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Background
Sayre High School has made headlines in the recent years for having an exceptionally hotter indoor temperature than any other school in Philadelphia and a contentious fight over the school's pool which is considered by many to be a community staple. This negative press could lead many in Philadelphia to write off Sayre as just another “underperforming” school with no context as to how Sayre is part of a larger history of racialized and spatialized trauma enacted by the city of Philadelphia on West Philadelphia.
Source: Dyan Castro
In 1985 the Philadelphia Police Department was dispatched by then Mayor W. Wilson Goode Sr. to arrest members of the MOVE organization who were living in a house on the 62nd block of Osage Street (just a few blocks from Sayre High School). MOVE’s mission was grounded on Black power and environmental justice. They demonstrated often against police brutality, animal cruelty, and industrial pollution. Mayor Goode deemed them a terror organization due to their radical politics, previous violent engagements, and several neighbors had called the police to complain about trash around the house the organization was living in. Consequently, police approached the residence to arrest the members. MOVE members denied police entry and police then took the drastic step of dropping military grade explosives on the roof of the residence and a fire burned the building to ashes. While some residents of the house survived, six adults and two children were killed in the attack. 65 houses in the surrounding area were destroyed by the fire that spread leaving 250 people homeless.
Another traumatic event occurred in the area at the hands of the Philadelphia Police Department in the fall of 2020. The preceding summer saw massive protests around the country against police brutality stemming from the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. There was a heightened sense of awareness around the disparities in policing across cities in the United States, and this disparity played out in real time when the Philadelphia Police Department showed up to Wallace’s residence in the Cobbs Creek neighborhood (again mere blocks from Sayre High School and the MOVE bombing).
The family has stated they wanted medics to come as Wallace was experiencing a mental health crisis, but police proceeded to draw their guns at Wallace as he exited the residence. Wallace’s mother attempted to intervene between police and her son but the two officers fired seven shots at Wallace and he was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. No charges were filed against the officers.
Why We Are Doing This Project
Penn is one of the many university city planning departments around the world that have studio classes where students are presented with a real world problem and tasked with creating solutions. Our problem was how can we help Sayre become an anchor institution of Cobbs Creek?
We also sought to assist internal and external communication flows regarding existing resources. Our resource guide is meant to buttress work being done by a Landscape Architecture studio looking to improve the physical conditions of the gravel courtyard in the middle of the school.
Source: Dyan Castro
Source: Dyan Castro
Lastly, this work comes at a time when the city of Philadelphia is proving to be adversarial to teenagers. In the past year, the city has passed a curfew, restricted unsupervised access to the mall after 2 pm, and banned ski masks with threat of a fine up to $2,000. Many businesses have policies of no one entering their business with a backpack on. With only a few green spaces surrounding Sayre, and odd library hours (this has, thankfully, recently changed), Sayre students are left without third spaces in a city that is criminalizing them because of the actions of others.
What is a
third space?
A third space is a place that is not work or school where you can hang out with friends and other community members. Cafes, libraries, arcades, parks, roller and ice skating rinks, and bowling alleys are a few examples of third spaces.
In our engagement with students from the school we found that they still have desires of a better life and hope for the future. The teachers and administrators have expressed to us how deeply they care about the students as well. Sayre has not given up, so neither should we.
In fact, we are not inventing any resources, we are just amplifying work that is already being done. We ultimately hope this information hub can contribute to Sayre students’ dreams beyond high school with resources on job training, advocacy tools, and college information.
Source: Mimi Tran
Sayre High School
Existing Conditions
As mentioned, Sayre High School is located in the Cobbs Creek a short distance away from two of the most prominent acts of racialized violence by the city. While the legacy of these events is surely felt throughout the entire city of Philadelphia, it is quite literally close to home for Sayre students and faculty, and the school’s neighbors.
Overpolicing persists in the area as Cobbs Creek residents represent a disproportionate number of those stopped or arrested by police compared to the city as a whole. More directly affecting Sayre High School, the School District of Philadelphia currently only spends 6 percent of its $4 billion budget on public high schools like Sayre.
The school’s building is located at 59th and Walnut and within short walks of two subway stops and several business corridors. Many bus lines are also situated either on the same street as the school or nearby streets, making the school largely accessible to the rest of Philadelphia.
While Cobbs Creek is a lush park just to the west of Sayre High School, the area directly surrounding Sayre lacks adequate green space. Our analysis found that while there is greenery surrounding Sayre, it is often not tree cover or grass and often shrubbery which does not do a ton to mitigate heat. This makes the area surrounding Sayre particularly susceptible to heat as the area is on average 7 degrees hotter than the rest of Philadelphia. The landscape studio’s courtyard project seeks to address this with added greenery included in their plans.
Trauma Informed
Planning
We entered this project with a mantra of not reenacting further trauma. We had to contend with the idea that we are part of the elite Ivy institution that is hoarding resources from communities like those at and surrounding Sayre High School. We also wanted to be cognizant of the history of racialized violence and poverty in the area, and intended to do no harm. A major aim of this studio was to blend some key principles of social work with city planning. In particular the two principles of a “strengths-based approach” and “centering lived experience.”
We sought not to focus on the trauma (more so recognize its influence) and build up the strengths of Sayre. Further, we did not want to be prescriptive with our project and lose focus of what students and staff at Sayre expressed as their desires.
Lastly, almost of half of Sayre High School’s student body has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), a federal program designed to address the needs of students experiencing severe mental health challenges or intellectual disability. We could not ignore that these students often experience trauma in an even harsher way than others, and the heat of the school and the area could only exacerbate this issue. But again, in our engagements we found that staff were powerful advocates for all students (including those with IEPs) so we sought not to reinvent the wheel, but bolster efforts already happening.
We hope we completed this project alongside Sayre, not for them, and helped contribute to healing the damning impacts of trauma on the community.
Community
Engagement
A key part of developing this guide was engaging with the people of Sayre High - students, teachers, administrators, and more. We needed to understand what the community thinks of their school and what they hope their school could be. This is only the beginning of the engagement with the Sayre – as the school-community plan progresses, planners should build upon what we’ve heard to create a plan guided by the community itself.
Source: Dyan Castro
Steps to Engagement
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Who do we need to engage?
We wanted to hear from all of the people who interact with Sayre every day: Teachers, administrators, counselors, Netter Center, health center representatives, and students - the people who know it best.
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Source: Dyan Castro
What are goals for engagement?
We wanted to gather information from the Sayre community on the different areas that affect students and their ability to do succeed in school. We looked at areas like facility improvement, workforce development, and more.
Source: Dyan Castro
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How do we want to engage?
We conducted interviews with the teachers and staff from Sayre, asking them about the conditions at the school and their hopes for the students.
While it was important to hear from school leadership, it was equally important to talk to students.
We went to Sayre on three separate occasions in November 2023 to meet with students. We centered our engagement activities around art, which made the engagement more casual, letting student express their thoughts and feelings authentically.
Scroll to see the three engagement activities we did with students or click the numbered buttons:
Netter Center
Joe Brand
Dr. Brian Weston
Sayre Climate Manager
PromiseCorps
RaDya Hennie
Larry Kendrick, Imani Dixon,
Nana Aviah
Health Center Community Outreach Team
Clinical Coordinator
Suzanne Anderson
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Engagement #1
1
We wanted to get a preliminary idea of how students feel about school and their space in the community. Breaking the activity up into two parts, students first wrote how they felt then drew.
Part 1: We asked the students to respond to the three big questions.
Part 2: We asked the students to draw how they get to school and where they spend their time.
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Click through to see examples of students’ work
Engagement #2
2
We took the information that we heard from Engagement #1 and narrowed the discussion down to how they feel about school. Again, we broke the activity into two parts.
Part 1: We asked students to write words that describe how they feel at school.
Part 2: We asked the students to create a collage to show how they think Sayre could be improved.
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Click through to see examples of students’ work
Engagement #3
3
For our final engagement, we wanted to bring elements of all the activities together. We asked students to create a collage to show what they hope the outside of Sayre, inside of Sayre, and classrooms could look and feel like.
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What did we learn
from engagement?
Our engagement with the Sayre community revealed common themes for both the issues and opportunities within the school. Students and staff also provided their recommendations for how to improve school conditions.
Teachers & Administration
Challenges
Opportunities
Communication
Breakdown
Student Ambition & Entrepreneuralism
Lack of Teacher &
Student Morale & Support
Available Classroom
Space for Activities
Limited Staff
Capacity & Space
Many Potential
Community Partners
School Infrastructure
Concerns
Invested Teachers
& Staff
Safety &
Security Concerns
Students
Challenges
Opportunities
Students Feel
Close-Knit
Student Community
Mixed Opinions of
Teachers & Staff
Students Want Diverse
Learning Opportunities
Sports & CTE Unavailable
to 9th Graders
Few Affordable or
Appealing Food Options
Class Schedule
Inflexibility
Students Want More
Variety of Activities
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Student Ambition &
Entrepreneurialism
Recommendations
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Recommendations
Professional Development
Develop personal finance classes
Establish mentorship and internship program with local professionals
Establish skills training to hire for positions within Sayre
Offer career technical programs to students earlier
Create opportunities to promote students’ creative entrepreneurialism
Source: Dyan Castro
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Recommendations
School Infrastructure
Create an open space during non-school hours
Create a space for students to rest at school
Provide bus to transport students after school activities
Invest in school beautification and sustainability
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Source: Dyan Castro
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Recommendations
Staff Support
Develop clear channels for internal communication
Hire additional staff to lead school programming
Build staff capacity for grant applications
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Source: Dyan Castro
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Recommendations
Student Support
Improve school lunches and add more food options
Invest in school spirit like with a yearbook or pep rallies
Offer more sports and arts activities to students
Increase variety of classes (i.e. music, languages)
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Source: Dyan Castro
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A U G U S T
Phase 1:
Background Research
This studio project was developed out of existing research on Trauma Informed Planning. Conducting a thorough literature review, we delved into the educational landscape of Philadelphia, with a specific focus on the school district and planning for schools. By synthesizing this information, we gained a solid foundation for our research, allowing us to formulate informed strategies and recommendations tailored to the unique context of educational planning in Philadelphia.
S E P T E M B E R
Amanda Peña, LSW
Chief Operations Officer, Youth Development and Mental Health Consultant
acpena44@upenn.edu
First Site Visit
Our first visit to Sayre helped us understand the physical conditions of the school. The uncomfortable heat in the summer, the asbestos in the basement, and the need for electrical improvements framed the requirements of the students. At Sayre, we met with Joe, the Site Director for the Netter Center’s involvement at Sayre. We were brought up to speed on existing projects at Sayre such as the community garden. We also had the opportunity to connect with the Landscape Architecture students who are working on the courtyards’ redesign, to round out our understanding of existing conditions of the school.
Joseph Brand
Site Director, Sayre University-Assisted Community School
jbrandr@sas.upenn.edu
O C T O B E R
Existing Conditions Report
We compiled our current research into a comprehensive presentation for educators in West Philadelphia, seeking their valuable feedback to pinpoint potential gaps in our studies. This collaborative effort allowed us to validate our existing research, gather insightful feedback, and identify key areas of focus as indicated by the educators. The process not only validated our findings but also provided valuable insights for future research endeavors.
O C T O B E R
N O V E M B E R
Phase 2:
Outreach and Engagement
San Francisco
Our research trip to San Francisco aimed to explore youth engagement and community planning. Connecting with local experts, we gained valuable insights, recognizing the city's innovative approach as a model for collaborative strategies in involving the younger generation in urban development.
Source: Emmy Park
Source: Mimi Tran
Source: Samriddhi Khare
Trauma Transformed
We attended a Trauma-Informed Systems training at Trauma Transformed. Trauma Transformed advances trauma-informed and healing-centered system changes through community- and cross-system collaboration. We learned tools and methods that focus on creating healing environments, policies, and practices that mitigate the impact of stress and trauma. We also met with Ray’Von Jones, an educator and Dream Beyond Bars Manager working in Oakland. She spoke about her experience as an activist and educator and spoke about the need for streamlining resources for students. This helped form the idea of our resource plan.
Ray’Von Jones
Educator and Dream Beyond Bars Manager
rjones@curyj.org
Center for Cities + Schools
For more than two decades, CC+S has been at the forefront of inviting children and youth into the core of city planning, aiming to enhance local decision-making by fostering inclusivity and community-driven initiatives. We studied their renowned educational strategy, Y-PLAN (Youth – Plan, Learn, Act Now), and how it empowers young individuals to engage in genuine civic projects, catalyzing impactful change within their communities.
Deborah McKoy
Center for Cities + Schools, Executive Director, PhD and MPA
debmckoy@berkeley.edu
A key part of developing this guide was engaging with the people of Sayre High - students, teachers, administrators, and more. We needed to understand what the community thinks of their school and what they hope their school could be. This is only the beginning of the engagement with the Sayre – as the school-community plan progresses, planners should build upon what we’ve heard to create a plan guided by the community itself.
Connecting with the Health Center
The team at the Sayre Health Center, with Penn’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships, is working in collaboration with the Healing by Design studio to study the impact of the courtyard on the social determinants of health, such as social interactions and education. They are also researching the ethics of engagement.
N O V E M B E R
D E C E M B E R
Phase 3:
Developing the Guide
As we collected data and methods from these various sources, it became increasingly evident that a singular, comprehensive resource guide on all things Sayre does not exist. The large amount of time we spent doing outreach and engagement is a testament to the dearth of accessible, easy-to-understand school details and characteristics.
We had previously heard from educators that such a resource would be a valuable tool for activists and educators alike. So we started developing it across 6 distinct areas of focus: Health and Wellness, Home Improvements, School Improvements, Transportation, School and Social Resources, and Workforce Development.
As we collaborated with Sayre, understanding our limitations became essential in addressing the inherent constraints in the process. Though we wanted to explore all these categories, with our constraints it was only possible to do justice to our focus areas of .
We also went through multiple iterations of this guide and it’s organizations, and have made every attempt to optimize this resource for ease of use and accessibility.
Source: Samriddhi Khare
Source: Samriddhi Khare
Source: Samriddhi Khare