Betty J. Wilson, 92, of Cherry Hill, celebrated longtime South Jersey teacher, singer, poet, mentor, community advocate, volunteer, and two-time chapter president of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc., died Thursday, July 16, of cancer at her home.
Mrs. Wilson taught elementary school students in Bordentown, Bridgeton, and Mount Laurel from the early 1960s to the late 1990s, and served as two-time president of the Mount Laurel Teachers Association. She was named one of the country’s top teachers in 1972 by the old Outstanding Teachers of America Association and told the Courier-Post: “Children are our most valuable asset. If we don’t give them the proper training early, there’s not much chance for the future.”
Her family called her “dynamic and outgoing” in a tribute, and her daughter, Saundra Umstead-Capers, said: “She was a born leader and had a commanding presence.”
Mrs. Wilson championed discipline and parental participation in school and at home, and told the Courier-Post: “Most of our children are allowed to talk first and ask too many questions before complete directions are given. … If the child is used to directives, he won’t resent authority. And in life, we all have to take directions from someone else no matter who we are.”
She represented Mount Laurel teachers during sometimes contentious contract negotiations with Board of Education officials and helped improve teacher benefits and job protection through the New Jersey Education Association.
She joined Alpha Kappa Alpha in 1953 at what is now Virginia State University. Later, she cofounded local AKA chapters in Cherry Hill and Voorhees, served as two-time president of the Theta Pi Omega chapter in Cherry Hill, and was recognized by national AKA officials for her contributions.
Friends called Mrs. Wilson “a phenomenal woman” and “a beautiful, smart, professional woman” in online tributes.Courtesy of the family
The theme of her sorority presidency was service, scholarship, and Black American heritage, and she helped establish social service, public speaking, and scholarship programs. “Her presence,” sorority colleagues said in an online tribute, “will be profoundly missed.”
As a singer, Mrs. Wilson had a soaring soprano voice, and she took lessons in high school and college. She performed on a local TV station in Western Pennsylvania when she was young and sang with a traveling choir in college and for the school president.
She also wrote poetry for years and acknowledged the one-year anniversary of the 1999 death of her husband, Wilbur Wilson, by writing in 2000: “Your legacy stays with us and shall always light the way/We thank God for your presence and your sharing every day.”
She lobbied locally for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s, and volunteered with the Rancocas Valley chapter of the Links and the South Jersey chapter of the Continental Societies. She served on the education committee at Evergreen Baptist Church in Palmyra and tutored the children of many church members.
In online tributes, friends called her “a phenomenal woman” and “a beautiful, smart, professional woman.” One friend said: “She impacted so many lives, especially the students she taught.”
Betty Jane Atkins was born April 6, 1934, in Library, Pa., about 12 miles south of Pittsburgh. The oldest of nine children, she was an honor student and the lead singer in every musical during her years at the old Snowden Township High School.
She attended Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Library, earned scholarships to attend college, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education at Virginia State.
Stylish and sophisticated, Mrs. Wilson was a popular figure on the college campus. She was selected by the football team to represent it on their homecoming float in 1953, and she served as the school’s Miss Valentine in February, Miss Apple Blossom in the spring, and Miss ROTC.
She was an engaging storyteller and, her daughter said, “a lot of fun.”
“Sister Wilson embodied the ideals of an Alpha Kappa Alpha woman,” sorority colleagues said, “elegant, poised, and gracious.”
In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Wilson is survived by a granddaughter, three sisters, a brother, and other relatives. Two sisters and two brothers died earlier.
Visitation with the family is to be from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 7, at Boyd Funeral Home, 1458 Mt. Ephraim Ave., Camden, N.J. 08104. Services are to be at 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 8, at Evergreen Baptist Church, 602 W. 3rd St., Palmyra, N.J. 08065.
Donations in her name may be made to Evergreen Baptist Church, 602 W. 3rd St., Palmyra, N.J. 08065.
“This year has tested our community in ways none of us anticipated,” Scriven said in a resignation letter released by the district. “I have come to believe that the district is best served by a fresh start under new leadership, and that stepping aside now is the right and necessary step to allow Cheltenham to move forward.”
The resignation is effective immediately.
“The board has accepted Dr. Scriven’s resignation, and we thank him for his dedicated service to Cheltenham public schools,” school board president Leah Mulhearn said in a statement. She said Cheltenham’s director of business services, Joshua Sweigard, would serve as acting superintendent, pending a vote by the board at its next meeting Tuesday.
After canceling last year’s football season in October amid hazing allegations, the Montgomery County district announced in January that an investigation it commissioned had concluded that a “student-on-student” assault occurred on Sept. 3, witnessed by nearly 20 students.
The district failed to uncover that an earlier assault had occurred in August, Montgomery County prosecutors said. A grand jury report characterized the district’s investigation as flawed from the beginning, saying employees were dismissive when the 15-year-old victim’s mother reported on Sept. 7 that he’d been assaulted, and had wrongly taken the team’s head coach, Terence Tolbert, at his word that he didn’t instruct the boy not to tell his parents.
The employees included Tolbert. who was among the coaches charged with endangering the welfare of a child and conspiracy, “in every step” of their investigation, according to the report.
Scriven responded in a statement last week, saying that Tolbert wasn’t involved in planning the investigation. The superintendent said that “every report brought to the district’s attention was addressed based on the information available at the time.”
He didn’t respond to a number of questions about other failures alleged by the grand jury, including that employees were confused about mandatory reporting requirements, and that five football coaches lacked state-required clearances for completing training on reporting child abuse.
Football parents have also expressed frustration with the district’s response to the assaults, which also led to the cancellation of the upcoming season. Some told the Inquirer this week they urged Cheltenham not to hire Tolbert due to alleged bullying during his tenure as Abington’s coach.
In May, the school board had expressed its support for Scriven, sending a community message that acknowledged “concerns around safety and student conduct” that had challenged the district.
“Five years ago, the board invested in Dr. Scriven and his vision for the district. We continue to support him and his vision. He is a strong strategic thinker,” the board said in the May statement.
“Serving this district has been one of the greatest privileges of my life,” Scriven said in his resignation letter Thursday. He said he was “deeply proud of the work we accomplished together, and I remain hopeful for Cheltenham’s continued success.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the year that Brian Scriven graduated from Cheltenham High School. He graduated in 1983.
Cheltenham Superintendent Brian Scriven resigned Thursday, a little more than a week after prosecutors charged four football coaches and six players in connection with violent assaults against a player last season in a high school locker room.
The superintendent’s resignation, effective immediately, came amid community outcry over the district’s handling of the August and September 2025 incidents, which prosecutors say both involved students attacking a 15-year-old and using a broomstick to poke at his buttocks.
Yet the district did not uncover that there had been two assaults, and administrators appeared to downplay a report from the 15-year-old’s mother, according to the Montgomery County grand jury that recommended the charges. It described a “level of incompetence” in the district that “put every young man on the football team at risk.”
Some parents who have been battling the district to take student safety more seriously said Scriven and his administration did not fail only in overseeing the football program.
“I see a complete lack of urgency,” said one mother who has been among a group of parents pressing the district since October to address violent incidents at Cheltenham Elementary School. The mother, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation for her child, said administrators still have not answered questions about how students are disciplined and how others are supported after assaults.
Another Cheltenham Elementary parent, Shanyl Jones, said her daughter, an incoming second grader, twice experienced sexual touching and comments in school. In kindergarten, a boy repeatedly touched her against her will, conduct that escalated to him grabbing her vagina, Jones said.
The boy also made sexually explicit comments to her daughter, Jones said. She reported the conduct and filed a Title IX sexual harassment case; the school moved the boy to a different classroom, she said.
After a separate boy made sexual comments to Jones’ daughter in first grade, the principal called Jones and apologized, though the boy was not moved to a different classroom, Jones said.
News of the football charges “just tore me up on what my daughter’s future would be in the school system,” Jones said. “It gave me no assurance they’re going to be able to reconcile what’s happening now.”
Scriven said in his resignation letter Thursday that “this year has tested our community in ways none of us anticipated.”
“I have come to believe that the district is best served by a fresh start under new leadership, and that stepping aside now is the right and necessary step to allow Cheltenham to move forward,” he said.
The district has not commented on how else it plans to respond to the explosive grand jury report released last week, which described the response of several employees at the high school — identified only as Employees #1, #2, and #3 — as minimizing an assault reported by the 15-year-old’s mother, and trusting the word of the head coach, Terence Tolbert, that he had not instructed the student not to tell his parents what happened.
The district did not respond to questions this week about its hiring of Tolbert — who was among the four coaches charged — including whether it had sought references from Abington, which cut ties with him after one year as its head football coach. Some parents of football players told The Inquirer they had “pleaded” with Cheltenham administrators not to hire Tolbert, whom they accused of allowing bullying during his tenure at Abington Senior High School.
Nor did the district respond to questions about whether it would take action against any employees, including those described in the grand jury report.
The Cheltenham High School vice principal whom the mother said she had reported allegations to, Mark Hoff, was named vice principal at Wyncote Elementary last month.
The grand jury report “details very troubling questions about the management and operation of the district’s athletic programs, including the football program,” school board president Leah Mulhearn said in a statement this week. “Our highest priority is the safety and welfare of the children we serve.”
Mulhearn, who did not address questions about Cheltenham Elementary in the statement, said the board was “focused on conducting a comprehensive review of the grand jury’s findings, including our policies and practices related to athletics, as the first step in implementing measures to ensure that no such conduct ever occurs again at our schools.”
The district has said a Title IX investigation into the allegations will soon be finished, with possible discipline for students. Two 18-year-old players charged as adults — the other four were charged as juveniles — have already graduated.
Community members are closely watching the school board’s next steps. Sharif El-Mekki, a nationally known Philadelphia-based educator who runs the Center for Black Educator Development and previously led Mastery Shoemaker Charter School, called on the school board in a letter to apologize to the victimized student and commission an independent investigation into the district administration’s conduct.
“Every student in Cheltenham, every teacher, every parent, and every young leader in Montgomery County is being taught something right now by how the district is responding,” El-Mekki said.
‘Environment of ongoing chaos’
Cheltenham Elementary parents said they raised concerns to administrators last October, after they heard from their children that a student touched another student’s penis sexually in class, over his clothes, in view of classmates.
Some initially did not believe it. “We would have been told about it,” said one mother, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation against her child.
Parents began talking to one another to confirm what happened. Other parents and students told them the same child had been involved in previous sexual incidents, two mothers said.
A group of parents sent an email on Oct. 3 to ShaVon Savage, then the district’s assistant superintendent, saying they had recently learned that a student “touched another child sexually during class time” and that the child had been involved in “multiple sexual incidents over the past few years.” They asked to be notified about instances of physical or sexual assault.
In the email, shared with The Inquirer, they also asked for additional supervision and counseling for students with behavioral challenges and described an “environment of ongoing chaos” at the school, which last year served a larger number of students with emotional support needs than the district’s other three elementary schools.
Savage wrote back 10 days later, saying she needed more details “to conduct a full and thorough investigation,” according to an email shared with The Inquirer. She also said that when a situation poses a “threat to a particular school community,” the district would communicate with parents, but could not share details about particular children due to federal privacy laws.
Savage met with some parents in early November and said she would visit the school — though parents were unsure whether she did, the mothers said.
Their concerns escalated when on Dec. 5, a Friday, the school’s principal, Stephanie Junod, was assaulted by a student, according to the mothers.
That night, Scriven, the superintendent, sent an email to school parents, informing them that “while Ms. Junod was attempting to de-escalate a situation with a high-needs student, she was struck in the head by their thermos.” Scriven said the principal was “expected to make a full recovery.” Junod could not be reached for comment.
Scriven said central office staff would be at the school the following Monday “to begin implementing additional measures to strengthen safety and provide more comprehensive support for students who require additional behavioral interventions.”
Brian Scriven has resigned as superintendent of the Cheltenham School District.Courtesy of Cheltenham School District
The mothers were angry that the district had not already been providing that support. Around the same time as Junod’s injury, they said, there was an assault on a student, and “at least two” against staff members, one of the mothers said.
Parents had a meeting scheduled with Savage for Dec. 15, but administrators pushed it to January, one of the mothers said.
Scriven met with parents on Jan. 8 and apologized for not treating their concerns urgently enough, according to the mother, who said Scriven also assured parents that “the football situation had been handled.”
“Obviously, that was a lie,” she said.
Scriven met with them again on Feb. 25 and said changes would be made, including putting a behavioral specialist at the school four days a week, according to the mother.
Scriven did not mention that Junod would be resigning, the mother said — a decision announced shortly after the meeting.
‘Slow to respond’
Problems at the school continued.
On March 26, parents said, a student assaulted five staff members — including punching one in the face — in view of other children. Police came to the school.
The district did not immediately notify parents. But Scriven sent an email to the school community the next day, reporting that “an emotional support student had an episode during which he eloped from the building and engaged in physical altercations with a number of staff as they were trying to de-escalate” the situation.
“While I cannot share individual student consequences or placements, I can assure you that this situation is being addressed with the highest level of seriousness and urgency,” Scriven said in the email.
In an email the next day demanding a meeting with administrators, one parent wrote: “The frustration among parents has reached a boiling point.”
“Information is simply not being shared, and critical questions regarding the safety and education of our children are being ignored,” the parent said in the email, which one of the mothers shared with The Inquirer.
Scriven responded to the parents on April 14.
“I understand the urgency of your concerns and sincerely apologize for the delay in providing a comprehensive response,” Scriven said, in an email the mother shared with The Inquirer.
Scriven said the school’s new principal, Shareese Nelson, had needed time to settle into the job, but “we are prepared to move forward in a more formal and collaborative manner.” He invited families to the school for an April 29 community meeting.
The meeting was “highly emotional,” one of the mothers said, with parents sharing their children’s experiences. After the meeting, Scriven told a 6abc reporter: “I was slow to respond. I do have to own that, and rectify that immediately.”
Shanyl Jones recalled that administrators seemed “completely unprepared” during the meeting to address parents’ safety concerns.
In a message to the community May 6, the school board acknowledged “concerns around safety and student conduct have presented challenges that we continue to navigate.”
The board said it took “all concerns that are raised with us as a board” seriously and was paying attention to how they were addressed.
It also stood by Scriven, a former Baltimore County Public Schools administrator who was named Cheltenham’s superintendent in 2021.
“Five years ago, the board invested in Dr. Scriven and his vision for the district,” the board said, calling the superintendent a “strong strategic thinker.”
“We continue to support him and his vision,” it said.
On Thursday, Mulhearn said in a statement that the board thanked Scriven “for his dedicated service to Cheltenham public schools.” She said the board had selected Joshua Sweigard, Cheltenham’s director of business services, as acting superintendent.
While the district in May released an action plan for Cheltenham Elementary, including a safety audit, staff training, and monthly reports on school incidents, the mothers said it still has not clearly explained how it handles student assaults, and how kids who are victimized or witness them are supported.
Until it does, “beginning from kindergarten up, we are not going to see this change in any meaningful way,” one of the mothers said. “This is not a one-off event.”
The Philadelphia School District is about to face significant new scrutiny, with City Council President Kenyatta Johnson asking for a sweeping performance audit of the school system’s management and operations.
City Controller Christy Brady has agreed to the request, which came via a letter in recent weekssigned by all 17 Council members, Johnson’s office told The Inquirer. The comprehensive review will go beyond the audit Brady’s office performs annually, delving into areas such as staffing and outside contractors.
Council laid out no deadline for the audit but made clear it is expecting the results in time for next budget season, which will begin in the new year and ramp up in the spring.
The district, one of the largest in the United States, has a $4.6 billion budget, which funds education for 113,000 students in 213 district schools and 65,000 in 81 charters. About $2 billion of that money comes directly from the city.
“While the SDP is subject to regular financial statement audits that examine the accuracy of financial reporting and compliance with applicable accounting standards, this request seeks a performance audit focused on evaluating the efficiency, effectiveness, and management of financial and operational practices, including budgeting decisions, resource allocation, internal controls, and long-term fiscal planning,” Johnson said in a statement Thursday.
The news comes during a period of heightened tensions between Council and the district, spurred by members’ frustration over the school board’s move to close 17 schools and a separate $300 million structural deficit that took Council by surprise.
Last week, at a news conference where several members “begged” the district to come to the table to negotiate over school closings, Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr. said Council has “tools in our tool belt that we will use” if the board does not change its mind about some building closures.
Jones has sponsored legislation to hold hearings on creating an independent financial authority, like the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, to oversee the district’s finances.
Council sources told The Inquirer that there is no indication that the district has conducted malfeasance, but that given the billions that flow to the district from city coffers, Philadelphia officials want a closer accounting of how the money is being spent.
After the board voted to begin the closure process in April, multiple members of the public also called for increased financial scrutiny of the district.
Reginald Streater, the school board president, said in a statement Thursday that the board and district will work with the controller’s office “to continue strengthening our financial processes and procedures.”
Streater said the audit squares with the board’s approach to governance.
“Good governance is not about assuming we have all the answers; it is about asking the right questions, using evidence to guide decisions and being willing to improve. We look forward to understanding the proposed scope of the audit and ensuring that the examination is constructive and focused on helping the district work well for students, families and educators,” Streater said.
Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. stressed the district’s academic strides, history of audits with no material weaknesses, and moves to solidify its credit rating.
Frustration over a budget deficit and school closings
Johnson, in his statement, said that the audit will reassure Council that “resources are being managed effectively and operations are functioning efficiently by the SDP,” and that he believes its findings will help inform priorities for next fiscal year’s budget.
This year’s budget season was chaotic.
After Mayor Cherelle L. Parker introduced her initial budget, Watlington ordered $225 million in cuts, including some school cuts, with 300-plus teachers, counselors, and climate staff slated to lose their positions.
The problem, Watlington underscored in remarks in March, was “not because we’re not good stewards of the dollars, but because of historic underfunding.” (The district achieved its highest credit rating ever under Watlington, who has said he wants to be the superintendent to retire the system’s structural financial issues permanently.)
Philadelphia’s school system cannot raise its own revenue but instead depends on the city and state to bankroll it, unlike every other district in Pennsylvania.
(Left to Right) Councilmembers Isaiah Thomas, Curtis Jones Jr., and Jamie Gauthier protest at Thursday’s school board meeting as the board prepared to vote on the facilities plan.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
In April, several Council members took the dramatic step of repeatedly disrupting the school board’s vote in an attempt to get it to reconsider the closures of a handful of schools, including Lankenau and Robeson High Schools and Overbrook Elementary.
The school board proceeded anyway — Council approves school board members, who are appointed by the mayor, and the city’s budget, but had no formal authority over the closures.
But it quickly became clear that some Council members remained frustrated with the school system and were looking for a way forward.
Councilmember Isaiah Thomas has said he will not vote to reconfirm any school board member who voted for the closings; he and others have also said they believe it is time to rethink the school board’s governance structure.
The city, as a primary funder of the district, needs a clearer picture of what is going on, they say.
“Given the SDP’s current budget challenges, requests for additional public revenue, and recent proposals involving school closures and operational reductions, City Council believes a comprehensive performance and management review is warranted to ensure transparency, accountability, and informed public decision-making,” Johnson said in the statement. “The City of Philadelphia has a responsibility to ensure that all available revenues, expenditures, obligations, and funding strategies have been thoroughly reviewed before significant decisions affecting students, families, educators, neighborhoods, and public assets are implemented.”
What will the special audit examine?
City Controller Christy Brady (second from left, standing next to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker) is seen in this January file photo. Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
Brady, in a statement, said the audit will “ensure resources are being managed effectively, operations are functioning efficiently and students are receiving the support they deserve. We’ve been encouraged by the SDP administration’s response to our previous audits and the steps it has taken to implement our recommendations. We expect this audit will continue that collaborative approach and continue to produce positive results for the benefit of students, educators and taxpayers.”
Council has asked Brady to go deep, from probing into the current structural deficit and the projections used to get there to the status of Philadelphia Parking Authority revenues, both expected and received.
Brady will also look at the district’s use of reserves and its administrative costs, and she will explore “the effectiveness and efficiency of administrative and operational expenditures, including central office functions, non-instructional spending and other costs not directly tied to classroom instruction.”
She will look into how the district’s budgeting methods and long-term planning square with industry best practices, and examine contract management and consultant utilization to try to find areas “for improved accountability, transparency, and cost efficiency.”
Brady is also charged with a deep dive into the financial effects of forthcoming school closings, and the potential ramifications of the closings on surrounding neighborhoods.
Albert Gury, 74, of Philadelphia, lifelong painter, former chair of the painting department at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, award-winning lecturer at the old University of the Arts and other institutions, author, mentor, community advocate, and cat rescuer, died Thursday, June 25, after a long illness at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Born in Peoria, Ill., Professor Gury came to Philadelphia in the early 1970s after a professor at St. Louis University advised him to enroll at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He did, and he never left.
He earned a four-year certificate in painting at PAFA in 1976 and, starting in 1980, taught painting, drawing, figure drawing, anatomy, art history, and art education at PAFA. He was chair of the painting department from 2000 to 2022 and creator of several innovative art education programs.
He painted portraits of young gun violence victims for PAFA’s Lost Dreams on Canvas exhibit and founded and directed the academy’s popular after-school free art program for high school students in 1994. In 2026, he earned a community recognition award from the Philadelphia School District.
“This is a way for us to reach out to the community and really try to do something beneficial,” Professor Gury told The Inquirer in 2005. “We train them as if they are college freshmen, not high school kids. It raises the bar on the quality of their work.”
Professor Gury also lectured for decades at University of the Arts, the Fleisher Art Memorial, the Barnes Foundation, and elsewhere.He instructed students at Jefferson Medical College on anatomy, consulted for the city’s mural arts program, and ran art seminars and painting workshops regionally and in Scotland and Croatia.
He earned a master teacher’s award from University of the Arts and a master’s degree in fine arts at the University of Delaware in 1992. Former students called him “unfailingly caring, and supportive, and smart,” and “very generous in sharing his wealth of knowledge” in online tributes. One said: “What a great example to us all.”
In a tribute, PAFA officials said: “We remember Al not only for what he taught but for how he taught: with patience, conviction, humor, discipline, and an open heart.”
Professor Gury (center) draws and explains the nature of the human form to students at Jefferson Medical College in 2007.
In the studio, Professor Gury painted colorful figures, landscapes, still life, and portraits. His portrait Alice of Dunk’s Ferry hangs in historic Christ Church in Old City, and he showed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the F.A.N. Gallery on Arch Street, the National Academy of Design in New York, the U.S. Capitol in Washington, and elsewhere.
He especially enjoyed painting abstract landscapes, he said in a 2014 video, because “they are pure.” He told the Daily News in 2000: “I like to paint the things I love. I like the intimacy of small paintings. I move the paint around and put together elements in nature even if they don’t exist that way. I like to imagine things rather than just paint what is in front of me. Sometimes it becomes a little surreal.”
In 2000, critic Anne R. Fabbri said in the Daily News that many of Professor Gury’s paintings are “united by his layered brushwork, tonal depths, and the creative act that transforms color, line, and composition into a life-enhancing work of art.” He was honored by the Philadelphia Sketch Club in 2017.
In his neighborhood, Professor Gury advocated for better housing and fostered rescue cats in his home. He volunteered at the Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society and was named its 2015 volunteer of the year. The group renamed its kitten maternity ward after him.
“We are searching for words to express just how extraordinary Al was, what a profound difference he made, and how much we loved and appreciated him,” colleagues at PAWS said in a tribute. “We hope he knew what an immense impact he made, and how much better and more beautiful the world is because of him.”
Albert Francis Gury was born Oct. 23, 1951. A family friend introduced him to painting when he was young, and he spent many days roaming the galleries at the Art Institute of Chicago while his father worked downtown.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts at St. Louis University in 1973 and won scholarships, grants, and honors as both a student and a professor at PAFA. He collected quilts and rare books on art.
Professor Gury loved animals, especially cats.Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society
In 2018, his apartment building on Chestnut Street burned down in an early-morning fire. Several of his cats and parakeets perished, and much of his artwork was lost. “The whole thing is just tragic,” he told The Inquirer then.
Friends called him “a classic caregiver” and a “protector of the underdog.” Longtime friend and colleague Reza Ghanad said: “If you were feeling down, he would pick you up.”
Friend and colleague Morgan Hobbs said: “He noticed students who could have gone unnoticed without him. He had a special gift for that.”
Professor Gury is survived by several relatives.
His ashes are interred at Christ Church Burial Ground. A celebration of his life is to be held later.
The guidelinesfor how students are admitted to Philadelphia’s magnet schools are changing.
Philadelphia School District officials announced a number of shifts Wednesday that will be put into place for the application window for the 2027-28 school year, opening this fall.
It is not yet clear when the school district will open the 2027-28 application process for its 37 criteria-based schools.
The changes are:
Only students’ grades in math, English, and science will count toward students’ eligibility for criteria-based schools. Social studies grades will no longer count.
The zip codes that guarantee admission to four of the city’s top magnet schools to students are shifting. Children who live in 19132, 19133, 19135, 19138, 19140, or 19141 who meet academic criteria are now guaranteed admission to Masterman, Central, Carver High School of Engineering and Science, or Academy at Palumbo.
New to the list are 19138 — Germantown — and 19141 — sections of North Philadelphia including Logan and East Oak Lane.
No longer on the preference list are 19121 — parts of North Philadelphia including Brewerytown and Sharswood — and 19136, Holmesburg and Torresdale.
The zip code list is recalculated annually based on which sections of the city were most underrepresented for admissions to Philadelphia’s selective schools.
Students who attended a prekindergarten program at a district school now get preference for admission to that school’s kindergarten class.
Students who attended a district summer career and technical education program now get preference for admission to a career and technical education program.
More students will receive individualized review, or consideration for admission to criteria-based schools, as long as they meet eligibility requirements for any of the five schools they apply to. Individualized review applies to any student who is an English learner, or who has an Individual Education Plan or qualifies for a federal 504 plan.
The change is “to allow more students with disabilities or who are English learners to access magnet schools,” officials said.
The families, backed by lawyers from America First, an organization formed by Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Donald Trump, alleged that the school system had shifted to a “blatantly unconstitutional, race-based” admissions system.
Each of the families had children who met academic criteria for the magnets of their choice in 2022, but who did not get in. The litigation came after Philadelphia overhauled its special-admission system in the name of equity.
The settlement forced no changes to the process, which has evolved since its inception in 2021. Though zip code preference is still in place, the district no longer uses a computer-scored writing exam. It gives some sibling preference, and it guarantees admission to high school programs attached to magnet middle schools as long as students maintain high grades.
Freelance journalist Benjamin Shore will not have to stop filing public records requests in South Jersey after a judge dismissed Cherry Hill schools’ lawsuit alleging that his requests amounted to harassment.
The Cherry Hill Board of Education filed a 128-page lawsuit in Superior Court in February claiming that the “numerous, repeated and vexatious” requests that Shore filed under New Jersey’s Open Public Records Act qualified as harassment and “substantially interrupted” school operations.
Shore operates the online outlet Shore Investigates, a news site focused on Cherry Hill. His brother Daniel was also named in the lawsuit.
The suit sought to bar Shore and his outlet from submitting requests for public documents for one year. It also sought to shut down an online portal that Shore created where the public can file requests instead of using the district’s website.
Journalist Ben Shore in front of the Cherry Hill Public Schools Board of Education headquarters in the Arthur Lewis Administration Building in Cherry Hill on Thursday April 2, 2026.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
“The Board tried to stop us from requesting records,” Benjamin Shore said in an email following the dismissal. “Instead, the case ended with its complaint dismissed with prejudice and its unsupported allegations rejected. Shore Investigates will continue following the records, asking difficult questions, and keeping the public informed.”
Cherry Hill Public Schools did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The school board’s lawsuit specifically referenced 18 OPRA requests that Shore had filed over the course of a year and a half, averaging out to roughly one request per month.
The board claimed that as a result, district personnel, including the custodian of records, spent more than 100 hours reviewing and redacting documents and responding to Shore’s requests.
Shore argued that the amount and frequency of his requests is in line with standard journalistic practice.
Superior Court Judge Michael Mikulski agreed, dismissing the suit on July 31 and stating that the district had failed to provide evidence of Shore’s ill intent.
Instead, the judge found that Shore actually displayed a “willingness to cooperate with the Board in making the requests less intrusive,” he wrote in the seven-page ruling.
“The Court finds the Board has failed to establish by clear and convincing evidence that Defendants filed their requests with the intent to disrupt agency operations,” the ruling concluded.
Journalist Ben Shore in front of the Cherry Hill Public Schools Board of Education headquarters in the Arthur Lewis Administration Building in Cherry Hill on Thursday April 2, 2026.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Mikulski determined that the suit met the requirements to be dismissed under New Jersey’s Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, which is meant to shield people from baseless lawsuits meant to silence political speech or engagement.
The law allows defendants to request an early, expedited dismissal of a lawsuit and to recover legal fees if the suit is ultimately tossed.
While Shore succeeded in getting the case thrown out, he said it still had its intended effect.
“The lawsuit nevertheless accomplished something before it was dismissed: it chilled our reporting. We paused records requests and held back stories because every new inquiry appeared to carry the threat of further litigation,” Shore said. “That is what it means to report with a target on your back.”
The new law enables governmental entities like the Cherry Hill Board of Education to sue someone seeking public information if they can prove the request amounts to harassment or substantially prevents them from doing their jobs.
The new law also no longer guarantees that people who successfully overturn record request denials in court can recoup their legal fees.
“We knew when they amended OPRA in 2024 to include this provision that it would sadly be weaponized to retaliate against people who seek public records,” Shore’s attorney, CJ Griffin, said in a statement. “But thankfully the trial court agreed this suit had no merit and that my clients were nothing but polite and had no intention of disrupting agency operations — they simply wanted government records to report on matters of public concern.”
“No one should be hauled into court for filing public records requests, especially not reporters who keep us informed about the public business,” Griffin said.
The school year started Wednesday for the 500-plus new Philadelphia School District teachers and counselors who will welcome 113,000 students back to school on Aug. 24.
Inside the cavernous gymnasium at School of the Future in Parkside, Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. pumped up the 575 new hires, telling them he was honored they chose Philadelphia.
District officials said that they have 94% of teacher jobs filled system-wide, with just under three weeks to go before the beginning of the school year. The district has 100% of principal jobs filled.
The lowest “fill rate” for school-based jobs across the system is 77%, for building engineers, followed by special-education assistants at 79%.
Some of those 340 teachers, counselors, and other school-based workers whose jobs were cut have been restored to the positions they were initially directed to leave; others have taken new jobs within or outside the system, or are “over-appointments” who do not yet have permanent Philadelphia assignments.
New teachers and counselors applaud a performer at the Philadelphia School District’s 2026 new hire orientation at School of the Future in Parkside.Kristen A. Graham / Staff
‘They saw potential’
Debora Carrera told the new teachers she would not have risen to become Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s chief education officer if not for people like them.
Carrera, the daughter of parents who did not finish elementary school, grew up as one of six kids in a single-parent family. Sometimes she was hungry. Sometimes she was unable to bathe.
But “there were teachers who didn’t use those things as obstacles or barriers,” Carrera said. “But you know what they saw? They saw talent, and they saw potential in me.”
Research shows that the top factor influencing a child’s academic progress is having a well-supported, stable teacher. And the first few years of educators’ careers are crucial: Nearly half of all teachers leave the profession within the first five years.
Don’t give up, Carrera said.
“Being a teacher is the most amazing incredible profession on the planet — don’t let anyone ever tell you differently,” she said. “Are you going to feel like you’re great every day? No? But guess what: Stick with it.”
After the pep talk, Kwaku Ansah was charged up.
Ansah, who will teach students with disabilities at Philadelphia Military Academy, a small district high school in North Philadelphia, has a decade of teaching in his native Ghana under his belt. He knows there will be tough days in Philly classrooms, Ansah said.
You’ve heard about it. Students don’t do school because artificial intelligence does it for them. AI summarizes readings, answers questions, generates essays, and adds citations. Agents log into learning management systems and complete coursework. Bots now “write” at human — rather than algorithmic — speed to evade metadata detectors.
Students have achieved wicked technoefficiency, saving time and engagement while generating correct answers and polished products.
Responses? Some teachers pore over (often inaccurate) AI detector results and police students instead of interacting with them. Some assign less homework and reading and instead have students read and write in class so they can watch them. Or they convert essays to blue books — remember those? — shifting writing from an inquiry and exploration process into a content dump.
Dutiful students suffer the surveillance, do the work, and requirements are checked off. “School” happens. Everyone’s disheartened.
But that’s not how it has to be.
We’re longtime Drexel writing teachers who last term taught a new course, “Writing For and About AI.” In the class, we worked with students to take on AI — machine learning — and its impact on writing and their intellectual lives.
We worked with students as they wrote for the machine. It’s their reality: Writing into AI apps already is part of their professional, personal, and civic lives.
We also helped them write about the machine, about AI’s consequences for writing, learning, creativity, work, and the environment.
We aren’t futurists. We couldn’t tell students what their lives will be in five years. But we did all read challenging texts and resources about how transformers parse and mathematicize writing to generate language back at us, how AI may affect our voices and exposure to other voices, differences between writing and generating text, data centers, the future of work, and search technology.
Our students read critiques of AI, but the course wasn’t anti-technology. They also read pro-AI perspectives, and heard from those who see ways to harness AI for school and work.
What we found, as we often do working with our smart, curious undergrads, was not what we — or you — might think.
Our students didn’t want to do less work, or turn over learning to machines. We’re at Drexel, known for its co-op, and so many students had used AI in business and corporate settings. They’re not naive. They took critical, nuanced stances about AI, its generated content, and the effects of integrating it into their lives.
Students weren’t anti-AI, but they were stressed about AI paranoia, being talked at about AI, and how the “Are students using AI?” focus has damaged their classrooms.
They expressed frustration, worry, and anger about how some students rip through schoolwork with AI. But they were also frustrated about some schoolwork, wondering why they’re not asked more often to do authentic, meaningful assignments. They want to take on problems and questions that matter, thinking deeply and connecting with classmates and teachers.
When overwhelmed with work that feels meaningless, the whole endeavor can become a series of obstacles to the college degree finish line. We don’t — nor did they — justify cheating, but given all that, might they at least be tempted to outsource work to AI?
More broadly, they voiced doubt and often opposition to how AI colonizes their writing, thinking, and working lives. They recognized tension between using AI to automate/eliminate tasks and a desire to preserve meaningful work.
These talented writing students were annoyed that apps would do the powerful writing and thinking they do. As they sharpened prompting skills and experimented with AI — two of our course objectives — they saw how AI does information and language well, but writing, not so much.
Given space to experiment, explore, and learn, our students developed sturdy questions and insights:
How can smart prompting reduce AI’s environmental effects?
When using AI in class, what are boundaries for authentic work?
What makes writing assignments meaningful — and why aren’t there more?
Who trains large language models (LLMs)?
Things meaningful to our students matter to us. School is not just learning answers. This class reinforced how important — and enjoyable — it is to work with students asking and developing complex questions.
We didn’t start with answers: The process of thinking, creating, and refining questions is what it was about. In fact, our students might argue that in school — especially with tools that automate so much work — this is exactly what humans should be doing.
Dan Driscoll and Scott Warnock are writing faculty in Drexel University’s department of English and philosophy.
As they prepared a list of charges in connection with a pair of hazing incidents involving Cheltenham High School’s football team, the members of a Montgomery County grand jury closely scrutinized the figures and institutions that often place vulnerable young people in positions where they can be victimized in the first place.
There were the players themselves — as many as 19 of them took part in one of the assaults — who, on two separate occasions last summer, the grand jury found, beat a 15-year-old teammate and attempted to insert a broomstick into his anus.
There were the coaches, whom the jurors said allowed a hazing culture to flourish, discouraged the victim from reporting his injuries, and engaged in a cover-up that was remarkable both for its clumsy execution and brazen audacity.
Finally, there were school administrators, who, despite conducting three separate inquiries, were so inept that they were still unclear about how many times the student was attacked, and took no steps to exclude the head football coach (who would eventually be charged with leading the cover-up) from taking part in their investigations.
“This level of incompetence didn’t just fail one child,” the jury wrote. “It put every young man on the football team at risk.”
Notably, though, the jury found, the victim may not have been helped by another factor: the law itself.
In Pennsylvania and practically every other state, the so-called mandatory reporting guidelines — rules that require teachers, coaches, school administrators, and others who work with youths to inform the authorities of suspected harm — do not include hazing in their definition of what constitutes child abuse.
As horrifically illustrated by the case in Cheltenham — and so many other high-profile hazing incidents involving adolescents — this must change.
Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele addresses reporters at a July 29 news conference to announce multiple charges in connection with a pair of hazing incidents at Cheltenham High School.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
As the grand jury noted, allegations of child abuse generally must be reported when the accused are adults or “certain juveniles” — such as caregivers, family members, and those living in the same household — or when the accusation involves crimes such as rape, sexual assault, or indecent exposure.
“Hazing should be considered a form of reportable child abuse to protect children,” the grand jury wrote. “If hazing was a reportable offense, the Cheltenham High School administration would not have had the opportunity to mishandle the juvenile victim’s disclosure and the ensuing investigation as poorly as they did.”
The failures at Cheltenham High School come less than a decade after legislators in Harrisburg enacted a sweeping overhaul of the commonwealth’s anti-hazing laws. That change was largely prompted by the alcohol-related fraternity hazing death of Timothy J. Piazza, a 19-year-old sophomore at Penn State, in 2017.
Despite the adoption of new laws, the cycle of hazing persists.
Set against the painful legacy of Piazza’s death in University Park, hazing continues to be a problem at Penn State. In May, administrators suspended a chapter of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity; it is the ninth Greek organization currently serving a suspension for hazing violations on the university’s flagship campus.
While some of the most high-profile hazing cases involve colleges and universities, researchers say that the seeds of mistreatment are often planted in high school — or earlier. (A 17-year-old Cheltenham student, who witnessed last summer’s locker room attacks, told the Montgomery County grand jurors that he had seen that kind of child-on-child violence on other teams “multiple times”; he’s been playing since he was 5.)
According to one study, 47% of college students said they experienced hazing before they ever set foot on a college campus. “There’s a bit of a normalization that happens when they’re already experiencing — and perhaps expecting — that type of behavior, if they’ve already gone through that in high school,” Meredith Stewart, of the advocacy group Stop Hazing, said in an interview with members of this board.
To end the grim experience and bleak expectations of adolescents being harmed in sports teams, youth clubs, and other organizations, lawmakers should craft legislation to reclassify hazing as a form of reportable child abuse.
Unless Harrisburg takes action to close this perilous gap in the state’s anti-hazing protections, the cycle of violence will keep churning — and more of Pennsylvania’s young people will continue to be placed at risk.
