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Margaux Munnelly, principal Mastery Charter School-Pickett Campus in Germantown, uses the hand sanitizer station in the hallway. (Dale Mezzacappa/Chalkbeat Philadelphia)
This article originally appeared on Chalkbeat Philadelphia.
Sharon Brewer is getting the chance to spend at least some of her senior year in school, in person.
It didn’t come a moment too soon.
“I was doing terrible at home,” she said.
Same for her classmate, Parris Boyette.
“It’s the best thing that happened to me,” said Boyette, a 17-year-old basketball player, about returning to school in person last month. “My grades are going up, I’m understanding more. When I was home, I was not paying attention. Here, I’m paying attention.”
13 hours ago
“What happened in my high school experience was a very important moment for me to change my mind about what new immigrants can do to change our lives, change our community,” Chen said.
Going to school in fear
When they arrived in this country, Tong and Chen landed in the peculiar institution of the American neighborhood urban high school, where the most vulnerable children often are concentrated together and then denied what they need to thrive. New immigrants from all over the world interact with students from marginalized groups who have their own history of oppression. At the time of the attacks, Southern had a student body of more than 800 students, which was two-thirds Black and nearly a quarter Asian, with a small but growing Latino population and a handful of white students.
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Teachers resist as schools are slated to resume in-person teaching
“We would very much love to be back in the classroom, but we re feeling like under the conditions that are being offered, it s just not a safe plan,” said Nina Wallbach, a pre-K teacher at Southwark School in South Philly.
Photo by Melissa Komar.
Philadelphia teachers took to the streets last week to protest the School District of Philadelphia’s decision to return to in-person learning for students in grades pre-k through second grade starting Feb. 22. More specifically, the school district decided to switch over to a hybrid learning format, where students in the eligible grades will attend class in-person two days a week, on assigned days only, and engage in digital learning the remaining three days.