Send a letter now to State Officials, urging them to allow online school and district meetings to continue!

 

One of the few good things to come out of the pandemic is an expansion of parent participation in official school-and district meetings by holding these meetings online. Yet the ability to do so is due to expire on Jan. 15.  Resuming in-person meetings at this time is also especially risky, since Omicron still rages. Please send a letter today to state officials to urge them to enable online School Leadership Team and Community Education Council meetings to continue, by clicking here .

Dear community,

The Governor's Executive Order allowing School Leadership Teams and Citywide and Community Education Councils to hold their meetings virtually will expire on January 15th. If nothing is done, these entities will be required to meet in-person starting January 16th.

With the extremely high positivity rate, resuming in-person meetings is not in the best interest of the public (not to mention the volunteer members who serve on SLTs and CCECs).

Please contact the Governor and state legislators today by clicking here and ask them to extend the exemption to the Open Meetings Law and allow SLTs and CCECs to continue meeting virtually. If you have the time, please call your legislators as well. You can look up your Assembly member and Senator by going to https://www.mygovnyc.org/.

Thank you for your activism!

ECC Steering Committee

Bloomberg Curtailment of Parent Role Ruled Illegal By Albany

A year ago, Queens public school parent Marie Pollicino refused to accept Mike Bloomberg's attempt to marginalize public school parents. She filed a formal complaint with the state education commissioner to reverse the Chancellor's changes in regulation A-655 specifying the role of school leadership teams (SLTs). Her action was joined by Queens parent Melvyn Meer, the District 26 Community District Education Council and the UFT.

This week, State Education Commissioner Richard Mills ruled that the Bloomberg administration's attempt to revise Regulation A-655, shifting all decision making power on SLTs to principals was a violation of state education law. The law grants school-based management teams specific powers and duties:

Develop an annual school comprehensive educational plan that is aligned with the school based budget. Such plans shall be submitted to the district superintendent and be made available for public inspection.... (Ed Law 2590 - h(15) (b-1))

In his decision Mills says "The A-655, as revised, strips the SLT of this basic, statutorily mandated authority". The state ordered the city to revise the regulation.

Commissioner Mills also ruled that the method by which the Bloomberg Administration changed the policy was unlawful. State law requires the changes to be developed by the superintendent of each community school district in conjunction with committees "composed of administrators, teachers and parents". The current changes were developed without this input.

A copy of the legal decision can be found here.

For background on the case, see this earlier Daily News article and update here. Gotham Schools has the story here.

Oddly, the NY Post didn't have news coverage but that didn't stop the editorial board from braying about the decision. The Post apparently could not pass on the opportunity to simultaneously take a swipe at two favorite targets: public school parents and Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver.

Are we seeing the death of parent involvement in NYC?

From today's NY Post: "the Department of Education's own parent engagement office found that only 51% of the schools it has looked at so far has a functioning School Leadership Team (SLT)."

Not surprising since the Chancellor seems determined to eviscerate the authority of SLTs, and take away their power to decide on their school's budget, spending priorities, and/or comprehensive education plan.

… Martine Guerrier, the city's chief of parent engagement, said her office is working to fix the problems. "SLTs have always been an issue," she said. Her office began looking into SLTs recently and found that many only existed on paper. But in district surveys, 83% of schools claimed they had SLTs.

Guerrier's office was created last year to address some of these complaints. "We just started, so there's no way to tell right now, but I'm encouraged by what I've seen," she said of the city's progress.

But William McDonald, a parent in Queens District 29 who also heads the citywide Chancellor's Parent Advisory Committee, said the effect of Bloomberg's initiatives on parent involvement has been "a mess."

"It's to the point now where SLTs don't function at all," he said, noting the problem began in 2003 when the city eliminated SLT budgets. The city instead hired "SLT coordinators" - a job that was dissolved last year.

And with the PTAs also disappearing or growing less active, McDonald sees a dim future. "As I see it, in three years, parent involvement probably won't even exist," he said.

Gifted and Talented Policy at October Panel for Educational Policy Meeting

This month's PEP meeting was held on Staten Island. A special thanks to the D31 CEC who provided a warm welcome. Here are the highlights from my perspective as the Manhattan representative on the Panel:

Proposed Gifted and Talented Policy

The new G&T admissions policy was presented but not discussed. Highlights:

• Request for testing forms available starting December 3rd
• There will be two tests used to determine each child's score: the Bracken School Readiness Assessment (BSRA) and the Otis Lennon School Abilities Test (OLSAT). The OLSAT will count for 75% of the score and the BSRA for 25%.
• There will be strict cutoff for the combined score. A child must fall in the 95% percentile nationally to be considered gifted.
• All children at or above the cutoff score will be guaranteed a seat in a G&T program. Children not passing the cutoff will not be eligible for G&T programs.
• The three citywide programs (NEST, TAG and Anderson) will have an additional onsite assessment.

Beyond these changes scheduled to take effect starting in December, the DOE is proposing for next year to test all Kindergarten students with the Bracken School Readiness Assessment (BSRA).

See the G&T proposal document (pdf) for more information including the proposed timeline.

Already I have heard many complaints from parents about the proposal, especially the following:

• The standardized tests being used are correlated with socioeconomic status and may be heavily influenced by child's preparation in the home. It's not clear that the proposal brings us any closer the the stated goal of a more equitable system. See more on this viewpoint here.
• Notifications of acceptance are given too late for parents who are also considering private or parochial school options. This late notification retards parental choice, supposedly one of the key elements of the Chancellor's reform program.
• The implication of the plan is that some districts have too many G&T seats and these may need to be curtailed. While it is important to add capacity where it is needed, there is no good argument to close programs that are working. Based on last year's OLSAT results, DOE should have a sense of impact on each program but don't seem to be discussing it with principals.
  

DOE will take comments for a month, take them into consideration and release the final plan. Members of the public can submit comments through November 25 via e-mail (to giftedandtalented@schools.nyc.gov), phone (call (212) 374-5219) or at a public hearing:

Manhattan: Monday, November 5, Fashion Industries HS (225 W 24th St.)
Staten Island: Tuesday, November 6, PS 58 (77 Marsh Ave.)
Queens: Thursday, November 8, John Adams HS (101-01 Rockaway Blvd.)
Bronx: Thursday, November 15, Evander Childs HS (800 E. Gun Hill Rd.)
Brooklyn: Monday, November 19, Brooklyn Technical HS (29 Fort Greene Pl.)

Speaker sign up is at 6:00 and hearings start at 6:30

School New York City Educational Construction Fund (ECF)

The ECF provides long term leases on city land to developers who then build both a commercial project and a school. It's a way for the city to get school capacity without capital funds.

Jamie Smarr presented the two current projects of the ECF, 1765 First Avenue (future site of East Side Middle School) and 250 East 57th Street (PS 59 and High School for Art & Design).

While the idea behind the ECF is fine, there just have not been enough projects to make a dent in the capacity needs of school system. The ECF has been in existence since 1967 and has built 18,000 seats, or roughly 450 a year. Against 1.1 million kids, that's not much. But even these seats are not necessarily incremental. For example, the 1765 First Avenue project is replacing a school that was closed earlier. I asked Jamie what was stopping us from doing more projects and he pointed to the need for developers to cooperate. I asked if he got support from the Mayor and Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff in reaching out to developers. He said he had the cooperation of the Chancellor.

Chancellor's Regulation A-655 (School Leadership Teams)

Martine Guerrier presented the proposed changes to the SLT regulations. Many parent leaders have expressed the concern that the changes to the regulations would weaken SLTs by giving the principal more influence than the current regulations allow, especially by placing the SLT task of creating the schools Comprehensive Educational Plan (CEP) behind the principal's responsibility to define the budget. For more information on this point, see testimony at the City Council hearings from myself, Jim Devor and Joan McKeever Thomas (here).

Martine and I had some back and forth on these issues. She said the final A-655 regulations are not yet ready.

Public Comment

There were many speakers at the Staten Island session who complained about poor treatment of special ed students - lost IEPs, poorly trained teachers, lack of programs and a tendency on the part of school staff to criminalize the behavior of special ed kids. There were several speakers who had accounts of police being called to deal with misbehaving students including one disturbing story of a very young girl who was threatened with arrest and handcuffing.

Peter Calendrella, 1st VP of the District 31 CEC made an impassioned plea for DOE to find ways to allow students to carry phones to and from school. Mr. Calendrella, who was formerly an Assistant District Attorney working with the Special Victims Unit, pointed to two recent cases where Staten Island students could not call police when they witnessed a crime in the immediate vicinity of their school.

City Council hearings on parent involvement

The hearings on parental involvement before the City Council on Thursday offered some fireworks -- and real insights. Because there was no media coverage of these important hearings, here is a detailed account.

Full disclosure: I wasn't there the whole time, so have cobbled together this report from some trustworthy sources who were. I have also posted links to the full written testimonies for those that we have available.

As usual, DOE got the prime morning slot, and Council members grilled Deputy Mayor Walcott and Chief Family Engagement officer Martine Guerrier for several hours.

The Chair, Robert Jackson, started off by mentioning that the only office in DOE that has no website link was the Office of Family Engagement. He said that he had two staff members try to get in touch with the Office by calling 311. In both cases, operators told them that there was no such office and directed them to old regional office phones that were disconnected. Walcott gave him a cursory apology and said he would make sure that 311 operators knew where to direct parents from now on. Guerrier commented that they are still working on a webpage for the OFE and that it should be working soon.

Jackson also said that the new parent brochure—“The NYC Family Guide” -- came out on September 18^th, nearly two weeks after the beginning of the school year. It was later noted that there is no phone number for Guerrier’s office in it —only for the district offices. In the section “How Families Find Answers,” parents are instructed to call the school parent coordinator first (appointed and accountable to the principal, of course) and, if they cannot get their problem answered there, to call the district offices and ask for the District Family Advocate.

Guerrier testified that she was convinced of the "sincerity on the part of the administration” to change the tone of their interaction with parents. Her five goals by July 2008 are that all PTAs should have elected officers, all School Leadership Teams will be “functioning”, all Community Education Councils will have full membership, and that the DOE parent survey will receive a greater response rate. (Her powerpoint presentation, with more information, in pdf , is here.)

Jackson challenged Guerrier on how her office might also help ensure that DOE policies actually begin to take into account parental concerns. Jackson, Vallone, Liu and Ignizio addressed the Department's chronic neglect of the problem of class size, and DOE's attempt to manipulate the parent survey results. Walcott smoothly responded that they are reducing class size and that the results of the survey are out there for anyone to see. He also claimed that "the Mayor's doors at City Hall are and always be open to parents." (!!)

The other two areas of major attention were the cell phone ban and the administration's proposed revisions of the regulations concerning School Leadership Teams (SLTs), which will eviscerate their authority to provide real input into school budgets. Fidler was especially aggressive on the lack of input that parents have on school closings and the installation of charter schools in their communities. He also threatened a lawsuit if DOE doesn’t abide by the Council legislation on cell phones.

When the two DOE officials departed, so did as usual most of the Council members and the media. Finally, the rest of us got a chance to speak our minds. (It is ironic that Council members who are so vehement about the fact that DOE doesn’t listen to us almost uniformly are absent when any parent testifies.) Only Robert Jackson stayed on to listen.

Joan McKeever Thomas, UFT parent liaison, said that the Chancellor's proposed changes to the SLTs, in which these teams of parents and staff will compose comprehensive education plans only after the principal has already unilaterally decided on the school budget, would render them essentially meaningless. They would become "redundant organizations, talk shops with no direction or larger purpose."

Patrick Sullivan, Manhattan representative on the Panel for Educational Policy and a fellow blogger here, agreed that the new regulations would disempower parents, and added that "Parents are marginalized by the manner in which the PEP public meetings are structured: all public comment is relegated to the end of the session after all voting has concluded...[This] makes it painfully obvious that parental input is not being taken into consideration on the most important issues facing our school system."

Kim Sweet, Executive Director of Advocates for Children pointed out that now, parents who have concerns or complaints about their schools are being directed by DOE to the Office of Family Engagement, which lacks any ability to address these problems:

"District Family Advocates and their supervisors have no authority whatsoever over the principals; they are not even in the same chain of command. ... Parents with complaints are being funneled to the District Family Advocates, rather than to DOE officials who have the authority to respond to their concerns. This structure does not promote parent engagement; it promotes parent disenfranchisement."

Shana Marks-Odinga from the Alliance for Quality Education said that the recent borough hearings on the Contracts for Excellence were rushed and without parents being provided with enough details to be able to give sufficient input. She recommended that “Public engagement around the 2008-9 Contract for Excellence should begin in October 2007 to ensure a meaningful process" and that a parent complaint process be instituted, according to the new state law.

Miguel Melendez, Latino activist and former DOE employee, pointed out that there were no Hispanics in the inner circle at Tweed or among the top level of the Office of Family Engagement; this is unacceptable considering that Latino students make up 40% of the system. He also revealed that “On four separate occasions (May 24th, 30th, July 2nd, and August 2nd, 2007) the National Institute for Latino Policy has requested Equal Employment Opportunity data only to be denied each and every time.”

Ellen McHugh of Parent to Parent noted that there was no information for parents of special needs children in the DOE family guide. Jim Devor, acting president of the Association of CECs, pointed out that while it was commendable that DOE had instituted a 30 day public comment period for the proposed revision of the SLT role, under the new system, “most of the major decisions regarding school policy will have already been made (without meaningful input by parents)" before the process of writing the schools’ CEP has begun.

Several representatives from the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council testified. Tim Johnson, CPAC chair, reiterated that parents continue to be left out of the loop as to major policies adopted by this administration. David Quintana, CPAC rep from D 27 in Queens, said that parent coordinators were being used to deflect the concerns of parents away from principals.

Then I spoke briefly, pointing out that the peculiar structure imposed by the recent reorganization further puts parents at sea – since District Superintendents no longer spend any time supervising the schools in their own districts. This means parents have no place to go to when they have problems with their children’s schools. I also discussed out how the recent DOE parent survey was designed specifically to minimize parental concerns with both class size and testing, and that even when smaller classes came out as the top priority of parents, the DOE still tried to manipulate the statistics by making it look otherwise – showing their utter disrespect for our views.

Susan Shiroma, the new president of the Citywide Council on High Schools, complained that with the recent elimination of the regions, there were no longer any HS Presidents Councils in existence – rendering the job of the CCHS to gather input from HS parent leaders throughout the city almost impossible.

Sadly, as mentioned above, there were no stories in any of the media about these hearings. For more coverage, check out the InsideSchools blog entries for Sept. 20.

Tweed's refusal to listen to our views as to CECs, etc.

From Lisa Donlan, CEC member from District 1 in Manhattan:

One of the immediate, if relatively minor, consequences of the re-organization has been the suspension of several key parent engagement activities as the DoE tardily contemplates the effect on parents of kicking over the anthill to see what crawls out, once again.

Missing in action are the A-660 (Chancellor’s Regs that govern/define PTAs and Presidents’ Councils) the A-655 (regulations on School and District Leadership Teams), the CEP (Comprehensive Education Plan that is to align school goals with budgets, structures and actions) for each school, and the DCEP (CEP for community districts) to name a few of the casualties.

Each of these documents is in the midst of a major rewrite to accommodate the restructuring, and thus are not accessible for parents to use.

This year the individual school budgets, the first ones under the (watered down) revolutionary new funding scheme will be released in “early May.” CEC’s are to hold public hearings, reporting back parent input by May 31, as the Panel on Educational Policy is to rubber stamp the budget in the June meeting.

The Citywide Education Councils for High Schools and Special Education are based on the current region structure that will disappear on June 30, affecting the formation of the councils as the elections go forward.

In any case, the DoE has refused for three years to follow through on suggestions from parent leaders and elected officials to improve the council election process, legislation that governs the councils, or the training and operations of the councils.

It is clear that while the Mayor and Chancellor are willing to commit enormous energy into making bold new changes to our public education system, their implementation is often sloppy and poorly thought out. Instead of leaving parents limited opportunities for input in the wake of their reforms, the DoE would be wise to include us as partners in the planning and design of changes that affect us, our children and their schools.

I am sure we could contribute much to counter the negative effects of the culture of group think and yes-men that the consultants and lawyers have brought to the policymaking table.