Dozens of Students Prepare to Walkout of South Philly High School

Dozens of students have committed to walking out of South Philadelphia High School due to on-going concerns for their safety. A meeting on Friday with District officials did not satisfactorily address their concerns, students said. Instead, the students will be spending a week working on their own plans and conducting research and study as well as meeting with community and district leaders.

They will meet at a Chinatown location during school hours. Student leaders have requested that police and school district officials respect students' ability to travel during this time. In addition, students put out a call for assistance for Mandarin and Vietnamese translators and for contributions to help pay for the cost of the students' transportation as well as meals during this time. Contributions may be sent to Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (215-922-6056) or Asian Americans United (215-925-1538).

Statement by Wei Chen, president, South Philadelphia High School Chinese American Student Association:

It is our opinion that South Philadelphia High School is still not a safe place for us. Because we are Asian immigrants, we are targeted. We have been working with the school a long time, but still the school has failed to provide a concrete plan to address our safety inside and outside the building. 

We remain very upset with some staff members who are unresponsive to our concerns. We have been saying repeatedly that the security team has problems, but the School District still has not responded to our concerns. One staff person even slept through our meeting last Friday.

Because of that we will not return to South Philadelphia High School this week. Instead, we are going to meet in our community to figure out some real solutions of our own. Dozens of students have already committed to meeting during school hours. We ask the police and school district to recognize what we're doing and respect our ability to travel between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.

We invite concerned students from all races to contact us if you want to join.

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