The new principal of Strath Haven High School has been a teacher, a basketball coach, and an assistant principal, as well as a school counselor. But the counseling feels central to his 20-plus years as an educator. “As a leader, you need to understand people,” Hilden says. “People need to be heard.”
A COVID-19 summer feels a lot like floating. Every day is basically the same as any other day. Little things, like weekends not feeling particularly special anymore, and big things, like the all-too-familiar fight for Black lives in the face of injustice, are so consistent that 2020 is starting to feel like one long-ass day. We are reminded daily that a global pandemic isn’t enough to stop or even pause systemic racism. But COVID is also not enough to stop activism.
Recent changes to Pennsylvania’s election law have left many voters confused about how to obtain mail-in and absentee ballots, whether or not to mail them back, or where to go to vote in person. The League of Women Voters of Central Delaware County (LWV-CDC) will host a virtual discussion, “Election Law, Process and Security,” on Friday, September 11, at noon.
In the summer of 2018, when my brother Charlie and his friend, Walter Clauss, were 15 years old, they rode their bikes to the Jersey Shore. It was a quick day trip, but it felt like an adventure — especially to their parents. As soon as they got back, these adrenaline-chasing teenagers were ready for their next big thing. “We should bike to Florida!” they told each other. “We should” quickly became “We are going to,” much to the amusement and disbelief of friends and family. The boys’ trip now had a name: “Ride for the A’s.”
As Swarthmore College readies itself to begin its fall semester on Monday, President Val Smith has announced that the campus is now closed to visitors. In an open letter to community residents, Smith explained that the college is inviting approximately 700 students — mostly first-years and sophomores — back to campus for a shortened fall semester. “Although outdoor spaces are generally considered safe,” Smith wrote, “with nearly 700 students, as well as a significant number of faculty and staff, on campus, maintaining social distancing will be much harder than it has been over the past five months.”
This is not the year they were imagining. This is not the year any of us was imagining. And as our community confronts the gap between what we had hoped for this school year and what it has turned out to be, a question keeps coming up. When will we get back to normal?
The Swarthmore Planning Commission unanimously voted to disapprove the sale of the Delaware County Regional Water Authority (DELCORA) to Aqua Pennsylvania at their meeting on August 26. DELCORA, a public wastewater management utility, has proposed to sell its assets and responsibilities to the private, publicly traded corporation. Aqua PA has offered $276 million in a no-bid deal. Commission members voiced a range of concerns about the sale.
Swarthmore’s Planning Commission approved plans to subdivide the property at 686 N. Chester Road into two parcels at a nearly three-hour meeting on August 19. The vote was 10 to 1, with commissioner James Levine voting no.
The Racial Literacy Initiative (RLI), a new organization started by Strath Haven High School students and alumni, is petitioning for an African American Studies course to be added as a graduation requirement at SHHS. RLI was founded to help shift the culture in a school district its members say hasn’t done enough to fight systemic bigotry. They see the course as one tool for fighting racism and promoting equity at the high school. The Wallingford-Swarthmore School District has recently put more focus on issues of race and equity, with the formation this summer of a district-wide committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
The Swarthmorean’s publishers’ note on the virtual reopening of Wallingford-Swarthmore School District Schools (August 21 issue) provoked much discussion on our website (plus a few letters to the editor). We’re always pleased to host thoughtful discussions of important local issues. Here are the (lightly edited) comments we have received as of August 31.
At the intersection of Cornell and Harvard, I found Swarthmore Public Works employee Rob Walters and foreman Cuzzy Rowles. In baggy sports shorts, their short-sleeved shirts covered with yellow safety vests, they were banging with a sledgehammer to open a manhole sealed over when the street was last paved. The sewer line was clogged, and they had gotten a call to fix it.
I’ve been writing these postcards to give those who have little experience of senior living an idea of what it is like to actually live in a place like Plush Mills. We have our rhythms and our rituals. Little did we know that — suddenly last spring — our lives would be turned upside down.
Local author Judy Schachner has written eight books for children about Skippyjon Jones, a cute Siamese cat with enormous ears who thinks he’s secretly a chihuahua. If you would like to read along with Schachner, the entire catalog of Skippyjon Jones books is available at Swarthmore Public Library for contactless pickup. Library materials can be requested online.
Inspired by his then 9-year-old daughter, and undergoing a spiritual awakening, Cory Long founded Team MAC — a grassroots mentoring program — in 2004. MAC stands for “making a change,” and over the last 16 years the program has evolved into an effective and far-reaching nonprofit, now called Making a Change Group (MAC Group). Its goal is to mitigate the challenges of growing up in a city with high rates of crime, poverty, unemployment, and underemployment. Through mentoring sessions that focus primarily on social and emotional learning, Long and his team aim to prove to Chester’s youth that they are more than a reflection of the troubled city where they’re growing up.
As September looms, we find ourselves on the verge of a new public crisis. The Wallingford-Swarthmore School District and its superintendent, Lisa Palmer, are sacrificing our kids’ educational and psychosocial wellbeing under the guise of keeping our community safer. The school board’s recent decision to start school virtually – a state of affairs that looks likely to continue indefinitely even if Delaware County’s case count data remains steady — will have adverse consequences for a generation of children. Specifically, it will worsen inequalities in ways that may reverberate for decades.
Traffic on Fairview Road, Swarthmore’s response to the sale of the county regional wastewater management company, and accessibility were the main topics of the month’s sole Swarthmore Borough Council meeting on August 10. The meeting was (virtually) packed, with 26 people in attendance, including 16 residents of Swarthmore and Ridley.
The first Sal’s Barber Shop opened in Plymouth Meeting ten years ago. Pretty soon, owner Sal Giannone opened two more. He has repeatedly won Best Barbershop and Best Children’s Haircut in Montgomery County, as well as Entrepreneur of the Year. With clients coming from as far away as Delaware for cuts, he decided to open a fourth shop in Delco at 415 Dartmouth Ave.
Big-time pollsters repeat the same question from survey to survey in order to see how opinions change over time. So with this Unscientific Survey we decided to do the same. Back in April, we asked readers, first, how long they predicted it would be till the pandemic-influenced changes receded and things returned to a state of relative normalcy, and, second, once that did happen, how life would be compared to before the virus hit.
Most people of a certain age knew Gus Kaffes of Swarthmore as the gregarious proprietor of the family-owned Village Restaurant, where he was also the cook. The restaurant was located in the space where Aria now stands and the old Co-op building stood. What they probably didn’t know about Gus, who died August 8 of natural causes at 90: he was voted best dancer by his Eddystone high school class, served as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force (where he earned two medals), and his real first name was Constantine.
