Serious incidents of student violence and misconduct are down 10 percent in Philadelphia public schools, the School District of Philadelphia reported last week, and Penn's efforts with area students may be making some of the difference.
The district recorded 2,604 incidents ranging from assaults to drug and alcohol offenses between Sept. 1 and Dec. 31, down from 2,911 incidents during the same time period in 2004.
Penn works with University City High School, viewed as a hotbed of student violence, and the Penn-Alexander School, which teaches students from kindergarten through eighth grade.
Penn's Center for Community Partnerships allows volunteer and work-study Penn students to offer academic and extracurricular assistance to students of UC High, which school district spokesman Vincent Thompson said "has had a long-standing reputation of being a place of bad student behavior."
"There have been multiple [instances] of kids getting into fights," said College sophomore Emma Hall, organizer of UC High Community Night, a semi-weekly after-school collection of arts and educational activities for students.
Hall noted, however, that preventative measures have successfully reduced instances of misconduct.
"Thanks to the security being around, [students have] gotten used to the rules that we have in place, and they've been less likely to break" them, Hall said.
She added that "I've never felt unsafe" at UC High.
Penn plays a large administrative role in the Penn-Alexander School, a partnership between the district and University.
Penn "helps with the safety and security programmatically because it works with the teachers and the administration on creating a program and a climate of learning," said Ann Kreidle, the planning coordinator of the Penn Partnership Schools program, which helps run Penn-Alexander.
Current University initiatives at Penn-Alexander include providing $1,000 per pupil to reduce class size and curriculum advice through the Graduate School of Education.
Penn-Alexander recorded only one incident of misconduct for the entire 2004-05 school year, and it has enjoyed a federal ranking of Adequate Yearly Progress for the last two years, Kreidle said.
As to the citywide trend, Thompson said, "We're using technology and we're using human capital to improve violence and safety."
Thompson cited the installation of over 900 security cameras in its 60 most troublesome schools and the assignment of at least one police officer to every school as crucial to the recent reduction in violence.
He also stressed the importance of community cooperation in ensuring the safety of public schools.
"The school district cannot change student behavior by ourselves," Thompson said.
"The University of Penn and the school district have been great partners in the current administration," said Thompson. "We have a good working relationship together."
