The Philadelphia school district has formed a commission to find ways to reduce violence in the classrooms of city schools, including decreasing the number deemed “persistently dangerous” under the No Child Left Behind law and helping implement recommendations from state safety audits on 25 dangerous schools.
Officials say the effort is spurred in part by what they call “the recent surge in youth violence, school violence, ethnic intimidation, flash mobs, and ‘catch and wreck’ assaults on citizens.”
The district has a list of 46 schools that are deemed persistently dangerous, are trending that way, or used to be considered dangerous. Although only 17 percent of students attend them, the 46 schools account for half of all suspensions and almost half of all violent incidents and nearly three quarters of all students expelled.
