[VIDEO] NYC KidsPAC Education report card for the Mayor press conference

Video taken by Michael Elliot at our NYC KidsPAC press conference on April 19 where we released our education report card for Mayor de Blasio.

The decimation of parent involvement in District 22

Presidents Councils are the collection of all PTA Presidents or their reps in each school district in the city. A little history: since the beginning of Presidents Councils, back in the 1990's and even before, when districts had PA President councils under various names, District 22 in Brooklyn has had an unbroken series of these councils. For those not aware, D22 was considered a leader in parent involvement, and not only by our own parents, but by parents throughout the city. Wherever we went if we said we were district 22 parents, we represented a high level of parent involvement.

We were one of the pilot districts for School Based Budgeting and for the Special Ed Inclusion program. Our district started School Leadership Teams when they were first rolled out under C100.11 under Chancellor Rudy Crew as School-based management and Shared decision making. The District went so far as to send a team including administrators, teachers and parents to Edmonton, Canada to learn more about it.

We met with our Superintendent on a monthly basis where no question, whether about budgets, curriculum, zoning, etc., ever went unanswered. When budgets had to be revised and/or cut in the middle of the summer, not only Principals but PA Presidents and UFT chapter leaders were called in, to meet with the Superintendent to decide collectively where those cuts would do the least harm to the students.

PA Presidents were included in every memo that went out to principals and UFT. Was it perfect? Not by a long shot, but parents knew they were in a cooperative effort and had a very real voice as well as the opportunity to have an impact.

I was involved from 1986 thru 2004, when my youngest went on to High School, but kept in touch with the parents in the district.

I have now heard that for the first time in all the years of active parent involvement, District 22 is now without a Presidents Council. Parents have been so disenfranchised, ignored, and frustrated in their attempts to have genuine input that they have basically just given up.

Let's hear it for this administration, for being able to decimate a quarter century or more of parent involvement in 7 short years. -- Dorothy Giglio

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.