By Susan Snyder
Philadelphia Inquirer
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The University of Pennsylvania school, part of a network of high schools focusing on international studies, may receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding
from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The school district gave Franklin Institute a planning grant; it will purchase materials from the College Board.
There are no plans to give funds to Microsoft, University of Pennsylvania, the Constitution Center, or Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth.
The Constitution Center became involved because it wants to expand its educational role, said Richard Stengel, museum president and chief executive officer.
"We want to make it more relevant to kids' lives," he said.
The proposed school, the Academy for Law, Democracy and Civic Engagement, will open in the former Balch museum building at Seventh and Market Streets, which
the district is leasing. It will start in September 2006 with a freshman class of 100 and grow to 400 students.
The center will serve as a base of learning and might offer students internships and teaching roles.
The Franklin Institute's Science Leadership Academy will focus on "the business side of science," as well as the "entrepreneurial nature of people who work in the
sciences," Savitz said. It will be based at 2130 Arch St., in a building previously used for district offices.
While those schools are still in planning, Parkway-Northwest, a magnet high school in Mount Airy, will change its focus this fall to the study of the discipline of peace
and social justice. The nonprofit Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth proposed it as an alternative to the district's recently opened military high school.
Principal Ethyl McGee said the school, which has not yet been renamed, will offer classes and seminars on social issues, social development, leadership and global
topics. Students, she said, will communicate with counterparts in other countries via videoconferencing.
The district is still in early talks with the College Board, which wants to put an academically rigorous program in up to three small high schools in the city. The
organization, whose program readies students of all ability levels for college, runs two schools in New York and will open three there in the fall.
"We put in programs that will get them where they need to be," said Peter Negroni, the College Board's senior vice president for kindergarten-through-12th-grade
education.
If the plan goes through, Ben Franklin High at Broad and Green Streets would be converted into the first site in September 2007, said Gregory Thornton,
Philadelphia's chief academic officer.
The two other College Board schools likely would not start until 2008.
District officials anticipate intense competition for enrollment in the new schools, especially the Microsoft model.
The Microsoft school will take 75 percent of its students from the neighborhood, using a lottery if more apply. The rest will come from a citywide lottery.
Marsha Brown, Home and School Association president at West Philadelphia High, said she hopes all the new schools primarily serve neighborhood families. She also wants more state-of-the-art schools built in all regions of the district, with input from parents and students.
"These are absolutely great options," she said. "But more information and involvement for parents is needed."
