Hanukkah 2009 is now history, Santa and the reindeer have landed on our roofs,  Kwanzaa began Saturday and the Three Kings will arrive next week. These celebrations allow us time to reflect  on the true  meaning and intent of these special events and to better ourselves and our world. I would like to share some reflections regarding the events of October 29th at Frankford High School  and what  meaning  we can find in this event.

We go to school to learn. Many question what our children are learning and how well they are learning it. But off to school they go. Rules and laws should be in place to protect us. But sometimes things go terribly wrong. PA law mandates that children must attend school between the ages of 8 and 17. However, in Philadelphia, the starting age for mandatory school attendance is 6 years old. There are those, for whatever reason(s), do not regularly attend school and are labeled as truant. The PA Department of Education defines truancy as any unexcused absence from school. Truancy has been cited as a BIG problem in the School District of Philadelphia schools. To address truancy in its schools, the School District of Philadelphia has implemented a plan called ATIPS (Attendance and Truancy Intervention and Prevention Services). If you read the details of this plan, “police stop students who are on public streets or in/around public areas between the hours of 9:00 AM and 11:30 AM every (non-holiday) weekday during the regular school year. The officer first asks for documentation and checks the student’s identification to confirm the student’s name and assigned school. If the student does not have documentation, s/he is escorted to their home school, the nearest age-appropriate school or to one of the district’s Truancy Support Centers.” So the goal appears to be to get students to their schools to learn.

Here’s the scoop regarding the outcome of the investigation! Stopped one block from school, this student admitted he “mouthed off” to the officers by telling them he was already late and continued to walk the one block to school instead of getting in the van that would have taken him to school anyway. Lesson #1 – Let us be respectful in our dealings with each other – old to young – young to old and everyone in between. Our encounters should be positive experiences.

The officers followed the student to school. Once he entered the school, “the student was held down by one officer while another officer beat him.” Lesson 2 – Those with authority can never, ever abuse it. Power doesn’t give any person or country rights over another. The more power you have, the more restrained you must be when using it.

A Frankford High School staff member witnessed this incident and he wrote an email to the School Superintendent asking that the truth be heard. It has been. Lesson #3 – We must act with courage whenever the rights of one of us have been violated. It takes great risk to stand up to right a wrong but exercising our courage will help us do that.

Lastly, all involved in an incident like this are victims. The innocent deserve justice – the guilty need our understanding and help, too! Lesson #4 – we need to be sure those that work with our young people are well-trained and have the necessary skills to deal with the daily stresses and challenges they face.

Learning lessons from such events can help to prevent them in the future. These are the lessons we want to teach our young.

From Christopher Wink:

Frankford won’t much miss me. That I know.

This neighborhood has been shaped for hundreds of years, thousands more, I suppose, when including Lenni Lenape men and women walking some form of Frankford Avenue. My time here, by comparison, has been simply inconsequential. Forty thousand people or so live here now, in varying states of fighting for, bettering, worsening, surviving and loving the gateway to the Northeast. I’ve just been one, but I’ve enjoyed my 13 months here enough that I hoped I might mark its conclusion.

I settled into the third floor of a big, renovated duplex on the 4600-block of Penn Street in November 2008. I wanted an affordable, culturally significant neighborhood independent of Center City but a short transit trip away. I’ve had that and leave with a sense of appreciation for Frankford.

I’ll miss being able to walk to the always welcoming and warm Frankford Library and around the corner to the hidden museum that is the Historical Society of Frankford. There are a dozen big, beautiful houses I’ll miss passing by, many of them chronicled here, including my favorite home in all of architecturally over-endowed Philadelphia. I’ll miss the chicken steaks from Leandro’s — no, not the original, but the one nearer and friendlier to me in my time here. I’ll miss playing basketball and the occasional lager at Billy’s Chili Pot.

I only lived in Frankford for 13 months. I must have called the cops 50 times and walked down those Margaret-Orthodox station steps twice that. I’ve sat on stoops with neighbors and took my bicycle along nearly all the streets of Frankford — by the great, big manses west of the avenue and the rowhomes to the east.

Of course, as people often say, this goodbye has no sense of finality to me. I’ll continue working with Frankford High School’s journalism club, and I’ll be around Frankford, Northwood and other civic meetings in my contributing capacities with NEast Philly, a hyperlocal news site for the Northeast.

But I know it’s not the same. Frankford is a neighborhood, perhaps even more than most in Philadelphia, that craves an authenticity that is hard to replicate outside of those boundaries around the creek, Torresdale, Castor and Cheltenham avenues. For whatever it’s worth, though, I’ll always see myself as a friend to Frankford. A year isn’t long enough to claim to know a neighborhood well, but I know it a little better.

I gave my landlord the keys and walked out of that one-bedroom apartment for the final time last week. I left for my El trip home thinking that there’s a fracture here in Frankford, one that also exists, to greater and lesser degrees, in the riverward neighborhoods that also share that rumbling, elevated mainstay. Some have argued that that big, dusty, blue train helped break the communities that existed here in the early second half of the 20th century. Today there are signs of departure from that. There are signs that the very same El that helped bring blight and drugs and crime will begin to bring another generation of communities that will hope to rebuild all the parts of Philadelphia its reaches.

Frankford will not be rebuilt tomorrow. But I’ll just be short El trip away to see that process unfold.

Christopher Wink is a freelance journalist. Earlier this month, he moved into his first home in Fishtown. You can see more of his work on his professional site here.

There is no doubt, we will be hearing his name again.  Good luck Chris.

• Frankford Garden Club trip to Longwood Gardens
  When – Sat, December 12, 3pm – 9pm

  Where – Bus departs Griscom and Orthodox Streets (map)

  Description – Trip to Longwood Gardens on Saturday December 12- $5 for Garden Club members, $12 for adult guests, $6 for children guests! The Bus will leave from Griscom and Orthodox Streets at 3:00 pm, arriving at Longwood around 4pm – we will return by 9pm
• 23.5 Credits Workshop
  When – Tue, December 15, 10am – 11am

  Where – Frankford High School, IMC Room (Library), 1st Floor 5000 Oxford Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19124 (map)

  Description – Come and learn: • What subjects your child needs to take each semester? • What are the numerical values that are assigned to each subject? • What are your child’s options if they failed a subject? • And more….. Presenter: Ms. Barbara Hutchins FHS Roster Office DATE: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 TIME: Session I 10:00 a.m. or Session II 6:00 p.m. R.S.V.P. to: Ms. Patricia O. Green Parent and Community Ombudsman Email: pgreen@philasd.org (215) 537-2519 extension 1343
• Frankford Garden Club Holiday Party
  When – Tue, December 15, 6:00pm – 8:30pm

  Where – Wissinoming Park (map)

  Description – For Garden club members and their invited guests.
• Northwood Civic Association Meeting
  When – Tue, December 15, 7pm – 8pm

  Where – St. James Lutheran Church, at Castor Avenue and Pratt Street. (map)
• Italian Style Family Dinner
  When – Wed, December 16, 4:30pm – 8:00pm

  Where – St. Joachim’s Church, 1527 Church Street, Phila., PA 19124 (map)

  Description – MARK YOUR CALENDAR Every Third Wednesday from September thru May Italian Style Family Dinner The Dinners will be served from 4:30 PM to 8 PM in Fitzmaurice Hall Take-out will be available. COST: $8.00 for Adults, $4.00 for Children. Come Join us!
• Pictures with Santa
  When – Sat, December 19, 9am – 12pm

  Where – Dream Girls, 4601 Frankford Avenue, 2nd floor. (map)
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Frankford High School is sponsoring a workshop on what students need in order to graduate from high school. Did you know that your child must accrue 23.5 credits? Do you know how many credits your child has? Come and find out about this and more by attending the “23.5 Credits Workshop” at the High School’s IMC Room (Library) on the first floor on Tuesday, Dec. 15. There are 2 sessions for your convenience – 10:00 AM or 6:00 PM. June is too late to find out your child lacks the necessary credits. When you go, be sure to ask about FamilyNet, the School District’s parent information website where you can keep up with your child’s grades, attendance and to keep informed about their progress. Your active involvement is the best Christmas present. Refer to the following flyer for contact information regarding this workshop.

We first linked to this story on November 3, 2009. The incident is truly unfortunate and while it is still being investigated, many questions remain about what actually happened. However, this young man faces charges of assault at an upcoming hearing. We hope his lawyer is successful in postponing this hearing until the questions are answered and witness accounts are fully heard. Please read more of this story here. Thank you!