Roundtable Unites Six Philadelphia Schools

We had representatives from all six of our schools (2 faith-based and 4 charter) and all 5 of the members of the Regional Council were there. Jurate Krokys, CEO of Independence Charter School, gave a fabulous presentation and tour focusing on global education and the power point created by Jenai Emmel, Director of Regional Council Development, to introduce schools to STC was very well received. The best part, from my perspective, was the discussion of where STC fits into the Philadelphia landscape -- lots of very positive comments about us. They like the fact that being part of STC means that a school as been "examined" and meets a certain standard and that it is a national organization. They are proud to hang our banner and feel that the organization will grow here and establish more of a name for itself as we go along. Everyone completed a sheet about their "strengths and needs" in the way the Chicago sheet was done. We will use that as the groundwork for our next meeting in January. GLA has agreed to host. Lastly, we discussed other schools that might be considered for membership in STC Philadelphia. Keeping in mind the goal of balancing elementary, middle and high school and also charter, religious, independent and district, we developed a long list of possible schools. The next step will be for the regional council members to review the information provided by the schools regarding the areas they are prepared to present to the group and those they have identified as needs. We will identify an area that several schools see as a need, a school that is able to provide inservice training in this area with a study tour, and structure a day when the schools will delve into this topic. In addition, we will visit Young Scholars, the only school that we have not been to see, as well as a few from the list of potential schools. As our RC is a group of five, we will need to determine the best way to divide the responsibilities among ourselves. There is a lot of activity and momentum in Philadelphia as we lay the foundation for the growth to come.