EFSC in the Business Journal

An excerpt from a Philadelphia Business Journal article about East Falls:

"Another vital item East Falls has sought is a public school where parents actually want to send their kids. "The issue for young married couples is can they use the public school," Gillespie said. The East Falls School Committee hopes to change this, too. With a new principal and an $8 million infusion for capital refurbishment, the future looks bright, especially since Mifflin School was recently selected to work toward International Baccalaureate feeder school accreditation. If accomplished, it would transform Mifflin into a neighborhood institution with magnet school academic quality."

Terry Jann Begins Her 36th Year at Thomas Mifflin School

Republished with permission from the Fallser:

No one knows Thomas Mifflin School better than Terry Jann. An alumna of Ethan Allen School, Lincoln High School, Community College, and Pennsylvania State University, she has entered many a classroom as a student, a teacher, and, currently, a School Based Teacher Leader. Living in Center City during her first teaching assignment in North Philadelphia, she craved greenery. “I came to Mifflin because there were trees,” she recently noted.

In the 1970s Ms. Jann taught first, second and fourth grades, putting her Bachelor of Education degree to immediate good use. As programs changed, so did Ms. Jann. She moved from being a fulltime classroom teacher to a woman wearing many hats. “I learned to be flexible,” she quipped. New programs, Title I funding, standardized testing, “No Child Left Behind,” and five different principals in the past 35 years, mean her institutional memory and an ability to juggle old and new tasks help keep Mifflin humming along.

Her current title is School Based Teacher Leader, so she spends time in classrooms assisting with the math curriculum. As testing coordinator, Ms. Jann is responsible for the distrubution, pickup and delivery of tests for the 265 student body. Bench Marks, which are reading and math tests administered to grades 3-8 every 6 weeks, evaluate how students are doing compared to their peers in the School District. Then there is Terra Nova in the spring, a national test for grades 1-8. Finally, as well as the “No Child Left Behind” PSSA, a yardstick for grades 5-8. Throughout the school year Ms. Jann orders materials ranging from texts to pencils to Macintosh computers.

When the School District conducts staff development training, Ms. Jann attends the sessions then does “turn around training” at Mifflin. Since she is also the liaison with local community organizations and institutions such as East Falls Tree Tenders, Medical College of Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia University she links the projects with the faculty. Probably not last, and certainly not least, she writes grants for programs to enrich the curricula.

In looking back over the past 10 years, Ms. Jann finds “the advances in computer technology amazing.” Students can go to the computer lab and immerse themselves in “First in Math” or Study Island. Both are online programs that can be accessed from any computer. Using the MACS the games modes for reading and math help the students improve their skills in these subjects. For the faculty Schoolnet provides detailed testing results which give them the opportunity to track and compare students individually and collectively. Therefore, according to Ms. Jann, they can see the students’ strengths and weaknesses and where they need to improve.

This September Ms. Jann will meet and greet new Principal, Allyssa Schmitt, a new head secretary, the start of the eight million dollar capital refurbishment, International Baccalaureate accreditation, and the raison d’etre for the school, the students. Yes, Ms. Jann is right: “Mifflin, always an adventure.”

Proposed Quantitative Performance Measurement to Gauge School/Community Connectivity

Currently, no quantitiative metric gauges connectivity between a Philadelphia public neighborhood school and its catchment area, the community[ies] in which it sits and ostensibly serves. School/community connectivity is important for a variety of reasons, including a school’s potential to be an educational, social, and recreational community center. Further, connectivity is important in that taxpayers with children are essentially customers (potential or actual) of their local school; these taxpayers/customers are justified in their expectation that the local school will actively seek out their “business” (e.g., sending their children to the school) and work to keep it over the long-term.

One measure of school/community connectivity is to track the percentage of eligible students attending a catchment area’s school. Initial measurements could serve as a baseline against which to gauge future progress/regress. Percentage metrics could be developed for the entire catchment area as well as sub-catchment areas. A more refined sub-catchment measurement would reveal how well a school’s student attraction/retention efforts are working in smaller subsets of a community/catchment area. If the percentage of eligible students from the catchment or sub-catchment area decreases over a period of time, strategies should be developed and implemented to reverse the trend. Relatedly, if sub-catchment areas are lower to being with, strategies to address particular attraction/retention issues could be developed. Creating this metric would be possible using GIS mapping and demographic data.

Note: The responsibility to establish and maintain connectivity (and maintain/increase student attraction/retention percentages) is shared among the School District, the local school’s leadership team, and the broader community. However, the School District – as the entity charged with administering the school system – must be responsible for creating the paradigm and supporting policies to establish school/community connectivity and student attraction from the catchment area as an important component of its mission.

September 7th Meeting

After taking a Summer break during July and August, the East Falls School Committee will reconvene on September 7th at 7:00 PM. We'll be meeting at our usual location at the Presbyterian Church at the corner of Vaux and Midvale in East Falls. This year promises to be our most exciting and productive, as there are so many major initiatives and changes (all positive!) moving forward. There's a new Principal, an $8 million capital refurbishment project about to begin and a march towards academic excellence and International Baccalaureate accreditation. Please come and join us; the more support we have, the more we'll accomplish.

Mifflin School Working Towards International Baccalaureate Accreditation

Thanks to a visionary School District CEO, a School Reform Commission with high standards, the East Falls School Committee's advocacy, the support of other community organizations, and individual efforts by many of us, the Mifflin School in East Falls has been selected to work towards International Baccalaureate feeder school accreditation. Check out the attached press release for more info.

The International Baccalaureate program for middle school aged students is academically rigorous and would transform Mifflin into a neighborhood institution with magnet school academic quality. The IB program stresses a holistic approach to learning through six main themes: who we are; where we are in place and time; how we express ourselves; how the world works; how we organize ourselves; and, sharing the planet. Core subject areas include: languages (including foreign language instruction), mathematics, social studies, science and technology, arts, and personal, social and physical education. For more background, check out the International Baccalaureate Program's website.

New Pre-School Program at Mifflin

The early registration period has ended but there are still a few open positions left in the Mifflin School's new Bright Futures preschool program. The Bright Futures program is free and priority admission is given to all East Falls residents regardless of income. Priority will also be given to four-year-old students (your child must be four by September 1) but is also open to three-year-old children. If you are not an East Falls resident but are interested in applying for the program at Mifflin, you can still fill out the registration form and write on the top that you would like to be considered for Mifflin’s program.

For more information, please call (215) 351-7200. Do not call Mifflin directly as it is not open during the summer months. For more info, please check out this link.

Note: There has been tremendous response to this new offering and the program is now full. However, interested parents should still inquire about openings and put themselves on the program's waiting list.