Pauline Hill said her 9-year-old son Khalil was hit by a car near Mastery Charter School's Grover Cleveland Elementary School in October.
Hill, of North Philadelphia, doesn't want to see that happen to her son — or anyone else's child — again.
So she was part of the Mastery Parent Action Team that rallied outside of City Hall Thursday morning. The group met with Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross and other city leaders to ask for more crossing guards near Mastery Charter Schools' 18 campuses in the city, discuss blight and work in partnership with Mastery on anti-violence initiatives. The Philadelphia Police Department hires crossing guards.
"As parents, we know that when our children have to walk past abandoned buildings and mountains of trash, when they pass by or go into stores where people are loitering and fighting, when they have to walk by known drug hot spots or cross busy streets with no crossing guards, they are not safe," said parent Markida Ross, who has two sons at the Mastery Cleveland campus.
Hill said Ross promised to work to make sure there are more police patrols around Mastery Schools at arrival and dismissal.
The administration of Mastery Charter Schools said its parents are leaders in the fight for safer neighborhoods and thanked city leaders for their support.
Mastery parents and students canvassed their neighborhoods and found a total of 343 locations in North, West, Southwest and South Philadelphia and Germantown, Nicetown, Tioga and Frankford that have concerns.
Overall, their study found 40 corners in need of crossing guards, 24 nuisance businesses, 18 crime and drug hot spots in abandoned buildings and open air, 44 abandoned buildings that are open and dangerous and 32 lots with heaps of trash and short dumping, among other things.
Presentations ran the gamut from so-called "soft" solutions like mental health counseling to "hard" solutions like metal detectors and armed staff.
Mastery Charter Schools hosted its first ever "action assembly" in West Philadelphia Monday night to engage public officials about how to make their neighborhoods safer.