johnnymk
12-20-2005, 04:13 AM
By Susan Snyder Inquirer Staff Writer
When he saw two female students ignoring a school police officer's command to stop, South Philadelphia High School principal Kevin King took off in fast pursuit.
"If she asks you to stop, you stop!" King admonished when he caught up with the girls, both 15, a couple floors below. He directed the girls to a nearby classroom, where they joined others nabbed in a midday crackdown on what seems to be the course of choice for some students: "hall-walking."
Educators say that hall-walking - avoiding class and wandering around the building - is disrupting education at the city's largest schools, eating away at morale, and leading to a deterioration in student behavior.
Hall-walking students hang in bathrooms and talk. They knock on classroom doors, make faces at teachers, and vandalize. They hang in large groups, and alone, and they curse and assault staff members who confront them. Sometimes, they're not even students at the school, but are on campus to settle a dispute.
"These hall-walkers, these chronic cutters, are just like a total cancer to the system," said Mary Branigan, a French teacher and union representative at George Washington High in the Far Northeast. "When I grew up and kids cut, they didn't go to school. These kids are cutting and roaming the halls."
Her class was interrupted on Thursday when a group of seven males charged through the hall, followed by a school police officer, she said.
Some school personnel also report hallway "stampedes," in which large groups of students sprint down a hall.
"Have you seen the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain? That's what this is like," said Patrick Panikowski, an English teacher and union representative at Fels High in Oxford Circle.
Despite traditional remedies such as "hall monitors" and "hall sweeps," hall-walking remains a problem faced by many school systems across the country, said Ken Trump, president of National School Safety & Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting firm.
And it has worsened as principals under pressure to raise test scores have chosen to employ more educational staff at the expense of security, he said.
Paul Vallas, Philadelphia schools chief executive, said the district spends more on security now than when he arrived but noted that hall-walking remained his "biggest headache."
"You have the kids who aren't attending class and the kids who are arriving to class late," he said. "And you also have overage underachieving kids, who are just marking time when they come to school."
Vallas said the district is sending veteran principals into its large high schools to recommend improvements. Northeast High principal Kelly Barton and Ozzie Wright, principal of a district military academy, are spending three weeks at South Philadelphia High, helping King, who is new to the district. Last year, he was an assistant principal at Avon Grove High School, in Chester County.
The district, Vallas said, may hire private companies to manage noneducational operations in some schools.
When he saw two female students ignoring a school police officer's command to stop, South Philadelphia High School principal Kevin King took off in fast pursuit.
"If she asks you to stop, you stop!" King admonished when he caught up with the girls, both 15, a couple floors below. He directed the girls to a nearby classroom, where they joined others nabbed in a midday crackdown on what seems to be the course of choice for some students: "hall-walking."
Educators say that hall-walking - avoiding class and wandering around the building - is disrupting education at the city's largest schools, eating away at morale, and leading to a deterioration in student behavior.
Hall-walking students hang in bathrooms and talk. They knock on classroom doors, make faces at teachers, and vandalize. They hang in large groups, and alone, and they curse and assault staff members who confront them. Sometimes, they're not even students at the school, but are on campus to settle a dispute.
"These hall-walkers, these chronic cutters, are just like a total cancer to the system," said Mary Branigan, a French teacher and union representative at George Washington High in the Far Northeast. "When I grew up and kids cut, they didn't go to school. These kids are cutting and roaming the halls."
Her class was interrupted on Thursday when a group of seven males charged through the hall, followed by a school police officer, she said.
Some school personnel also report hallway "stampedes," in which large groups of students sprint down a hall.
"Have you seen the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain? That's what this is like," said Patrick Panikowski, an English teacher and union representative at Fels High in Oxford Circle.
Despite traditional remedies such as "hall monitors" and "hall sweeps," hall-walking remains a problem faced by many school systems across the country, said Ken Trump, president of National School Safety & Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting firm.
And it has worsened as principals under pressure to raise test scores have chosen to employ more educational staff at the expense of security, he said.
Paul Vallas, Philadelphia schools chief executive, said the district spends more on security now than when he arrived but noted that hall-walking remained his "biggest headache."
"You have the kids who aren't attending class and the kids who are arriving to class late," he said. "And you also have overage underachieving kids, who are just marking time when they come to school."
Vallas said the district is sending veteran principals into its large high schools to recommend improvements. Northeast High principal Kelly Barton and Ozzie Wright, principal of a district military academy, are spending three weeks at South Philadelphia High, helping King, who is new to the district. Last year, he was an assistant principal at Avon Grove High School, in Chester County.
The district, Vallas said, may hire private companies to manage noneducational operations in some schools.