More wasteful DOE spending on busing, devices, and possibly School Safety Agents to come

The Panel for Educational Policy will vote on a new batch of DOE contracts this Wed. on February 24. As an elected official wrote me over the weekend, “Am looking at PEP Contracts – some are questionable.”  I replied, “Always! Which ones now?”

Here are some:  There are retroactive contracts totaling more than $58 million for school busing, mostly for the month of January, except for a Reliant bus contract for Jan. 15 through Feb. 14 for $14.6M. 

This is despite the fact that DOE created a separate non-profit company (with less transparency) that would acquire Reliant and operate its 835 routes from January to June of this year, for a total of $59 million, according to  the contracts approved at the Dec. 4, 2020 PEP meeting. 

This new proposed contract document explains:

This emergency has risen as a result of the need to provide pupil transportation during the 2020-2021 school-year, while the DOE completes individual negotiations with Reliant for their pupil transportation services. These transportation services are necessary for the preservation of the health, safety, and general welfare of students and the school system as a whole. As such, declarations of Emergency Procurement and Emergency Implementation of contracts by the Senior Executive Director for the Division of Contracts and Purchasing and the Chancellor, respectively, were made (see attached).

Unexplained is what has caused the unanticipated extension of these negotiations with Reliant, and whether they relate to the  $142M in unpaid pension costs that the DOE insisted to the PEP and reporters they wouldn’t have to cover, but the union insisted they would. 

The proposed contract list also includes paying IBM another $5.12M to “stage” and send 55,000 new iPads, similar to the process from last year, when they paid IBM a total of $40.5 million for this purpose  $478 for each of 300,000 new iPads.  The document says DOE actually purchased 404,000 iPads last year – they must have added even more since last spring, for a total of 459,000 altogether, including these new purchases.

The document doesn’t include what DOE is paying for this new round of iPads, but as many previously pointed out, iPad are far less useful than laptops especially for middle and high school students who have to do a lot of writing and editing.  The excuse DOE used last year for purchasing only iPads at a total cost of $270 million was that there was a backlog and shortage of laptops nationally, with all the sudden school shutdowns and move towards remote learning.  Yet that didn’t stop other school districts like Chicago from ordering a mixture of laptops and iPads.  I don’t know what the excuse is this year for solely purchasing relatively expensive and less practical iPads again.

Apparently, for each shipment of iPads, IBM has charged a different price for staging and shipping, according to the document:

While IBM’s price of $93.55 per device to stage an additional 55K iPads is 11.6% higher than the previous price of $83.81 for 104K iPads, the increase is attributable to an expanded scope of services to be provided by IBM. For the 55K iPads under the expanded scope, IBM will receive, coordinate inventory, and distribute iPads to multiple IBM sites for staging, as well as provide boxes and packing materials to the vendor responsible for final distribution of the iPads to end users. [How this is different from what they did last time is not explained.] Moreover, IBM’s price of $93.55 per device is 30.7% lower than its price of $135.08 to stage 300K iPads under the prior emergency contract. Accordingly, pricing is determined to be fair and reasonable.

Moreover, it would probably save money for DOE to send these devices via school buses rather than pay IBM $800,000. Why?  Because Gov. Cuomo said last year and again this year that he will only reimburse busing expenses if buses are used to deliver either students, devices, other instructional materials or food.  [see the Governor’s Exec. Budget briefing book, p. 55 and p.56.]  This is what other NY districts used their school buses for during the school shutdowns, but not NYC.

Last year, DOE was prepared to pay 85% of the full price (about $700 million) for busing during the five and a half months when schools were shut (including summer school months) – despite the fact that no buses were being used.  After advocates made a fuss and Comptroller Scott Stringer wrote a letter in protest, the city renegotiated the busing contract, saving at least 40% or $167 million during the months of May and June. Yet as the NY Post reported, though the city usually receives 50% reimbursement for school busing costs from the state, for the 5 ½ months there was no busing, the city will not be reimbursed at all – potentially making busing even more costly to the city than during a normal year.  

The same refusal to pay any reimbursing for DOE’s busing costs may re-occur this year, as the DOE agreed that they would pay the full price for busing as long as ANY schools are open and there was no system-wide shutdown.  I don’t know how many buses are sitting idle this year, but there are likely quite a few.

In other budget news, a Council hearing last week revealed that the NYPD is considering hiring 475 more School Safety Agents this year at a cost of $20 million; even as all high school buildings remain closed, and elementary and middle schools have far fewer students attending in-person (that is, when middle schools reopen next week on Feb. 25.)  

Kenyatte Reid, executive director of the DOE's Office of Safety and Youth Development said his office was recently informed that the NYPD is bringing in the two new classes. He argued the money could be used for restorative justice programs, social workers, guidance counselors, culturally responsive curriculum development, literacy programs and community schools — all badly needed resources at the best of times, made more so by a pandemic that has upended the lives of hundreds of thousands of students.

This is really unconscionable, given the ongoing shortage of teachers and school counselors instead; and despite a promise made by the Mayor to the Council to eventually cut $1 billion from the NYPD budget and transfer School Safety Agents to DOE control.  Clearly that hasn’t happened.

Just to be clear: even though  NYPD hires & trains School Safety Agents, their costs comes straight out of the DOE budget, as the DOE forced to pay NYPD for their services whether they want them or not, at a price last year of $300M. From the testimony of the DOE official quoted above, it pretty evident that DOE does not want these new Safety agents that the NYPD wants to force on them. 

Contrast this to what's happened in Los Angeles, as well as Minneapolis, Seattle, Oakland, Denver and Portland, Ore., which according to today's NY Times, have begun to "sever or suspend their relationships with local police departments or reduce their own policing ranks. Some districts have said they are reallocating the funds to hire more social workers and mental health professionals to handle problems instead."

If the DOE had remained a truly independent agency, rather than under the sole control of the Mayor, they wouldn’t have to pay another $20 million for 475 more School Safety Agents that they neither need nor apparently want.

Update on final NYC budget and what it means for our schools

Whether the budget that was just passed by the City Council was a good one or not depends on whether you’re looking at the glass half empty or half full.

According to the Council press release, they negotiated the restoration of $100 million in proposed cuts to Fair Student Funding, $11.6 million for the Single Shepherd guidance counselors, $4.8 million for 38 social workers, and $1.8 million for other social-emotional supports for students. The new arrangement also puts School Safety Agents under the authority of the DOE for the first time since Giuliani placed them under NYPD control in 1998, though Mayor de Blasio says the shift will be a gradual, two-year process.

Many significant budget cuts remain, as well as a staffing freeze of teachers and counselors, and it is difficult to know how schools will reopen safely and with adequate support to students given these conditions. See the chart below – adapted from an earlier chart from the City Council– approximating the cuts that appear to remain (aside from an extra $6.6M for social workers and other so far unspecified social-emotional supports):

At the same time, much larger cuts of several billion dollars may occur, leading to actual layoffs if the state doesn’t receive more funding from the feds and/or doesn’t provide more aid via higher taxes on the wealthy and/or the Mayor doesn’t manage to negotiate givebacks from the unions.

And all this is happening in the midst of a pandemic which will necessitate costly measures to protect the safety and health of students and staff, no less create the smaller classes required for social distancing if schools reopen in the fall. A recent analysis from the School Superintendents Association revealed that school districts can expect to spend an additional $490 per student just to purchase cleaning supplies and personal protective equipment, as well as hire more custodial staff and nurses. That means the cost to NYC schools could amount to nearly $500 million.

Speaker Corey Johnson did mention during his press conference that they achieved some significant savings from the cancellation of the bus contracts in April, which we strongly advocated for when it appeared that the DOE was intent on going ahead with these contracts despite the fact that there was no busing happening since schools were closed in mid-March. The cancellation of these contracts should lead to savings of over $600 million, which theoretically could have prevented any cuts to school budgets and instead help pay for additional staffing and health measures -- though clearly that didn’t happen.

In any case, we have to continue pushing for the federal government, as well as state and city officials, to do the right thing for our students, rather than allow them to be endangered by educational and medical neglect.

Why School Safety Agents should return to the supervision of principals for the safety of students and staff by Matt Bromme

Matt Bromme is a former principal and Superintendent of District 27 in Queens.

When I first became a school Principal at  P.S. 88 in District 24 , School Safety Agents were employees of the New York City Board of Education. They reported to the Principal or his designee. The School Safety Agents would meet with the Principal, discuss their assignment, the time they would take lunch and their break.  This was especially true in the elementary schools where there was only one School Safety Agent usually assigned to the building.

Then when I became a Middle School Principal at MS 210 in District 27, I had multiple School Safety Agents assigned to my building because of prior incidents,. They were still employed by the Board of Education and so the rules of engagement were still the same.  We worked out schedules and assignments together.

I was still Principal of MS 210 when Rudy Giuliani was elected Mayor. He pushed for the School Safety Agents to become part of the NYPD. As a union representative of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, I opposed that move. 

Due to political pressure on Chancellor Rudy Crew and Deputy Harry Spence, the Central Board of Education agreed and in late 1998, the School Safety Agents were overnight assigned to the NYPD and became civilian NYPD employees. The New York City Charter was also amended to require reporting of crimes by school employees to the NYPD. The Mayor kept feeding the tabloids with any and all stories of how the NYPD would improve safety in the schools and how weak we Principals were on discipline.  He had already forced Ray Cortines out as Chancellor, and in a short time he would do the same to Rudy Crew.

I had some really great SSA officers.  However, I was also assigned some that I could not trust. To get them moved, I had to deal with the local precinct that had no loyalty to my school.

The transfer of SSA to the NYPD also changed their roles in the school dramatically. They now were reporting to a Precinct Lieutenant or Sergeant. They no longer would leave their post which was assigned by their Sergeant, so there was no crossing of streets to stop incidents from occurring. The patrol, break and lunch schedules were no longer discussed with the Principal. They made the final decision regarding arrests and whether or not an emotionally challenged student would be put into handcuffs, even if the professionals believed he/she should go to the hospital instead. Another issue was that there was no one responsible for their training in developing relationships with students, parents and staff. 

I will give you an example: I had a student try to commit suicide. He was going to jump out of the fourth floor window. We stopped him, but because he was so agitated, he struck one of the officers. I had to argue for sending him to the hospital instead of arresting him for assault.

Second example:  When I supervised my SSA, and there was a fight among students across the street, when I crossed the street, they crossed with me. Once they were placed under NYPD, SSAs could not move from their predetermined post unless this was agreed to by a Lieutenant who never visited the school. So if there was a fight outside the school building or school yard, I and my staff were on our own.  It made the situation far more dangerous. 

Although I believe there are many schools where the School Safety Agents work professionally with the students, parents and staff, I will always insist that the Principal, based on input from everyone, should be the decision maker on how to address student discipline and safety issues in the school. At the end of the day, the Principal is responsible for everyone in the building. Therefore, he or she should have the ability to supervise, train and schedule School Safety Agents, for the safety of students and staff.