Safe Schools Campaign 2005

Posted by on February 4, 2005

ISCV Launches Safe Schools Campaign for 2005

The Institute for the Study of Civic Values has launched a “Philadelphia Safe Schools Campaign,” for 2005, in partnership with the School District, the City of Philadelphia, and a broad coalition of community groups.

The principles, program, and strategy for the Campaign are set forth on a new web site:

http://www.safeschoolsphilly.org

The broad aim of the Campaign is to reduce youth violence and violence against young people throughout the City–with a special emphasis on 14 Schools Listed as “Persistently Dangerous” by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: Bartram, Clemente Middle School, Fels, Frankford, Germantown, Kensington, King, Lincoln, Olney High, Overbrook, Shallcross, Vare Middle School, and West Philadelphia High.

We are also focusing on schools in the Central Region–Strawberry Mansion, Gratz, William Penn, and Fitzsimons especially–to insure that they don’t *return* to the “persistently dangerous'” list this year.

The principles of the campaign are set forth in the “Safe Schools Social Contract” that the Institute negotiated between the School District, community organizations, and City agencies last summer.

There are three major goals set forth in the ten-point Social Contract:

*to build strong school/community/student support for the “Code of Student Conduct”
*to implement programs like Safe Corridors that can prevent youth violence; and
*to fight for an adequate system of programs to help those who create problems in our schools move in a positive direction.

The SafeSchoolsPhilly Web Site sets forth the 10 principles of the Social Contract and provides links to the programs that address each one of them. We will add to these resources as we learn about them.

This campaign is already underway.

A Youth Safety Coalition in Frankford is working to implement a Frankford Youth Safety Social Contract that we negotiated last spring, representing a strong partnership between the schools in Frankford, City agencies, and community groups serving Frankford.

A Central Region Social Contract, negotiated with strong sponsorship from the School District’s Central Region Office, has established the framework for a similar coalition in North Philadelphia.

Now the Institute is working to develop Youth Safety Coalitions based on the city-wide social contract in every School District academic region of the City–with special emphasis on the persistently dangerous schools.

On Martin Luther King’s Day of Service, we were able to create a strong relationship with the groups working around King High School and we made progress with Germantown High, Bartram, Vare and Fels as well.

If you want to become involved in the Philadelphia Safe Schools Campaign, fill out the form on the home page of the web site and we’ll add you to the PhillySchools list, where we will be keeping participants in the campaign updated on our progress.

And as part of this effort, we will be keeping participants in Phillyblocks and other neighborhood updated on how they can help the Philadelphia Safe Schools Campaign throughout the City.

Ed Schwartz, Institute for the Study of Civic Values, 1218 Chestnut St., Rm. 702, Philadelphia, Pa. 19107 215-238-1434 edcivic@libertynet.org