naked
the thebellcurve
city
CP’s Quality-o-Life-o-Meter
[ + 1]
FormerDaily News/Philly Mageditor Larry Platt, with help from author Buzz Bissinger, launches news website the Philadelphia Citizen because all other Philly journalism institutions “are broken.” Which is blogger-talk for “fired me.”
[0]
The “Southwest Philly Tire Slasher” faces up to 308 years in jail.Assuming he’s immortal. If not, he’ll probably be buried once he’s dead.
[ + 1]
A legal reform summit in Washington, D.C., praises Philadelphia’s efforts to climb out of its “judicial hellhole” regarding tort reform. Which is a little like congratulating a broken clock for not stabbing anyone.
[0]
Ninety-six-year-old philanthropist and millionaire Raymond Perelman says he would like to buy the Inky, Daily News and Philly.com. “And then once they’re all out of business, I’ll probably retire.”
[ + 1]
[0]
[0]
Addressing the Pennsylvania Conference for Women at the Convention Center, Hillary Clinton says it’s time to smash the glass ceiling. Long story short, they marched on the Kimmel Center and the orchestra got rained out. A Common Pleas Court judge rules that the Inquirer’s legal troubles regarding the firing of editor Bill Marimow should be settled in a Philadelphia court. “Preferably in front of an audience.And there should be clowns on unicycles, and lion tamers, and trapeze artists and a guy just sitting there with a slide whistle, ready for anything.” Forty-two people are arrested and $12,000 in drugs are confiscated at three Phish shows in Atlantic City. A white guy with dreadlocks slumped over an empty bong inside a zorb has an epiphany. “Holy crap. This music is terrible. Like, god awful. Why would anyone want to listen to a solo this long? Also — didn’t I come here with a girlfriend? Maybe I should go back and finish my thesis.”
This week’s total: 3 | Last week’s total: -9 6 | P H I L A D E L P H I A C I T Y PA P E R |
BOOK SMART: Temple student MaryKate Higgins (left) and Tree House Books afterschool coordinator Lauren Macaluso Popp organized volunteers to get the library at the Tanner Duckrey School into working order. SAMANTHA MELAMED
[ education ]
SHELF HELP An army of volunteers wants to help reopen shuttered school libraries. Could it really be as simple as that? By Samantha Melamed
P
rincipal Tracy Scott isn’t sure when Tanner Duckrey School at 15th and Diamond in North Philly last had a librarian, or a functioning library. There hasn’t been one in her eight years working there. And a glimmer of hope that arose last year, when library services staff came by to offer improvements, quickly faded: When Scott called to check on that plan, she learned those staff had been laid off before it could be implemented. In the end, she says, the library “became sort of a dumping ground.” While many were outraged to learn this fall of library closures at magnet schools Masterman and Central — an anonymous donor quickly put forward $205,000 to reopen them — at smaller neighborhood schools like Duckrey, this has long been the status quo. Now, though, a corps of volunteers organized by the Free Library and various nonprofits is streaming into a number of underresourced and disused reading rooms around the city with a plan for reinvigorating and reopening them. The project, which began over the past few weeks and which the Philly School District (PSD) considers to be in a pilot stage, is focused on schools that took on hundreds of students and dozens of crates of reading materials from the
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24 Philly public schools that were shuttered in June. Whether this initiative can evolve into a sustainable, volunteer- or teacher-run library program in schools like Duckrey is another question — particularly as all parties try to avoid rankling a union already coping with the layoffs of thousands of members, including teachers, counselors, assistant principals and, yes, librarians. Philly public schools now have a total of 11 librarians, down from 43 last year. “We’re not looking at replacing librarians,” says Kenneth Manns, director of volunteer services for the Free Library, which he says took on the effort as a “labor of love” after library president Siobhan Reardon learned about the layoffs and about the challenges facing newly merged schools. “Our goal as far as the library is concerned is not making it a full-fledged, check-your-book-out library. We’re looking at getting the rooms open as reading rooms to support literacy initiatives across the city. We hope the kids will have a library experience during the day.” The PSD is starting with eight schools, from a list of 27 that requested aid. Work is already under way at Blaine Elementary, which received students and 200 boxes of books and furniture from the shuttered Leslie P. Hill School, and at Ben Franklin High, according to Olade Olayinka. A project analyst for the School District, Olayinka is monitoring the efforts to see how or if they might be replicated.
“The library became sort of a dumping ground.”
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