Agreed. That matches my understanding of the outcome of the design process-that all parties agreed that some form of "smaller"-mini-schools within a larger campus arrangement-was desirable.
The school district still needs to be able to educate roughly the number of students presently being taught at West Philly High, in some reasonable proximity to the current location. So-I'm not expecting to see the present large institution replace by a single much smaller entity-but I believe that they will try to create multiple schools within some larger framework. What that will look like, and how well it will function, we've yet to see. _____ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2007 11:20 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [UC] RE: West Philly High re recent violence there In a message dated 3/13/2007 11:02:37 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I think that whether the current building could be renovated as an alternative to building a new building from scratch is a reasonable debate to have. It still has nothing whatsoever to do with the subject of this thread. I attended the press conference cum community meeting. One thing came out in favor of a new building, with which I'd be hard-pressed to disagree. That's the idea that smaller high schools tend to do better than the more traditional larger versions. Paul Vallas cited some evidence -- granted anecdotal -- about the improvements they've seen when they converted Middle Schools like Sayre into small high schools. If this is the purpose, to create a smaller West Philadelphia High School that won't just be a replacement for the present institution, it puts the issue into a different category. Always at your service and ready for a dialog R brand resident and housing provider, Al Krigman _____ AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's free from AOL at <http://www.aol.com?ncid=AOLAOF00020000000339> AOL.com.
