Tag: Education

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What is Happening to the Old Y

Stories have been going around for a couple of months about the fate of the old Y.  I was able to confirm that the deal to sell it, so far, has not been done.  Cleaning up on the premises is being done by the board of directors of the Y.

The proposal is for the Sankofa Freedom Academy Charter School (now located at 4256 Paul Street) to move into apartment buildings at 1336 Arrott Street and use half of it as class room space.  The second part is that they would also buy the old Y building and use it as well. That would provide gymnasium, pool and a lot of additional space.

The school does not have sufficient space at the present location for their ongoing expansion so a move is seen as a necessity.  Keeping the school in Frankford is also a good thing.

We’ll post an update as soon as we hear of any new developments.

 

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Frankford High School

Since we have had some discussion about Frankford High recently, I’m posting this link to “The Notebook” article on Rightsizing Philadelphia High Schools.  This paragraph is the most relevant to Frankford.

Frankford High is another example of a big high school (1,800) that is at or over ideal capacity (99 percent compared to the ideal of 85 percent) and in bad physical condition (66 percent FCI). The surrounding community is among the fastest-growing in the city, but almost 63 percent of the families opt out of Frankford to attend another high school. One of Frankford’s feeder schools (Smedley Elementary) is already a Renaissance charter, and two more (Edmunds Elementary and Harding Middle) are on the Renaissance alert list. District officials have hinted on multiple occasions that they may be trying to steer new charter growth to this part of the city. As part of a larger strategy to ease the pressure at Frankford, could there be a new high school charter option, perhaps as part of the Renaissance process, for the lower Northeast?

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Philadelphia Community Arts Network Summer in Frankford

The Philadelphia Community Arts Network (PCAN) announced that its summer six week 2011session will begin Monday, June 20th and end Thursday, July 28th. Individual music instruction on piano, guitar, saxophone, and drums will be available for only $14.00 per lesson. Beginner’s Art, Cartooning, Dance/Hip Hop and Theater classes cost $65.00 for the entire six weeks. Summer is a great time to see if your child has an interest in, or talent for the arts. Ages for students range from six to seventeen. Classes are held at the St. Mark’s Episcopal Church at 4442 Frankford Ave..  Free parking is available. For more information call the art center at:

215-694-1248 or e-mail us at: pcartsnet@aol.com

See our previous post here on this program.

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Frankford Friends Spring Fair

Frankford Friends had their annual Spring Fair last Saturday, may 14th.  The weather looked threatening but the rain held off until the festivities were pretty much over.  The Fair is a very family friendly event as you can see from the video.  In addition, there was the ceremonial groundbreaking for the new school building as only the Friends will do it.  Nearly everybody got to throw a spade of hard earth to symbolically start the construction.  I trimmed the video for length so it is only a little over four minutes long.