Community Leader Sylvia Simms Named to Philadelphia School Reform Commission
By Mike DeNardo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- There's a change on the Philadelphia School Reform Commission: Mayor Nutter has appointed a community activist to the panel.
Mayor Nutter has appointed a former district bus attendant and the founder of the group "Parent Power" to the School Reform Commission.
Sylvia Simms, 52, of North Philadelphia, was active on the superintendent search committee last year. And she knows she has a decidedly different perspective than other commissioners on the five-member panel.
"I mean, you have to realize that most of the people that sit on the SRC are lawyers and, I'm going to say, professional people. Not that I'm not professional, but, you know, they're just higher-up people," she told KYW Newsradio today.
Simms says she'll do a lot of research quickly, as the SRC plans a March vote on the closure of 37 buildings (see related story).
Simms replaces Lorene Cary (see related story), who, for health reasons, did not want to be reappointed. The mayor also reappointed Rutgers-Camden chancellor Wendell Pritchett to the SRC (see related story).
