Resolution on busing, with FOILed data showing DOE granted more busing thru safety variances to private school students

The DOE unilaterally eliminated middle-school busing from many areas of Queens and Staten Island that have no public transportation, and this may have contributed to the death of at least one public school student.  Along with some news clips, the data on how few safety variances the DOE has granted in authorizing busing in hazardous areas is here, FOILed by Michael Reilly of CEC 31.  What's somewhat shocking is how DOE has approved more safety variances authorizing busing for a greater proportion of private school students than public school students.

Here is the resolution introduced by Dmytro Fedkowskyj, Queens representative to the Panel for Educational Policy, asking to create advisory committee of stakeholders to oversee the process of granting busing variances, which was tabled  rejected  by the mayoral majority of appointees on the PEP at the last meeting.  Correction from Dmytro: the resolution was "tabled it until the next PEP meeting based on the conversation that PEP members had when it was introduced for business. It will be back on the agenda next month if we can't come to an agreement. I am hopeful that DOE will take action before the next meeting."

Panel Recommendation to the Chancellor that the Department of Education Create the “Safety Hazard Advisory Review Program (S.H.A.R.P.) for Office of Pupil Transportation Hazard Variance Applications – Dated January 18, 2012

Whereas, a joint NYC independent Budget Office and NYC Board of Education report stated “The proportion of general education pupils in public and private schools who currently ride yellow buses varies considerably  across boroughs”; and

Whereas, the Department of Education (DOE) eliminated certain school bus variances in September 2010 which disproportionately affected students in specific areas within the New York City, particularly in Queens and Staten Island; and

Whereas, the DOE Office of Pupil Transportation (OPT) stated at that time that individual variance applications would be reviewed and granted where appropriate; and

Whereas, according to DOE hazard variance application and approval data covering the period from January 2010 through September 2011, 1,130 applications were submitted (881 by public schools and 249 by private schools) but only 177 were approved citywide (108 or 12% for public schools and 69 or 28% for private schools) ; and

Whereas, 1,028 of the variance applications submitted during this time period (468 or 42% from schools in Queens) and (560 or 50% from schools in Staten Island) – the two boroughs acknowledged to have the greatest need for yellow bus service in the IBO/BoE report; and

Whereas, Queens submitted 468 applications with only 42 approved (18 or 5% for public schools and 24 or 34% for private schools) while Staten Island submitted 560 hazard variance applications and only 123 were approved (82 or 20% for public schools and 41 or 27% for private schools);

Therefore be it RESOLVED, that the Panel for Educational Policy, within its power under State Education law, recommends that the Chancellor authorize the DOE’s Office of Pupil Transportation to implement the following Safety Hazard Advisory Review Program (S.H.A.R.P.) to establish a standard operating procedure for reviewing hazard variance applications, while providing transparency to the variance process:

• Establish school district advisory committees by May 2012, based on a Community Education Council written request whose primary function will be to establish clear and concise criteria for granting hazard variances.

• The criteria for granting hazard variance could be modeled after a NYS Education Law 3635 (b) which establishes Child Safety Zones

o A list comprised of identifiable road hazards would be established
o Each road hazard will be assigned a point value
o Lack of adequate public transportation will also be allotted points
o In order to grant a pupil transportation hazard variance, a clearly defined total score must be achieved
o Each grade level will require a specific number of points to meet the eligibility requirements for a hazard variance.

• Each school district wanting to create S.H.A.R.P. committees would be comprised of nine (9) representatives; (3) Community Education Council members, (1) DISTRICT Community Superintendent, (3) DOE representatives from the Office of Pupil Transportation, (1) DOE Office of Parent and Community Engagement and (1) respective Borough President designee.
• Each S.H.A.R.P. committee will collectively analyze the conditions and grant hazard variances by majority consensus.

• Each S.H.A.R.P. committee will meet twice yearly. (September and February). DOE, OPT and individual schools will advertise the hazard variance application process in June of the preceding school year.

- Dmytro Fedkowskyj, Panel for Educational Policy, Queens Representative

Support Aniya's law by Sam Pirozzolo

Dear Friends and Neighbors:

I would like to give you a brief update on the pending NYS bill to compel the Dept. of Education to restore yellow school bus service to 7^th and 8^th grade students (Bill #A2988A).  CEC member Mike Reilly and I were present at a meeting in the office of NYS Assemblyman Michael Cusick this week.  At that meeting, ALL of the NYS & NYC legislators from Staten Island (Assembly members, Senators and CityCouncil members) were present or represented.

First I am compelled to share a few thoughts of my own.  Since the day of Aniya’s death, I - like many of you - have thought about what I would do or how I would act if one of my children were suddenly taken from me.  If you have had these thoughts too then you realize that there is no way to imagine the loss of a child. I don’t know if I would become totally unhinged, I don’t know if I would be brave, I don’t know if I would be strong.  At the meeting, the legislators met Mrs. Elizabeth Favors, the mother of Aniya Williams.  As requested by CEC 31, Mrs. Favors gave permission for NY State Bill #A2988A to be named ANIYA’S LAW in honor of her deceased daughter.  

Elizabeth is a very strong, very brave and very powerful person.  It has given me strength to watch her agree to lend Aniya’s name to this bill in the hopes of regaining our longstanding school bus service.  She does this not just for our public school students but also for our private school students.  She does this not just for Staten Island students but also for every student in every district throughout the city who must traverse dangerous and hazardous conditions to travel to and from school.  We owe a debt to her that can never be repaid.

Next I must say that I am very impressed with Assemblyman Mike Cusick. There is no doubt in my mind that Assemblyman Cusick is sincere, knowledgeable and has the experience to handle this task.  Let me remind you that we face an uphill battle against very difficult obstacles to restore school bus entitlement.  I would also like to thank all of our other Staten Island legislators as they each champion in support for this school bus law.

Currently Aniya’s bill is in the Education Committee of the Assembly.  After the Education Committee the bill will be sent to the Ways & Means Committee to determine costs and funding.  Unfortunately, the earliest opportunity for the NYS Assembly to vote on this bill may be January 2012, UNLESS there is a large ground-swell of letters indicating support for this new law. 

Your help is needed again!  You may have already sent the attached letter to the NYS Assembly EDUCATION Committee members, but now we ask you to send it to the Assembly WAYS & MEANS Committee members as well.  The 2^nd and 3^rd pages of the attached letter contain the contact information for the members of these two important committees.  If you haven’t already sent it to the Education Committee members, please do that now, in addition to sending it to the Ways & Means Committee members.  Just complete your name, address and contact information on the bottom of page 1 of the attached letter, and then mail or e-mail your letter directly to each of the elected officials listed on pages 2 & 3.   

(NOTE: The e-mail addresses for all the Assembly  Ways and Means and Education Committee Members are also here, grouped for easier use.  Just highlight and paste their e-mails into the "TO" field of your e-mail program and send them the attached letter after you have filled out your name and contact information on the bottom and saved the changes.)  

If the legislators see an outpouring of support for passage of Aniya’s Law, it is possible that it might be brought up for a vote earlier than January – perhaps as early as this autumn. 

Thank you for your continued support.  It is appreciated, it is needed and your help can make the difference in our efforts to restore school bus service for Staten Island’s students under Aniya’s Law. 

Sincerely, Sam Pirozzolo, President, CEC 31

Let's celebrate PS 22 and the wonderful teachers and students of NYC public schools!

Amid all the controversies about budget cuts, school closings and layoffs, sometimes we should just sit back and celebrate some of the exemplary teachers and terrific kids that make up NYC schools. Unfortunately even the wonderful performance of PS 22 in Staten Island at the Oscars has been politicized. While Daily News columnist Michael Daly used veteran chorus director Gregg Breinberg as an example for getting rid of “last in, first out” layoff rules, it was LIFO that led Breinberg to PS 22 in the first place, as Gotham Schools points out.

But never mind; here is what Mel Meer, a parent leader in Queens, writes about that performance and then watch it yourself. See also what Doug Israel of the Center for Arts Education wrote about this event and how it reveals the need for more arts in the schools :

The kids from Staten Island's PS 22 closed the Oscar performance with a beautiful, fully harmonized, rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

Their performance exceeds, by a wide margin, the standards for elementary music set forth by the DOE. It certainly exceeds, by even a wider margin, anything I have heard in two local elementary schools in middle to upper-middle class Northeastern Queens.

Kids are often capable of much more than we ask of them. They are evidently led by a dedicated teacher encouraging their performance to a high level for their ages. This also, unfortunately, illustrates by the exception what we are losing in the arts because of the test-prep mentality of the current system.

See the performance, if you haven't already done so below.

-- Melvyn Meer

Sam Pirozzolo: We need an Education Tea Party of parents against mayoral control

From the Bronx to Brooklyn, from Harlem to Tribeca, from Queens to Staten Island, public school parents are furious about Mayor Bloomberg's arrogant disregard for our views and his malignant educational policies. Check out the remarks of Sam Pirozzolo, President of the Community Education Council 31, at the Staten Island legislative breakfast last week, and what he said to state legislators about their extension of mayoral control:

I would like to thank the Staten Island Federation of PTA’s for holding this forum. I would like to thank all of the people in the audience and especially our elected officials for being here today.

As many of you know Staten Island school children have been under attack. We are under attack from a DoE that is unconcerned, uncaring, unyielding and unreliable. We are dealing with a mayor who rules our school system with outright disdain for parents, teachers and the very laws which govern our society. Let me give you a few examples of what I mean:

• Mayoral Control: Mayor Bloomberg made a case that school boards were corrupt and wasteful. He convinced the Legislature that he, as a wealthy and wise man, could fix our public school problem if we would just let him control the show. Nine years later, I now interpret his statement to mean, I want a piece of that action. We have seen the mayor spend millions upon millions of dollars in “no bid contracts”. We have seen dozens of if not hundreds of runaway contracts explode beyond their estimated spending limit.

• One contract with the Xerox Corporation was supposed to cost at most $1 million – but the Department spent close to $68 million – a 6,759 percent jump in costs. Another contract with Ideal Restaurant Supply, jumped from $15,000 to more than $852,000 – a 5,530 percent jump.

• During two fiscal years combined, the Department issued 372 requirement contracts, originally estimated to cost $325,236,416 but which exceeded those estimates by 25% or more. The final tab wound up more than $1 billion.

• Many recipients of the contracts - 127 of them – got the lucrative work without any competition because the Department didn’t put the work out to bid. Those 127 contracts were supposed to cost $195 million at most. But the Department spent $525 million on them.

That equals well over $1 billion dollars. Well, Mr. Mayor how many teachers, how many schools, how many children would $1 billion support?

If you think schools are the only place we’re getting screwed you are wrong. How about the $80 million boondoggle with the City Time project?

When mayoral control was up for renewal two years ago, I testified, hundreds of parents throughout the city testified before the Assembly education committee. Mr. Cusak, Mr. Titone, you sat on that committee. You heard from hundreds of parents telling you that checks and balances were needed to protect our school system.

CEC 31 sent our testimony to every elected state official on Staten Island. We did not receive one return phone call to ask what we thought may help. Our pleas, and the pleas of hundreds of other New York parents fell upon deaf ears.

What did this mean to Staten Island? We have lost a 40 year variance to bus our 7th and 8th graders to school. We had to keep 650 students from PS 36 home for three days, before the mayor agreed to replace leaking toxic PCB emitting light ballasts that were threatening our children.

We are seeing the proliferation of charter schools, co-locations and school closings around the city. Schools on Staten Island are constantly being short changed.

Now our mayor is asking the State Senate and Assembly for permission to fire “unproductive senior teachers”. Well I have to tell you that I agree with that 100 percent; however there are already systems in place to do just that. Just to be clear, I am not advocating for teachers or the UFT with my next statement, I am advocating for our children.

I say to our legislators, don’t you DARE give the mayor the power to fire anyone. He has proven with his past actions that he cannot be trusted. Most politicians elected for their last term are considered lame ducks, but not Mayor Mike, he acts as though he will be around for a fourth term and I am sure he can buy that too.

Before I go let me remind you that we need educational reform. We need checks and balances on Mayoral Control. We need an EDUCATIONAL TEA PARTY. We need is a bill introduced in the Assembly and Senate that seeks to curb Mayoral Control. Parents: these are the people who are supposed to fight for you.... sitting right there. Tell them what you want.