The Acceleration
Xavier Tall
The School District of Philadelphia is implementing a 5 year plan to better education all around the city. Our Vice Principal, Ms. Curry shared her thoughts on the new project, and gave us some valuable insight.
“I am very excited to see how it impacts student achievement and it is something that Philadelphia students need and deserve”.
Curry sees great potential in the program and is excited to see its impact on the overall!
^Ms. Curry image to be uploaded
“Two fold, the one that I think is the most important is to improve the safety and wellbeing of students, and if we don’t address safety and wellbeing and use trauma informed instruction and less punitive measures, our students aren’t in a position to learn and reach their academic potential.”
Ms. Curry feels the needs of certain behaviorally challenged students are overlooked, and wants to prioritize them going forward.
“There are students that truly might need more evaluation for individualized education, but there’s other students that we need to support through more therapeutic ways, those with no cognitive deficits. We need to make sure that we’re using trauma informed practices and not just penalizing students and partnering with the right support systems.”
Ms. Curry also emphasized the needs of teachers in the School District, and believes that the system can be most effective when properly staffed. The staff are the ones actually doing the work, and we need them to be prioritized as well.”
She also believes that classroom management is one of the keys to success within education.
“If we have a teacher in a classroom with no classroom management then it’s essential that we either change the classroom or give them the tools to succeed.”
Accelerate Philly shows great promise to impact the community, but these benefits may not be palpable right away. Ms. Curry believes it will take some time to properly assess how effective the system truly is.
“I think that it would take 2 years of data to see where a modification would need to be made, at least.”