that has enjoyed some success.

Clara Bell, who is the vice president of the Home and School Association at Germantown, said the school has good counselors and a good support system already in place.

Plus, she said, there are semantic issues involved.

"It's just the children feel as though they have failed," Bell said. "Is there another word you can use? Because it's not a failure."

Mullen-Bavwidinsi, however, turned the question on its head, saying the school district owes more to Germantown's students.

"We've failed our children," she said. "And we're not going to fail them anymore."

Meanwhile, on Friday, students at nearby Martin Luther King High School walked out to protest the Renaissance Schools initiative. The school district said in a release that it would "hold students accountable for their misconduct."

King is slated to become a Renaissance Match Model school, which means it will be operated by an external "turnaround team" contracted by the district.