Fitzsimons, Thomas, Junior High School

About this property

Thomas Fitzsimons Junior High School, later The Young Men's Leadership School at Thomas E. FitzSimons High School, was a public secondary school that, in its final years, was a secondary school for boys. It was located at 2601 West Cumberland Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States and was a part of the School District of Philadelphia. The school was named after Thomas FitzSimons, who was a signer of the Constitution of the United States. The school building was designed by architect Irwin T. Catharine and built in 1926. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 as the Thomas Fitzsimons Junior High School. In September 2005, the Philadelphia School District converted FitzSimons Middle School, a coeducational middle school managed by Victory Schools Inc. since 2002, into an all-male middle and high school. During that year, the district established The Young Women’s Leadership School at E. Washington Rhodes High School for females. The males zoned to the former FitzSimons and Rhodes zones were assigned to FitzSimons, while the females in the zones were assigned to Rhodes. After the redesign, FitzSimons reported increases in assaults targeting students and teachers. Margaret Harrington, the chief operating officer of Victory, described FitzSimons as having a "transition problem." Martha Woodall of the Philadelphia Inquirer stated in a 2006 article that the boys assigned to FitzSimons had tension with the boys assigned to Rhodes and that tensions increased when the schools combined. Richard H. Jenkins Sr., the principal of FitzSimons, said in that Philadelphia Inquirer article that he began establishing order with the students as the 2005–2006 school year progressed. Victory Schools was relieved of responsibility for the school; for the 2009–2010 school year, the school returned to the authority of Philadelphia Public Schools. At the end of the 2010–2011 school year, the Philadelphia School District relieved Principal Darryl C. Overton of his duties as the school transitioned from The Young Men's Leadership School at Thomas FitzSimons High School to Thomas FitSimons High School-Promise Academy. In August 2011, budgetary issues and political unrest within the Philadelphia School District negatively impacted the school's direction, and Thomas FitzSimons High School did not open as a Promise Academy. However, that school year, Thomas Fitzsimons High School operated as a comprehensive neighborhood high school, adopting some of the reform measures associated with the Promise Academy model. The new school, led by Principal Jafar Baraka, focused on re-shaping academic programing, highlighting gender-based education, systems building to address school safety and climate, and instructional rigor and parental partnerships. In the spring of 2012, Thomas FitzSimons High School earned AYP or " Adequate Yearly Progress" in two educational categories under the Safe Harbor designation for the first time since the adoption and implementation of the NCLB legislation of 2000.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Philadelphia County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Philadelphia County.

More historic places in Pennsylvania

Browse all historic places in Pennsylvania.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Pennsylvania history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.