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Hope Moffett is not a politician but conducts herself with as much aplomb as an established officeholder.
The third-year English teacher at Charles Y. Audenried Sr. High School, 3301 Tasker St., has executed three weeks of civil disobedience opposing the School District of Philadelphia’s plan to allow Universal Companies, 800 S. 15th St., to convert her institution into a charter. Citing two elements, the district has enacted a course to terminate her employment.
A resident of the 1000 block of Christian Street, Moffett wonders why the district feels Audenried is a lackluster academic school in need of joining the Promise Neighborhood Partnership.
“I don’t like being put on a failing schools list; these students are not failing,” she said.
A look at testing figures, or the lack thereof, proves Moffett correct. Following the 2005 destruction of its old space, Audenried opened a $55-million facility in September ’08. Its 419 students in ninth through 11th grades, have not yet taken the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment, a test for third through eighth and 11th graders.
Moffett, who next week would have begun to administer the tests to juniors, received a letter detailing the district’s decision to recommend her termination Monday. Yesterday, she learned that as early as today, the need for her services may evaporate although the School Reform Commission would need to approve the decision.
News of her probable dismissal reached the native Californian, who has been stationed at Strawberry Mansion High School’s “rubber room,” a location for personnel awaiting rulings on alleged wrongdoing, since Feb. 18.
“What I do is driven by what I feel is right,” Moffett, who studied at Utah’s Brigham Young University before moving to Philadelphia in ’08, said.
Since learning Universal would manage Audenried, Moffett has questioned the claims the school is fledgling.
The school’s 84 percent daily attendance rate trails the district’s mark by 3 percent, and predictive testing estimates Audenried’s PSSA scores will place 39 and 37 percent of takers at mastery or above level in English and mathematics, respectively, according to district statistics. Those figures would be 9 percent higher than the district’s average in each area and would reflect massive improvements since the students last tested as eighth graders.
“I do not feel the district is trying to sabotage children, but I do feel it has underestimated the community,” Moffett said, referring to the district’s lack of soliciting communal input.
She began her civic engagement in earnest Feb. 15, giving a student leader transit tokens that transported pupils to a protest outside the district’s headquarters. Two days later, a terse letter informed her of her need to report to what many know as “teacher jail” and to keep her situation quiet. Published reports have included district critiques of her actions, but Moffett revealed she received her assignment before acknowledging the token distribution.
Seeing the document as a “straight-up gag order,” she avoided playing a church mouse. Taking the provision of tokens and the disclosure of its discipline as affronts, the district instituted a series of meetings.
“The situation screams irony,” Moffett said, considering the district’s curriculum contains a section on civil disobedience. “You wanted me to teach it, but you didn’t want my students to believe in it.”
Under Universal’s leadership, Audenried and Edwin H. Vare School, 2100 S. 24th St., would become two of the 18 schools in Year II of the Renaissance Schools Initiative, and staff members would have to reapply for their jobs. Not entirely opposed to charters, Moffett applied with Universal Feb. 16, the same day she attended a reform commission meeting to unleash her gripes that she sees as inspiring her employer’s wrath. Two days later, she began serving the district’s version of a prison sentence.
Had she obeyed the instruction not to disclose her whereabouts, she would have returned to her classroom after a brief detention, she said. Battling the district’s top decision-makers imperiled her, but she is not betraying her convictions.
“I teach bell to bell. It was inevitable students would improve,” she said.
One of only two of seven Moffett children to graduate high school, she feels her background made teaching at the once-dubbed “Prison on the Hill,” the perfect situation.
“These students should feel they deserve more,” she said, adding she has thrice met students for Sunday brunches since her departure. “Because I have been with them from the beginning, I have felt I have much more of a role in helping them to define the culture of Audenried.”
Only months away from the tenure she would have received for three full years of service, Moffett has had ample support from the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. She stated repeatedly she has not disrupted the district’s plans to show concern for the students’ welfare.
“They began their careers with drama,” she said of their not receiving books until a month after the school’s opening. “They don’t need to be caught up in further chaos.”
Moffett, who has already updated her résumé, will immediately begin looking for other jobs if the district fires her. Having applied with Universal gives an indication of her belief that its founder Kenny Gamble could assist Audenried, but she questions why the district feels he should.
“The district’s message is that this is a done deal,” she said.
However, the reform commission must vote on the situation, and she hopes the public attention will cause a stir among its members. Neither the district nor Gamble would comment, but Universal and district representatives will field questions 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday at the school.
With her students days from testing, she feels they will secure admirable scores. As for her lasting effect, she made obvious how much the learners mean to her.
“They have chosen to have a voice,” she said of student presence at rallies and calls for district transparency. “They are better people for it.” SPR
Contact Staff Writer Joseph Myers at jmyers@southphillyreview.com or ext. 124.
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