At Furness High, a tough choice looms
by Benjamin Herold on Oct 14 2011 Posted in Latest news
A leaky roof and crumbling brick exterior have led to extensive water damage inside Furness High, one of just two neighborhood high schools to make AYP last year.
by Benjamin Herold
for the Notebook and WHYY/NewsWorks
Horace Furness High School saved Felly Velicia, so the District's pending decision about whether to close the school couldn’t be more personal for the 18-year-old from Indonesia.
“You know the feeling if you’ve lived in a house, and you grew up there, and you have to leave?” she asked. “I won’t know where to come running to.”
Velicia endured significant family trauma and difficult stints at two other area high schools before finally finding a home at Furness, located at 3rd and Mifflin Streets in South Philadelphia. Now a freshman at Eastern University, with her only living parent across the globe, Velicia said she regularly returns to Furness in search of support and encouragement.
“This is where my family are,” she said.
Furness is unusual as a safe, racially harmonious, academically successful neighborhood high school.
But because it is located in an ancient facility that has become a fiscal albatross for the cash-strapped School District, the school could soon be shuttered – a stark example of the difficult choices facing officials as they implement a facilities master plan with the goal of shedding 40,000 “empty seats” in schools across the city.
Officials say they will reveal specific recommendations for school closings, consolidations, and other reconfigurations later this month. Dozens of schools could be affected.
A draft “preliminary options report” obtained and published by the Notebook in June listed Furness as one of 26 schools under consideration to be closed.
While stressing that the options in that draft have changed considerably since then, District officials have been consistent about the need to “rightsize” and become more efficient in this era of scarce resources and changing demographics.
“Doing nothing is not an option,” said Danielle Floyd, the District’s deputy for strategic initiatives.
Nevertheless, decisions about what to do with successful schools in financially unsustainable buildings will not be easy, she said.
“There’s one story that a spreadsheet tells you,” said Floyd. “But then you go to a school like Furness, and there’s that ‘soft data’ that’s equally important.”
A money pit?
In considering the possible closing and consolidation of specific high schools, the District has so far relied primarily on the information contained in its spreadsheets, rather than on input from people on the ground.
Floyd said she has focused her energies on visits to elementary and middle schools. With just a few weeks to go before the District’s final recommendations are made to the School Reform Commission, she has not yet visited Furness or any other high school potentially jeopardized by the facilities plan.
“We’re now at the [stage] that requires going out to schools and listening and asking questions,” said Floyd. “Just understand the difficulty of trying to do that at [270-plus] schools.”
Looking at what the spreadsheets say about Furness, the clear conclusion to be drawn is that keeping the school in its current building doesn’t make sense.
In recent years, the District has poured over $1.5 million into the nearly 100-year old facility, much of it in a losing battle with moisture that has been seeping through a leaky roof and a crumbling brick exterior.
A tour showed extensive water damage in classrooms and hallways. The second floor of the otherwise beautiful auditorium is unusable. The fourth floor has been closed off due to water damage and asbestos contamination, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to remediate.
“Where we can address issues, we have,” said Floyd.
But the District’s maintenance staff and budget only go so far, and officials may conclude they can get more bang for their buck elsewhere – especially since Furness also has a shrinking student enrollment.
The school now has about 600 students, down from about 1,200 in 2000.
Small schools advocates say that size is ideal, but the District prefers its high schools with 1,000 to 1,200 students and notes that Furness is operating at less than half capacity.
Floyd also noted that in 2010, almost three-quarters of the high school-aged students living within Furness’s boundary opted for other schools, mostly magnets and charters.
So what options are there other than closure?
She wouldn’t talk specifics, but it’s clear that Furness’s future is tenuous.
“Every situation presents a unique challenge,” said Floyd. “I hope people truly begin to see how difficult doing a long-range plan for a school district can be.”
‘It’s all about people’
For Velicia, though, none of that really matters.
What's more important to her is the way the world opened up after friendly staff members listened to her grueling personal story without judgment. With their encouragement, she joined the choir, rekindling her love of music. She started a chapter of DREAM Activist, enlisting students and staff in fighting for immigrants’ rights. She graduated first in her class.
“The teachers are like my own parents,” Velicia said. “They cared about me.”
That is music to the ears of Tim McKenna, Furness’s fourth-year principal.
“It’s all about people,” said McKenna. “We have a great teaching staff, and we have great students, so that overcomes a lot of the issues with the physical plant.”
Roughly 40 percent of the students are African American and 38 percent are Asian. But Furness has avoided the racial violence that has plagued nearby South Philadelphia High, where many of Furness’ students would likely be reassigned.
In 2009-10, Furness had 673 students and 17 serious incidents. South Philly had 965 students and 75 serious incidents, including a horrifying day of assaults against Asian students that prompted the intervention of the U.S. Justice Department.
“We don’t have any of those conflicts here at Furness,” said math and special education teacher Alfonzo Brown. “Furness has always [drawn] all types of kids.”
He would know. His family has been in the neighborhood since 1922, and his mother briefly attended Furness over 60 years ago.
Brown himself attended the school in the 1960s, when Furness was still a junior high. By the early 1980s, he was back as a math teacher. He never left.
“You remember ‘Welcome Back Kotter’? That’s what it was like,” said Brown. “All the people embraced me, and it’s been a positive experience ever since.”
The positives extend to academics. In 2010-11, Furness was one of only two neighborhood high schools to meet its federally mandated achievement targets. In 2011, 58 percent of 11th graders scored proficient or above on state math tests, and 43 percent were proficient in reading – both well above average for comprehensive high schools.
McKenna said that staff and students work hard to not let problems with the building “become an excuse.”
New-look SRC on the hot seat
For her part, Floyd recognizes that good things are happening at Furness. Its reputation and track record will figure in the District’s decision-making, she said.
“They found a way to make it work” at Furness, said Floyd. “It’s difficult because this [facilities planning process] is not supposed to be an indictment of the staff or the students or the administration here.”
On his end, McKenna says he recognizes the District’s challenges.
“I understand from a business aspect that things have to change [with] so many empty seats in the schools,” he said.
Ultimately, the final decisions will be in the hands of the city’s reconstituted School Reform Commission. Its three brand-new members will have to quickly absorb information and data on what could be dozens of school closure proposals.
After District staff make public their recommendations later this month, there will be a state-mandated three-month window for public hearings – enough time, said a District spokesperson, for the new commissioners to be “fully briefed.”
For those most attached to schools like Furness, however, already strong emotions are likely to just get stronger.
“I think it would be a travesty of educational justice if they were to close Furness down,” said long-time teacher Brown. “I know a large number of people in this neighborhood, and many of them would be hurt. It would send such shock waves through this community, I don’t even think the politicians could be able to handle what the end result might be.”
Postscript: Furness will be the site of a press conference on Monday in which District officials, U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, union officials and others will urge the passage of President Obama's American Jobs Act, which would bring $400 million in school modernization funds to Philadelphia.
Comments (40)
Submitted by Rich Migliore (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 16:00.
Furness is one of the best comprehensive high schools in Philadelphia. I had the good fortune of working there for seven years as an assistant principal and they are a wonderful group of caring professionals. It is the type of school where you feel the warmth when you walk through the front door.
Everyone in the building works together and lends a hand in what they do from the building engineer and his staff to the school police officers, NTA's, Noontime Aides, classroom assistants, teachers, and AP's. Oh yeah, I hear the principal is pretty awesome, too!
They have been working miracles for years and I know many students who would have never graduated if it were not for the support they had from those teachers and staff. They do an excellent job teaching and they work with many students who deal with difficult circumstances or are new to America.
The district would serve their students well if they could find a way to keep that staff together. South Philadelphia needs a school like Furness. Maybe the district could build them a new school.
Then maybe the district could allow them to create their own magnet program to keep more of the talented neighborhood kids from going to the select schools. That school flourished when it had the law magnet program and students came from all over the city to attend Furness.
I learned so much from that school community about what makes a good school good and what it takes to be a good school leader. They did anything and everything I ever asked them to do.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 16:11.
Everything I have ever heard about Furness has been GREAT so let's sell it to the highest bidder and most connected politician--how about Kenny Gamble ???? He'll do what he has done to Peirce, Vare etc. Money will be made skimming from the poor though and, of course, the race card will be played to cover his and his friends' tracks, so all will be fine. We better watch out or our kids' dreams will be destroyed in a few years, all under the guise of school choice. By the way, Corbett and his ilk will do nothing to stop it as it plays right into their agenda for us and what could be sweeter than people of color destroying other people of color?
Submitted by Good News! (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 16:45.
JOB OPENINGS: There are still nearly two dozen full-time teacher openings listed as of today (10/14) on the SDP vacancy list. Does anybody know if all the teachers who were let go were rehired, or if not, how many are still waiting to be recalled?
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 19:09.
Hope this helps answer your question.
Of about 1,500 teachers who were laid off, 788 were called back and another 300 or so declined the opportunity to return. That leaves potentially some 400 still without jobs.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 19:38.
Total foolishness. They are short almost 75 teachers at the very least. Stop drinking the Kool aid. EVERYBODY was called and most came back thus the shortage and it will grow as it always does. It was all Ackermania, corruption in all directions, stealing 24/7 while playing the race card 24/7. With Nunnery at the top, NOTHING will change for the better in the long run. In the short run, the crooks are hiding under rocks until the dust clears. We, the people, need to stand together and not let them pit us against one another.
Submitted by Veteran of the WPHS "Renaissance" (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 17:05.
Has anyone ever checked Floyd's credentials? Why should we put the fate of schools and communities in the hands of someone with her experience and certifications? Who is she to make these recommendations?
Submitted by kevin (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 18:16.
The PSD contracted out the facilities study. It was not done internally.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 19:41.
She has the hook up and that's what counts. She may or may not be qualified but it's only our kids' futures at stake. The joke continues.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 18:27.
This is crasy. I was in the class of 2011. Furness is the BEST High School in South Philly. I Hope the school district will re-do furness. Furness is a school where we came togeter and helped out one another. Since Mr.Tim came the school became a better place. class of 2011 made Ayp and 2012 followed us. and 2013 will do same. & I hope they FIX furness and not tear it .down
Im Earlene Patton class of 2011
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 10/15/2011 - 17:55.
right on Earlene!
Submitted by Donna (not verified) on Sun, 10/16/2011 - 08:59.
Thanks, Earlene! Best in college! Hopefully, you're 10th reunion will be at Furness.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 18:50.
I graduated from furness back in 2003. During my four years in that school I had learned so many things from some of the most outstanding teachers, who often stuck their necks out for you. And I had also made lots of friends and shared so many memories in those hallways and classrooms that if the school is torn down or closed will seem like part of me had been destroyed with the school
Submitted by Greg L (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 19:17.
I also was part of the class of '03. I can't go on enough about how Furness was truly a second home and family! Every day wasn't something we dreaded it was welcomed ! When we lost a member of the staff we all felt it. Even after graduation and we lost a one of our teachers you wouldn't believe how many students showed up and showed there love and support ! Closing Furness would deal a great blow to every student attending and the community around. If there is any thing I could do to help I would. I feel that past and present students should get together and try to at least raise some or half the money to keep things going over there.
Submitted by sanity-n-reason (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 19:22.
Before we close neighborhood schools let’s close the lavish and expensive SDP headquarters instead. There is a lot of space there now and they RIF'ed 50% of the staff there. It only makes sense to abandon that highly priced building and move us into the empty space in schools now. By displacing the workers within the empty space that exists in the neighborhood schools we will logically eliminate the much of the space that the 70 thousand empty desks now occupy. We all have the required child clearances already as a condition of employment. SDP central office workers could be seamlessly woven into the fabric of the neighborhood schools. Just add it to our job descriptions. They are going to cut the School Police force. We could help support keeping order in the schools. We could mentor. We could read to children. We could help out in the classroom. There are so many useful things that we could do. We will be the needed adult presence in persistently violent and troubled schools. It is essential that we keep many of the neighborhood schools open. We would be part of the solution to fix our schools and be a shining inclusion model for the future in education. Instead of closing schools and moving students, move us around. We all communicate electronically anyway, so it would be easy to adapt. Let’s save a bundle and CLOSE the ostentatious Queen's Palace that we live in now. Ackerman and Vallas are gone. Let's symbolically bulldoze the place where all of the evil waste took place and start anew. Most schools have squalor conditions and by contrast we work in this shiny climate controlled palace. It is really embarrassing when you think about it. Queen Arleen had this Grand "Imagine" plan. Well IMAGINE all of the money we would save. It's time to move on everyone.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 19:44.
They only laid off 31% even though they announced 50%. They have hired at least 38 people back at District Headquarters.
Submitted by sanity-n-reason (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 19:23.
Before we close neighborhood schools let’s close the lavish and expensive SDP headquarters instead. There is a lot of space there now and they RIF'ed 50% of the staff there. It only makes sense to abandon that highly priced building and move us into the empty space in schools now. By displacing the workers within the empty space that exists in the neighborhood schools we will logically eliminate the much of the space that the 70 thousand empty desks now occupy. We all have the required child clearances already as a condition of employment. SDP central office workers could be seamlessly woven into the fabric of the neighborhood schools. Just add it to our job descriptions. They are going to cut the School Police force. We could help support keeping order in the schools. We could mentor. We could read to children. We could help out in the classroom. There are so many useful things that we could do. We will be the needed adult presence in persistently violent and troubled schools. It is essential that we keep many of the neighborhood schools open. We would be part of the solution to fix our schools and be a shining inclusion model for the future in education. Instead of closing schools and moving students, move us around. We all communicate electronically anyway, so it would be easy to adapt. Let’s save a bundle and CLOSE the ostentatious Queen's Palace that we live in now. Ackerman and Vallas are gone. Let's symbolically bulldoze the place where all of the evil waste took place and start anew. Most schools have squalor conditions and by contrast we work in this shiny climate controlled palace. It is really embarrassing when you think about it. Queen Arleen had this Grand "Imagine" plan. Well IMAGINE all of the money we would save. It's time to move on everyone.
Submitted by J. Freedman (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 19:53.
God bless you Earlene but your spelling is not helping the cause. The school district should learn from Furness. Getting the population down from 1200 to a manageable 600 is a major reason for the the school's academic success. Having a great principal helps too.
Submitted by Annonymous (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 21:25.
A school should not be measured by home many students in the catchment attend the school. Furness' "catchment" includes the most exclusive areas of the city (Society Hill, Queens Village, etc.) Also, people who live in the area immediately surrounding Furness generally send their children to Catholic school. If neighborhood high schools were treated like Northeast HS and had a variety of programs - including a magnet program - the demographics of the school would be more reflective of the city. Instead, Furness, like most neighborhood high schools, has lost many students to the small magnet schools started by Vallas. If it is okay for a magnet school to have 600 students, why not a neighborhood high school?
Submitted by Silver (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 22:16.
I had the tremendous pleasure of spending a year student-teaching at Furness. Almost immediately I realized how magical it was. I am now at UCHS, but I look back at that time so fondly. Furness is a model, all the pieces fit. It is not perfect, but it is an all-too-forgotten diamond in the rough.
PS, yay Felly!
Submitted by Silver (not verified) on Fri, 10/14/2011 - 22:17.
I had the tremendous pleasure of spending a year student-teaching at Furness. Almost immediately I realized how magical it was. I am now at UCHS, but I look back at that time so fondly. Furness is a model, all the pieces fit. It is not perfect, but it is an all-too-forgotten diamond in the rough.
PS, yay Felly!
Submitted by Timothy Boyle on Sat, 10/15/2011 - 09:22.
Unfortunately for a cash-strapped District, I think Philadelphia is going to have to build its way out of solving its facilities needs in South Philly. While West and North Philly might be empting, Both lower and upper south sections are growing. Fell, Key, Girard, Sharswood, Kirkbride, Smith, E.M Stanton, Meredith, and McDaniel are growing. I know McDaniel converted to a K-8, but the school isn't losing students. The capacities at a number of these schools doesn't come close to the 800 desired for K-8 for the 650? desired for K-6. The SDP could close Stanton, G. Washington/Nebinger, and Furness and would still need to extra capacity to other schools further south. 1.4M in in Transformation money is coming to Furness through SIG. That certainly doesn't fund a new building. The idea from the leaked FMP documents was to rebuild Southern and split the region between the new Southern and Audenried. It seems that at this junction (no offense to what Otis Hackney is doing at South), a new Furness closer to Washington Ave, with the same team, would be a better choice.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 14:43.
the district lies do you know that when they gave kenny gamble audenried he told the community that if u lived in the catchment area you could still go to audenried and the district said the same thing. what they did not tell anyone is that if you are a transfer student that lives in the neighborhood you can not just get in you have to apply to the school. the district now states that they have no control over what audenried does and that the child will have to go to bartram or sayre talk about lies. if they close furness the only school left for the children to go to in south philly is southern because audenried wont take them unless they apply
Submitted by Annonymous (not verified) on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 18:25.
How can Audenreid make a student apply if they live in the catchment? They are suppose to accept EVERYONE in the catchment.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 20:45.
Charters do this. Sometimes they legitimately run out of room. Sometimes they say they do so that they can control who attends. It must be nice to be a "neighborhood" school with the same admissions as a city-wide/special admissions high school.
Good thing there is still a real public school district around to educate the students the charters won't touch.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 14:37.
The School District of Philadelphia requires that ALL students fill out an application to attend a charter school -- whether they live in the catchment area or not. Even students who attended Audenried last year are required by the District to apply because the school has changed its status.
The District has limited Audenried's enrollment to 625 students. Although it has given preference to students in the area and remains a neighborhood school, it has filled its allotment according to its charter and cannot accept more students. The school has a waiting list and will admit students who have completed applications as openings become available.
Submitted by Annonymous (not verified) on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 15:35.
Then, Audenreid can NOT claim to be a neighborhood school with a catchment. It should have to accept anyone in the catchment FIRST - not students outside of the catchment. It can't be "preference" - all neighborhood students should be enrolled. Otherwise, Audenreid can dump any student it considers "less than desirable" with the argument we are "capped."
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 17:29.
Virtually all the students at Audenried this year are from the catchment area. Like the regular District schools, Audenried does not "dump" students who are disruptive; it places them in an alternative school selected by SDP where they can receive the type of specialized attention they require and the other students can continue their education undisturbed.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 18:06.
in august universal put an ad in the south philadelphia record opening its enrollment this way they would be able to take in the children from their other schools that would not have normally fed into audenried. the point is they lied and so did the district. they stated that audenried is and will remain a neighborhood school and that if you lived in the neighborhood your child could attend but its not and if your child wasnt already there you have to apply regardless if you live right across the street
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 06:34.
It is much easier for the new charters to send kids to alt ed than other district schools, judging by the extremely disproportionate numbers of them.
Also, it must be nice to say "we're full" when you reach capacity. Last year my public school ended up with double the students we had "capacity" for and they kept sending them anyway, right up until June. Some schools are below capacity but that doesn't mean smaller classes, it means classrooms sitting empty.
Submitted by Annonymous (not verified) on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 09:32.
Neighborhood schools have to go through many hoops to "place" students in alternative schools. I guess Audenreid is no longer a neighborhood school if it can "place" students so easily.
Submitted by Furness Parent (not verified) on Mon, 10/17/2011 - 23:37.
This ridiculous move by the district to sink Furness should outrage every parent that has child attending there. WAKE UP PEOPLE! Do you want your kids in South Philadelphia High? Sure Furness is old but repairs have not been done to the school in so long until Tim McKenna came on board and got the ball rolling. Now if we the parents let the so reform commision take Furness out service permenantly and feed out children into a hostile enviroment of Southern you should all report to the police admistration building for booking on child endangerment charges. Southern is like minor league Graterford prison. What other school requires the Phila police to baby sit it's student because they can't act accordingly.All I am saying Furness is a fine vernable school underused due to the district would rather funnel your tax dollars into Charter and Promise schools.Let fix a rare gem rather than lose it.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 18:16.
No one lied. Audenried is a neighborhood school. EVERYONE has to apply because it is a charter. And the kids who apply get in, up to 625 students. It is as simple as that. Come by any morning and see the students walking to school.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 06:35.
.... what was the application procedure for Audenried before it became a charter?
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 10:28.
Audenried today is a charter school. Charter schools have limits and regulations established in the charter -- application requirements and student limits among them. As you may recall, other charter schools have had legal problems when they enrolled more students than they were allowed in the charter.
If you don't like the concept of charter schools, that is a different discussion. But to say that Audenried "lied" and is recruiting outside the catchment area is simply not true.
Submitted by Rich Migliore (not verified) on Wed, 10/19/2011 - 13:51.
There is a legal issue as to whether Audenreid qualifies as a charter school under the Charter School Law. The Charter School Law mandates a apecific procedure for the establishment of charter schools and requires charter schools, among other things, to be separate legal entities with its own board of trustees.
While Audenreid is being called a charter school, it is really more of a contractual arrangement with the school district. Kenny Gamble and his organization, by agreement, was given Audeneid to operate. It is more like a contractual arrangement with an educational management organization such as Edison Schools. It is questionable therefore, whether it legally has the rights and priveledges of charter schools.
In the case of "West Chester Area School District v. Collegium Charter School," Commonwealth Court stated that the powers of management cannot be granted to a private management corporation who wishes to operate a charter school: "...that power is granted to the charter school's board of trustees who, as public officials, have a single purpose to promote the interests of pupils."
Has anyone looked at Audenreid's charter? It is a legal issue of whether a school is being operated by an educational manegement organization, EMO, or is a legally established charter school as a separate legal entity.
Because we call a school a charter school is it really a charter school under the law? You see, the issues of school governance just never seem to go away, do they?
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 10/20/2011 - 20:45.
Take what Rich Migliore says with a grain of salt...
Sorry...
But the school was on the persistently most dangerous schools list for a couple of years.
The school sux...
Don't try fool us...the school is terrible.
Submitted by Rich Migliore (not verified) on Thu, 10/20/2011 - 23:58.
Did you work there? Did you go to school there? Are you a parent there?
I was not there when they made the persistently dangerous list but I will bet it is because they dealt with the violence proactively by calling the police in. You see it is the schools who work diligently to deal with the perpetrators of violence and have students arrested when warranted which sometimes make that list. They probably made the list because they did what was necessary to keep the school safe. The schools that cover things up are the ones which sometimes escape that list.
They have a good relationship with the police department and they work with the police department on neigborhood issues that spill over into the schools. They serve a student population very similar to that of Southern and you never heard of Furness getting out of control.
I still talk with teachers there regularly and still attend their faculty affairs. They have nothing but good things to say about what is going on there. I guarantee you that if there were real problems within the school, I would know about it.
They love their principal and respect him for what he does. The AP's have the respect of the students and staff, too. I have worked with several great staffs over the years and they are one of the best. Read the comments of the students and others who have had the good fortune to work there.
Do you have a problem with a former assistant principal who loves the teachers he worked with and learned to respect them for what they do? Or am I supposed to be a teacher basher?
They are a wonderful group of people.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 02/19/2012 - 08:20.
Im talking about if i bough a laptop for ?600 would a pc of the same price be better for gaming or worse for gaming? good gaming laptops
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