DBFA board members travel to Philadelphia to learn more about parents’ success in impacting local schools and neighborhoods

On Tuesday, May 11, DBFA Board President Judy O’Brien and Board Member Erin Karpewicz spent the day in Philadelphia touring the General George A. McCall School, a successful downtown neighborhood K–8 school. The afternoon was spent meeting representatives of the William Penn Foundation and the Center City District and Central Philadelphia Development Corporation.

As part of the school visit, participants met with parent leaders and school officials and learned about how committed parents—with strong support from the Philadelphia schools superintendent, the CPDC, and the business community—were able to garner additional resources to improve McCall, while successfully marketing the great educational opportunities it offers to middle- and upper-middle-income families, who were previously underrepresented at the neighborhood school. O’Brien and Karpewicz were particularly impressed at how the school, which offers Chinese (Mandarin) classes, a “cybrary”—a top-of-the-line computer lab—racial and income diversity, a walkable neighborhood location, and extensive arts and after-school programs, was successful in promoting itself via a parent-created website, through the CPDC website and school fair, and by word of mouth at the playground and through cocktail parties.

The visit ended at a meeting with Paul Levy, president and CEO of CCD/CPDC, and William Penn Foundation staff. Mr. Levy’s organization has long recognized that one important key to a viable and thriving downtown, especially for its housing market, is attracting and retaining middle-class families. Commitment to this goal was the impetus for the Kids in Center City Initiative, which built and maintains an extensive website on school and children’s programming resources for families downtown. As part of the initiative, CCD/CPDC devoted extensive resources to helping McCall and other Center City schools market themselves as schools of choice for families of all incomes, as well as direct resources toward improving schools. Today, Philadelphia has the third largest residential downtown in the country, including parents who are choosing to stay and raise their children in the city.

The visit was coordinated and sponsored by the Goldseker Foundation, and included representatives from other Baltimore organizations, including Baltimore City Schools, Healthy Neighborhoods, Greater Homewood Community Corporation, and Neighborhoods of Greater Lauraville, Inc.

For more information on the McCall School, visit the parent-created website at http://www.meetingmccall.com or the school website via the CPDC site at www.centercityschools.com/McCall.