Good evening everyone. My name is Karel Kilimnik. I am a retired teacher and a member of the Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools. My testimony tonight is brief with 3 questions.
Last month I asked the first two questions and was told by Chair Neff at least the first one would be answered tonight at this meeting.
My first question from the August meeting is:
What committees do each of the commissioners chair?
My second question, and I have been asking this for months now, is when will the links to the Feb. 18th, March 19th, April 16th, and May 21st SRC Action meetings be activated? These are public meetings that we, as the public, have a right to see.
My last question pertains to SRC Resolutions 2,3, and 7.
Last Spring only five new charters were permitted to open. Charters were granted to charter operators KIPP (KIPP DuBois High School); Mastery Charter School District (former Gillespie Middle School, now to be an elementary school to feed into Mastery Gratz); Independence Charter School (new elementary school in West Philadelphia); MaST Community Charter (additional campus in Lower Northeast); and Freire (new high school called Freire Tech). How can Belmont Charter, Boys Latin Charter, and Tacony Academy Charter “add facilities location” when their applications were not approved? Is this going to be the new charter school expansion policy –to simply request a new location?
Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools