Education Law Center

Newsletter | June 2014

Ashley Sawyer Joins ELC as Stoneleigh Emerging Leaders Fellow

The Education Law Center is pleased to welcome Ashley Sawyer to our Philadephia office as the 2014-15 Stoneleigh Emerging Leaders Fellow.

Ashley is a recent graduate of Howard Law School. During law school, Ashley interned at The Advancement Project, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and HIV Law Project.

Her fellowship will focus on the education of students in delinquency placements in Pennsylvania, specifically on assisting students with disabilities, and collaborating with the Defender Association of Philadelphia, Juvenile Law Center, and others to work on both systemic changes and individual advocacy.

Welcome Ashley!

In addition, ELC would like to recognize the outstanding leadership of outgoing Stoneleigh Foundation Executive Director Cathy Weiss and welcome Ronnie Bloom as the new executive director.

ELC's Nancy Hubley named to the Pennsylvania Advisory Committee on Homelessness

Congratulations to ELC's Nancy A. Hubley, Managing Director of the Pittsburgh office, for her appointment to the state's Advisory Committee on Homelessness.

It's a recognition of Nancy's work on behalf of school-age and preschool children experiencing homelessness -- as well as recognition of ELC's continuing role on this issue.

The Committee was formed to continue the work of state's Task Force on Homelessness, which ELC helped to establish.

Read the Task Force Report

What we do know: More school nurses are needed to protect our children

An op-ed from ELC Attorney Maura McInerney that appeared on the Philadelphia Public School Notebook website.

Maura McInerney, thenotebook.org - May 28, 2014

Our hearts go out to the family, friends, fellow students,and teachers of Sebastian Gerena, the 7-year-old boy who died at Andrew Jackson Elementary last week. In the absence of a school nurse on duty (a nurse is present only on Thursdays and every other Friday), school staff called 911. We know they did everything they could with the resources they had to respond.

This is the second tragic death of a child in a Philadelphia school that lacked a full-time nurse on duty in the last eight months. We know that the health and safety of Philadelphia's students has been and will continue to be in peril because lack of funding forced the elimination of more than 100 school nurse positions, leaving a current total of 179 nurses to serve 179,000 students.

Read the complete op-ed

at ELC's annual event on September 17th at the Crystal Tea Room.

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