Today's Daily News, and no that it not me screaming in facepaint. |
Overcrowding has a host of negative
impacts on students, including excessive class sizes, high rates of disengagement
and disciplinary problems, safety issues, and a sense among students that the
system doesn’t care enough about their needs.
More than 330,000
students were
in classes of 30 or more last year. We
also found that the DOE undercounts the number of students in trailers by many
thousands.
The “target” formula is somewhat more accurate but still underestimates the actual level of overcrowding in schools. This means more than 480,000 students were in extremely overstuffed buildings last year. The audit found the same trend line as we did– worsening overcrowding, particularly at the elementary and middle school levels.
The most interesting aspect of the audit involved their asking for documentation of what the DOE Offices of Portfolio Management and Space Planning had done to address the problem of overcrowding:
DOE’s Offices of Space Planning and
Portfolio Management lacked any statistical or documentary evidence showing the
substantive steps they took to alleviate school overcrowding. This failure
constitutes a significant internal control deficiency. The lack of
documentation may be partly attributed to the absence of written policies and
procedures for either office. Through interviews and discussions with DOE
personnel we were able to ascertain that Portfolio Management and Space
Planning had some procedures in place and that they had attempted to follow
these procedures to alleviate overcrowding. [Like what? They do not say.]
However, no documentation or evidence
existed with in these two offices to indicate what these steps were or whether
they had been taken….
Portfolio Management staff explained
that the process for alleviating overcrowding is “organic,” consisting of
“borough teams” that monitor schools monthly and annually, conduct monthly
meetings, and hold telephone conversations with principals. According to
Portfolio Management and Space Planning staff, written documentation, meeting
minutes, and telephone logs of this process were not maintained. Therefore,
there is no way to assess whether DOE was in fact, taking steps to alleviate
overcrowding and whether those steps were effective.”
From a footnote in the audit: “Portfolio
Management, prior to its dissolution, did not have an organizational chart for
its approximately 50 person staff, nor did it maintain a list of school
buildings where the office attempted to address problems.”
We estimate that at least 100,000
seats are needed to alleviate the space crunch in our schools—more than double
the number in the current capital plan, or else it is likely that NYC kids will
be stuffed into even more overcrowded classrooms and substandard trailers for
years to come. It is time that the new administration confronts this ongoing crisis honestly and takes meaningful steps to address it.
"Overcrowding is happening in a school like mine which is relatively small and has space. We are only allowed to open a certain number of classes. They want us to fill to the max and have a waiting list of at least 15 before a new class can be requested. My school has a high ELL/new immigrant and special ed population which could benefit from small class sizes. We had small classes before Bloomberg and they proved themselves. In the last two years our class sizes have been at the max esoecially in our first grades through no fault of our principal.
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