Flower City Parents Network

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Choices 

Don’t forget the RCSD School Choice Expo tomorrow: 

Saturday, January 7th at the Riverside Convention Center., from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.  

If you have a child who is starting pre-k, kindergarten, or secondary school next year, the Expo is the place to go! 

You can check out different programs, talk to teachers and principals, and pick up applications and parent compacts for secondary schools.  You can also talk to representatives of various departments, such as Transportation and School Safety.  And you can register your child for kindergarten at the Expo, if you bring copies of the required documents with you. (The document list is here.) 

If you know someone who is shopping for a school or a pre-school, please let them know about the Expo.

Kudos

Three cheers for Mayor Richards! 

Over the holidays, Assemblyman Gantt started talking about reintroducing mayoral control legislation. The mayor could have flirted with the idea; he could have said maybe, just maybe, he might take over the school district — if people asked him often enough and nicely enough. He could also have taken a wait-and-see attitude. 

Instead, he gave us a clear, decisive answer. He said, “I believe that pursuing mayoral control will result in what I want to avoid; diverting our attention from the need for steady academic improvement.” 

And, indeed, a mayoral control debate would have turned the superintendent search on its ear.  Why would any candidate seek the job of superintendent of the Rochester City School District under a school board that might, at any moment, be dissolved?  

Whether you support mayoral control or oppose it, it’s hard to do anything other than admire a leader like Mayor Richards for looking at the proposal, realizing the timing was extremely bad, and putting the matter to rest. 

Choices again

Commissioner Mary Adams kindly shared her notes from the three public forums relating to the superintendent search.  You can find them here. 

Over the course of the three forums, a great many people spoke. A great many suggestions were offered. And, for almost every point of view, there was a counterpoint. Some people wanted a superintendent who will make enemies in order to get things done; others wanted a superintendent who will get things done by not making enemies. Some people wanted a fearless ankle-biter; others wanted  a conciliatory type. 

At some level, the citizens of Rochester do have to accept the fact that, unless we can all find a way to want exactly the same thing, the superintendent search cannot be completely responsive to community demands. It does not seem likely that any candidate will appeal to everyone equally.

At the same time, the board and the superintendent search committee need to keep stakeholders informed.  The superintendent search committee has collected a great deal of input during the public forums and focus groups.  What does the committee make of all this information? How has community input shaped the search? What sort of criteria is the committee now using? Where do we stand? 

And still more choices

While the district is choosing a leader, many families are choosing a school.  School placement has always been tricky in a district the size of the RCSD — but it’s easier when consistent information is being circulated.  If you go to a school or to the Placement Office and hear something that sounds strange or unreasonable (or wonderful and very reasonable), please log into our discussion board and let the rest of us know. You may have learned something very useful that just isn’t being communicated widely.  Or you may have gotten misinformation. Or you may be getting accurate information, but information that is nonetheless unreasonable. It’s probably easier to sort this out as a community than as individuals.

Please see our kindergarten choice information (including a Q&A with the head of Placement) here.

Information about the high-school application process is here.

From the discussion board….

Reasons we love the schools our children attend:

School 12 (HOLA): My fifth grade son and his classmate had a playdate the other day.  After some outdoors time and a quick snack they headed up to the computer — but not to play games!  My son wanted to show his friend his Bengal Tiger presentation. Then she taught him how to do animation. Together they doctored it up and created another. They had a blast. So how does this relate to RCSD? His teacher introduced them to Powerpoint. Now they are doing reports on a planet and can use Powerpoint if they have access … this boy who really doesn’t like to write, has written about 5 pages of notes and is happily turning them into a powerpoint. He is so proud and excited. I can’t wait to see the final version of Jupiter! Oh, and when his teacher heard we had gotten “free” powerpoint, she had me come into class and share how to download open office.

School of the Arts (SOTA): Mom, can I try out for the school play?  EVERYONE’S doing it….

The Children’s School (School 15): My daughter came home from school last week and said there had been Chinese acrobats at their morning assembly — and that her principal (who does not happen to be Asian) had translated for the ones who didn’t speak English. I’m so glad my daughter goes to a school where she sees that being multi-lingual isn’t something that just happens to people born in other countries, where she sees that even Americans can learn to converse in Mandarin.

Urban Choice Charter School (UCCS): One of my favorite practices at UCCS is “Friday Celebration.” Every Friday in the elementary buidling K-6 school stops at roughly 3:00 (dismissal is 4:00) and classes have “Friday Celebration”… to celebrate a week of hard work. Celebrations my kids have had have been bowling and going to JCC to watching a movie in the classroom and having popcorn to having the head of the school cook for the class …The costs are covered in the school budget (and in some cases, grants) and no child is denied for lack of funds. Kids will miss celebration if they haven’t had good behavior during the week. But it celebrates everyone regardless of how you do academically but more of working hard and being a good citizen.

Please add your story about the great things that are happening in your child’s city school!

The budget:

The RCSD has posted a very open-ended survey about the budget.  If you take the survey,  share your thoughts with others here .

Charter-District Collaboration:

I really, really wish that things weren’t so political & divisive. We are all (district school parents & leaders, charter school parents & leaders, residents of Rochester) supposed to have the best interest of the children of Rochester at heart. It really shouldn’t be that difficult to respect each other, join together on issues that are relevant, and let the nit-picky things go.

Teachers in Rhode Island charter school are supporting teachers in the city’s public schools. I would love to see this happen everywhere! http://flowercityparents.org/forum/index.php?topic=3232

Sports in the RCSD:

I want to stay in the city and have my son go to city schools but I also want him to have the same opportunities that he would get at just about every other school in the state….With 32K students it seems as if they should be able to pool all of the high schools to come up with a 22 person roster.   If not they should do what Brighton, HFL, East Rochester and many other section 5 school districts have done.  Pool together so that their students still have the opportunity to participate …

Carlos Cotto is the Executive Director of Health, Physical Education and Athletics….Our PTC (Parent Teacher Crew) invited him to our October meeting to address sports expanding at WOIS as it turns into a high school. He was great. I encourage any parents or parent group to invite him in to a meeting.  We were able to better understand how the district is organizing Varsity sports across different schools and we were able to share what sports opportunities our kids are interested in… Let’s post all of the registration dates for the youth sports leagues available for students living in the city.  I know registration for both Eastside and Southside Little League (t – ball and baseball) are coming up soon. I will also post these dates.

The Genesee Valley Youth Hockey Club offers boys and girls ages 6 to 15 – with few or no hockey skills – the opportunity to learn how to play the game of hockey. The program offers first-come first-served registration to City of Rochester residences but open to others charged at a minimal fee, as space allows.

Plus … budget, placement, superintendent search news … and much more.

From our calendar:

Thanks for your support.

 Sincerely,

 The Flower City Parents Network

http://www.flowercityparents.org

Monday, October 17, 2011

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The school board wants to hire a search firm, Ray & Associates, to help us find a superintendent.  A large number of parents and activists from the Community Education Task Force object. The two parties — the board members and the Community Education Task Force members – seem to be at an impasse. No one has explained why we need a search firm and no one has explained how we might proceed without one.

The board needs to tell the community, very soon and in very specific terms, what part of hiring a superintendent cannot be done without a search firm. Collecting applications? Checking resumes and references? Screening candidates? Evaluating qualifications? Once the board members have told us what they feel a search firm can do that our Human Capital department cannot do, we will be able to have a meaningful discussion and perhaps an amiable resolution. This impasse is getting us nowhere.

Parent engagement: Let’s have it OUR way

The Office of Parent Engagement is on the move.  Literally.  It’s moving from 360 St. Paul to Central Office on Broad Street at the end of October.

The new home will come with a new leader.  The RCSD is in the process of screening candidates to head up the Office of Parent Engagement.  Gladys Pedraza-Burgos is asking the parent community for help in improving the Office of Parent Engagement, in turning it into what we want it to be.  Here are the questions she has asked parents to weigh in on:

- What attributes should the head of the Office of Parent Engagement have?
- What should the Office of Parent Engagement be providing?
- What should be added?
- What should be done differently?

As Ms. Pedraza-Burgos said, “Feedback from parents is what drives the work in this department and helps us be very specific as to what parents needs are.”

Some of the things we need are obvious: a customer service line that provides something resembling customer service, leadership training for parents, on-line access to the policies affecting our children (transportation, school choice, health, discipline, special ed, visiting schools).  Not everything is that straightforward though.

What could the Office of Parent Engagement do to help you work with your child’s school and school district to produce an excellent education for your child?  What do you need?

This is our office: our opportunity, our chance to ask for the things we need.  It’s financed by our tax dollars.  It’s there to make us more effective within our children’s schools.  We need to talk to the people who are willing to re-invent it in order to make it what we want it to be.

Please weigh in here.

The calendar is back up and running!

Managing Flower City Parents Network without Hilary Appelman, one of its founders and intellectual powerhouses, has involved a steep learning curve.  One of the things that fell by the wayside over the past few months was the calendar.  We are pleased to announce that it’s up and running again.  We will post events on the calendar when we receive notice of them.  You are welcome to post events too.

In particular, please note that Coffee and Conversation with Bolgen Vargas will take place THIS TUESDAY (the 18th, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.) and THIS WEDNESDAY (the 19th, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.) in the large conference room on the third floor of Central Office. This event is well worth attending if you are an RCSD parent with concerns about something happening in the district or in a school.  It is also well worth attending if you love what is happening in your child’s school and want to lobby for more of the same.  

From the discussion board….

On a second SOTA:

“It is a fascinating prospect and given the demand for the existing SOTA, it’s hard to argue against the benefits of opening another.  I would certainly support it.  However…the school is overtly selective in its admissions practices.  I have no problem with that at all, but let’s not pretend that SOTA is playing with the same deck of cards as Charlotte.  And it begs the question of what would happen if opening a second SOTA diluted the quality of students admitted between the two.  Would graduation rates be the same?  I honestly don’t know.”

“Here’s the other slightly awkward issue that Van White should probably discuss (as all the commissioners know, School Board Commissioner is not a job for the faint of heart): SOTA owes its high graduation rate at least in part to its more than 40% middle-class demographic.  Is the RCSD hoping to operate two SOTAs, each of which would have student bodies that were almost evenly divided between low-income students and middle-class students? Or is the RCSD hoping to operate two SOTAs, each of which would have student bodies where 20% of the students came from middle-class homes and 80% came from low-income homes? Would lowering the percentage of middle-class kids in the SOTAs affect the graduation rate? Does the RCSD know where the tipping point is for SOTA families when it comes to the socio-economic composition of the school? Is the RCSD sure that all the middle-class kids at SOTA are there, instead of at Wilson, because they want to do arts instead of IB?  Or are some of them there because they (their families?) are more comfortable with a school that has a larger middle-class population? It’s important just because, if it’s the graduation rate we’re trying to replicate, we need to look at all the factors behind SOTA’s graduation rate, not just the ones that leap off the page, i.e. curriculum.  (And if it’s “keeping middle-class families in the city” that we’re trying to replicate, we need to look at all the factors that cause middle-class families to opt for SOTA.)”

On School Without Walls:

“The premise of the school is community as school. We don’t believe that all learning can occur within a school building. We believe in going into the communities we live and will eventually work to learn….They use the library downtown. They find other creative avenues for physical education. Last year they offered Kung Fu. Every year they offer yoga. They do go to the Campbell St Rec Center for a more traditional form of gym, if students prefer….What used to happen was at the end of every school year students took a survey on what classes they wanted offered the next year….They have offered classes on a wide variety of topics such as Teen Issues, Harlem Renissance, Human Anatomy, MicroBiology, Finance, Arabic, Italian, Chemistry, Journalism, Race Class and Power to name a few … The school has changed with the mandated high stakes testing and class choices are becoming more traditional, which is sad. It is a wonderful place where student who have a vision for themselves can explore it with guidance from a supportive staff. Students develop very close relationships with teachers based on mutual respect and understanding.”

On the RCSD’s truancy efforts:

“In three weeks of knocking on doors, about 90 percent of the students identified as chronically truant in fact have enrolled in other programs or transferred to other schools [according to 13 WHAM]. Is the RCSD looking at whether there might be some sort of record-keeping problems here?  Surely the other programs have requested academic records from the RCSD — so maybe the RCSD could save a fair amount of money on truancy officers by removing students from the RCSD roster when these requests for academic records are made.”

“If kids have not shown up to school AT ALL, I would think they are going to school somewhere else. Plus we know that the RCSD was not aware of at least one student who moved…re: getting robocalls about her child missing class when he (I think it was a son?) was in fact attending school out of state….It would seem that yes, this is an area where the RCSD could save money/time with better organization & better record-keeping.”

On bullying:

“I guess I am uncomfortable with any labels around “bullying”… I believe even when we label a behavior as “cruel” or “hurtful” or “wrong” (or any other description), people, especially children, see themselves as that description, not just their behavior… They are much less open to hearing from folks how their actions may have affected someone. They are too busy internalizing that label and reacting to it. Given my recent experience around a situation with my daughter, my primary concern was her safety. After that, however, I felt really curious and wondered what was going on for the student so that she acted in the way she did. I really wanted to, and still do, hear from her.”

On teachers being displaced:

“I have always been frustrated that the RTA contract, which has a direct impact on our children, is so little understood …”

“After 13 years in the district, I was displaced.  I found out in mid July …”

“Some schools conduct interviews as part of their staffing process…Schools that don’t conduct interviews fill positions strictly on the basis of seniority.  (I want to know why all schools don’t conduct interviews.)”

“Positions that get refunded after transfer day are filled on strict seniority — I think that is how SOTA ended up with the apparently unqualified music teacher.”

On Vargas’ Coffee and Conversation:

It seemed to be a good discussion…key themes were poor district communication/outreach (I brought up my personal pet peeve — lack of GOOD info on the individual schools for parents trying to make a choice), as well as reaching out to un-engaged parents(another thing I think should be at the very top of the district’s priority list).  A lack of engagement at the school level by the BOE also came up.

Plus … the RBA & the election they think doesn’t matter but want you to vote in, the superintendent search, library staffing, St. Paul Street swing space, Finland, school safety, and much more.

From our calendar:

Monday, October 17th

Q& A with Shirley Green, Executive Director of Specialized Services,RCSD
601 Seneca Manor Community Room
(Off Hudson, South of Ridge Road, across from Wal-Mart)
6-8 p.m.

Tuesday, October 18th

Coffee and Conversation with Bolgen Vargas
Central Office
131 West Broad Street, Conference rooms 3A/B
7-9 a.m.

Community Education Task Force Press Conference on Superintendent Search Firm
Phillis Wheatley Library, 33 Samuel McCree Way
5 p.m.

Community & Intergovernmental Relations Committee Meeting
131 West Broad Street, Conference Rm 3-A
6 p.m.

Wednesday, October 19th

Coffee and Conversation with Bolgen Vargas
131 West Broad Street, Conference rooms 3A/B
5-7 p.m.

Thursday, October 20th

Policy Committee Meeting
131 West Broad Street, Conference Rm 3-A
5:30 p.m.

Finance Committee Meeting
131 West Broad Street, Conference Rm 3-A
immediately following Audit Committee

Monday, October 24th

Waiting for Superman Film Screening & Discussion w/ Bolgen Vargas & Malik Evans
Dryden Theater
6 p.m.

Wednesday, October 26th

The Parent Council’s BOE Candidates’ Forum
MCC Damon Campus, Room 4151
6 p.m.

Thursday, October 27th

Board of Education Business Meeting
131 West Broad Street, Conference Rm 3-A
6:30 p.m.

Thursday, November 10th  
Parent Training for School Based Planning Teams
School Without Walls, 480 Broadway
6-8 p.m.
(same content as session on November 12th)

Saturday, November 12th
Parent Training for School Based Planning Teams
School Without Walls, 480 Broadway
10 a.m – noon
(same content as session on November 10th)

Final words:

Alumni stories, if you please!

The RCSD is putting together an alumni database.  This is a grant-funded project that seeks to leverage the power of RCSD alumni.  It also has the potential to change how people see the RCSD, to make prospective parents understand that sending children to RCSD schools does not mean sending children off into a bleak academic and professional future.  If you know a former RCSD student who makes this assumption look silly, please let them know about  the database.

If you have feedback on the database or how the RCSD can make our alumni one of our major assets, please post it on the forum!

Jewels of the City School System  

We want to display them more prominently.  To this end, there is now a specific category for good news on Flower City ParentsNetwork — for the things parents hear and see that makes them  say, “I’m so glad my children are going to school where they are.”  If you are a parent (or a student), please contribute your stories.

Thanks for your support.

Sincerely,

The Flower City Parents Network

 August 10, 2011

http://www.flowercityparents.org

Follow us on Twitter - cityparents - or on Facebook - Flower City Parents. You can also subscribe to forum posts on your RSS feed.

There’s good news and bad news — or maybe it’s the other way around.

There’s the end of summer. It’s the end of our idyllic, unstructured days, when children learn new sports and play in the water. It’s also, as many working parents have reminded us, the end of our very expensive days, when the cost of summer camp eats up family budgets.

There’s the superintendent search. Melisza Campos said the board is looking at executive search firms. Yes, we can’t afford a search and another learning curve. Yes, it’s sad that Rochester schools have become known as the stepping stone (or maybe the express elevator) to bigger things. At the same time, the superintendent search is an opportunity for Rochester parents to look at what we want and need for our children — and to find a leader with a vision we can support and with a commitment to engaging the community.

And then there’s a school board race. Is that good news or bad news? Well, some years it’s barely news at all. And some years it’s news because of the personalities involved, rather than because of the issues involved. We hope this year will be different. With so much at stake and with so many candidates in the ring, we hope there will be a real discussion of what we want, what we need, what we can have, what we can’t have, and what we won’t give up.

Speaking of hopes, what do you hope for from the new school year? If you could change one RCSD policy, which policy would you change? If you could change one general thing about city schools, what would that one thing be? If you could present the school board members with one binding request, what would you ask for? Please let us know. Please let the school board know. Please join the discussion on the forum!

Also, please take the opportunity to get to know the candidates — the incumbents and the challengers.

Flower City Parents Network’s Meet the Candidates event will be held at 6 p.m. on August 27th. This event will be held in the backyard of the Gallivans’ home in the Browncroft neighborhood: 125 Dorchester Road, Rochester, New York 14610.

Highland Park Neighborhood Association is hosting a Meet the Candidates forum at School 12 at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 8th. School 12 is located at 999 South Avenue, Rochester, New York 14620.

Details about both events will be available here.

And, as we hear of other opportunities to meet the candidates, we will let you know. If you know of an event where voters can meet candidates, please post it here: http://flowercityparents.org/forum/index.php?topic=2645.0

From the discussion board….

Check out our School Board Elections section, here:

http://flowercityparents.org/forum/index.php?board=74.0

New principal assignments, here:

http://flowercityparents.org/forum/index.php?topic=2576.0

On young professionals and their commitment to city schools:

“I am the Chair of RocCity Coalition and am looking forward to getting input from your group regarding our education initiative….I happily work and live in the City as do many of our members. Many of our members have graduated from RCSD and are looking for a tangible way to get involved. With almost 40 young professional groups, our members are extremely diverse career wise, come from all over the world, and believe strongly in community engagement. Representing approximately 6,000 members we believe that we have a unique opportunity to get involved and advocate for education. We are working on planning a number of education events as well as those for our PENCIL partnership with School 5. I really liked the comment about surveying young professionals for suggestions and am going to pursue this. You can learn more about us at www.roccitycoalition.org. I look forward to suggestions and input from your group.”

The right and wrong kind of parental involvement, from parents (and parents who are also PTA presidents):

“I think (and have brought this up with our school multiple times) that teachers AND the school need to ask for volunteers! So many parents have come to me and said they want to help but the teachers don’t ask for help. Lots of people will not offer their help without a plan of what they need to do. I also think asking the PTA to help get the notice out would be beneficial. In light of recent cuts I think a plea for art, library and recess help should go out!
I think the right way to be involved is: volunteer, get involved in PTA if only for the principal’s report at each meeting, establish a relationship with your child’s teacher. Be courteous of their time (I always email so they can respond when they have a few free minutes), schedule appointments with them (and not catch them on the spot). I don’t think coming into school with your proverbial guns blazing is very helpful.If all else fails, I hear cookies work.
Seriously though, I think just being a positive force is helpful. Oh and be kind to your school secretary – she is the gatekeeper to administration!”

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“The starting point for everyone should be your own child and his/her teacher — coming to open house, making sure homework gets done, asking questions when what your child is telling you makes no sense, coming to teacher conferences. If all parents did that, our schools would be awesome.

Next step is joining the PTA and/or asking the teacher how you can help, the PTA or school based leadership, district leadership, and so on.

I think the “wrong” way to be involved is whenever people jump the steps of being involved at the student,  classroom or school level and just try to “fix things” without any background experience. Understanding what teachers are working with and the constraints that they are working under are key to effective advocacy. If you don’t have that experience(or even if you do) coming in with an open mind and an awareness that you don’t know the whole story will open way more doors than blasting away.

I don’t mean to say a person can’t be an effective advocate at the district level if they have never been PTA President. I do think district level advocates need strong school connections to be effective and on target.”

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“I would like to see folks who are multilingual utilized more in a positive manner. Perhaps translating math (or other subjects other than English, of course) into the child’s native language, to make learning that subject easier. (If I was French, and recently moved to the US, I’d be hard-pressed to figure out anything the teacher was presenting, let alone, be tested on it!) This would boost the child’s confidence and well as their test score! Is there a reason this is not done? Is it done, and I just don’t know about it?

On charter-school funding vs. district-school funding:

“At our meeting with Superintendent Vargas and some of his staff, we certainly raised the issue of whether district schools are still receiving more money than charter schools — and whether they are even receiving as much money.

The answer we got at Central Office was more or less that it’s complicated and that the district has not fully analyzed the numbers and so cannot give us a conclusive, definitive answer — but it definitely sounded like the perception that charter schools are making do with 70% of the funding that district schools receive is misleading.

From what I understand, the $12k figure is just the baseline per-pupil funding.  Charter schools get at least that per pupil.  For some pupils (special-ed pupils), they get more money on top of the $12k….So I think a certain amount of confusion arises from the tendency to comparebaseline per-pupil funding at charter schools with average per-pupil funding at district schools.  Based on what we learned at our meeting with Central Office, it sounds like the $12k per pupil that charter schools receive should really be compared to what the district spends, per pupil, on gen ed students who attend district schools.”

Audited financial statements for Urban Choice Charter School and Genesee Community Charter School at the Rochester Museum and Science Center (GCCS) are at  http://flowercityparents.org/forum/index.php?topic=2636.0

Audited financial statements for the other local charter schools can be found at http://www.newyorkcharters.org/pubsReportsAudits.html

On the Regents, oversight of charter schools, and the demographics at GCCS:

“GCCS obviously serves a student population vastly different from the RCSD, and is an outlier among charters in general in this regard. This in and of itself is not necessarily improper – as long as the application process is in fact open and accessible to the whole community. I am not aware of GCCS engaging in any overtly illegal admission practices such as those referenced in the article (e.g. administering tests or reviewing grades before selection, dropping students from waiting lists, etc.). But whether or not certain recruitment practices result in different student populations seems a gray area worthy of exploration. In fact, NYS charter law was changed a few years ago to address just this question. Among other things, charters must now demonstrate evidence of efforts made to attract student demographics in similar proportion to the host district (race, poverty, ELL, SpEd, etc.). Also, the changes made it illegal for charters to hold admissions lotteries before April 1st (when less engaged parents are unlikely to be thinking about next school year – a tactic previously utilized by GCCS)….All of this said, it remains worth noting that the vast majority of charters in NYS and Rochester have student populations that very accurately reflect their host districts because they are actively seeking out the most underserved students.”

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GCCS was among the first charter schools to open after the NY charter law was passed. The law and the role of authorizers have changed dramatically since then.  Anyone submitting a charter today that called for a school serving 20% or even 30% FRPL students in a district with 80% FRPL would never get approved. Charter applications now explicitly require schools to state their target populations, and they are held accountable for any significant divergence. The law requires them to seek out populations representative of the host district (most charters do not need this reminder of course, since it is the reason they were founded in the first place)….If you and I sat down and tried to open a charter school just like GCCS tomorrow…it would either fail to get approved, or get closed down within a few years because it would be out of compliance with the charter agreement.  All of this on top of new laws that have evolved to rigidly define the recruitment and admissions process – many of which were directed at the few schools like GCCS.  It will be interesting to see how GCCS is impacted in coming years.”

Flower City Parents Network took the show on the road — or to Central Office, anyway…

In July, couple of the FCPN regulars met with Superintendent Vargas to talk about our sense (from the discussion board as well as one-on-one conversations) of what the parents we encounter in the city are looking for from the district. Linda Dunsmoor, Vernon Connors, and Mary Doyle (Communications, Finance, and Innovation/Chief of Staff, respectively) were there as well as Superintendent Vargas.

We discussed parents helping to lobby for more funding, the need for a clearer picture of how money is spent, and the district bringing parents to the table for a discussion of how money should be spent.

Superintendent Vargas says the budget timetable needs to be made public sometime in October and that the process of getting community input needs to begin with that.

Vernon Connors explained some of the background for the budget shortfall and discussed the perception that the RCSD has as much money as the suburbs do and just doesn’t spend the money as well.

For the complete (and far too detailed) notes on the meeting, please go to: http://flowercityparents.org/forum/index.php?topic=2565.0

On how Central Office decision-makers can keep their fingers on the pulse of the community they serve:

Do you think it matters whether the people making decisions in Central Office live in the city? Is it harder for people who live in the suburbs to know what city parents are worrying about? If decision-makers in Central Office choose to live outside the city, is there anything they should do in order to make sure they have a constant stream of information about parental perceptions, needs, and concerns, since decision-makers who live outside the city limits probably aren’t getting this kind of information while they’re out walking their dogs or arranging playdates? Please weigh in!

From our calendar:

Thursday, August 18

Policy Committee meeting followed by Finance Committee meeting – Conference Room 3-A

5:30 p.m.

Thursday, August 25

Board Business Meeting – Conference Room 3-A

6:30 p.m.

Friday, August 26

August Graduation – Auditorium Theater

6 p.m.

Saturday, August 27

Flower City Parents Network’s Meet the Candidates Event

125 Dorchester Road, Rochester NY 14610

6 p.m.
Thursday, September 8

Highland Park Neighborhood Association’s School Board Candidates’ Forum

School 12: 999 South Avenue, Rochester, New York 14620

6:30 p.m.

Final Thoughts:

You meet your child’s teacher. You meet your child’s principal. Please try to meet the people who will make the decisions that have such a huge impact on your child’s teacher,your child’s principal and, most importantly, your child. Please come to a candidate forum.

If you cannot, please follow the discussions and debates. Please let the candidates know about your worries, your concerns, and the aspects of your child’s school that you would not, at any price, want to lose.

Please vote. Please vote twice — once in the primary, if you are allowed, and once in the general election.  It is so important that parents be involved in selecting the school board.

Thanks for your support.

Sincerely,

The Flower City Parents Network

 

 

Volume 39

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The School Board is scheduled to vote on the budget on Monday night. Yes, TONIGHT!

Partly in response to community feeback – ie. outraged students, parents, and teachers – the board has asked for changes to the administration’s original budget proposal – reducing administrative costs and cutting transportation spending by enforcing zone boundaries – with the result of restoring some of the cuts to the arts, libraries, and physical education, among other things.  No one knows, however, just what has been restored and what is still being cut – because no one has seen the revised budget.

As of this writing, not even the board had seen the revisions!

It is NOT UNREASONABLE for the public to ask if we can see the new budget before the school board votes on it!

There is more information we don’t have.

The Capital Improvement Plan was still not available on the district website, despite assurances by the District’s chief financial officer, Joyce Martelli that it would be made public.

The District is also requiring parents to submit FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) requests in order to see the written answers to budget questions submitted by the school board. Why is it that the RCSD can’t afford to fund schools adequately, but can afford to pay someone to read and respond to FOIL requests for non-confidential information that could have been posted on the district website to start with? And how, again, are we unreasonable when we ask if there might be some fat that could be trimmed from Central Office?

(The board has asked for an independent audit to resolve claims by the RTA that the deficit is much smaller than the administration’s $76 million figure, but results of that audit are not expected before the budget vote.

If you want to let the board know how you feel about the budget or the budget process, be sure to do it NOW. Here are the e-mail addresses for the board members:

malik@malikevans.org, countyleg@hotmail.com, meliszacampos@hotmail.com,

Van.white@thelegalbrief.com,celliott1225@yahoo.com,

Willa.Powell@rcsdk12.org, AllenKWilliams@mac.com

Superintendent Brizard leaving

Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard is leaving to head up the Chicago schools — he may be gone by May 13th. On a national level, everyone is talking about what this means for Chicago and for Brizard, but here in Rochester we need to focus on what it means for us. Board Commissioner Van White said last week that Brizard’s departure does not mean reform is dead. He added that he will not be bullied into accepting the status quo.

We certainly hope not. We hope none of the school board members will be bullied, coaxed, or cajoled into accepting the status quo. The RCSD, while providing astonishing opportunities for some children in the city, has failed many others. And that was just last year’s status quo. For a while this year, parents at many of the district’s best schools worried that failing all children was going to be the district’s answer to questions about equity.

These concerns have eased somewhat with the assurances that restored state aid will be divided among the schools most severely impacted by the initial budget proposal. That’s welcome news, but it is only a one-year answer. Parents don’t look at education one year at a time. We don’t feel comfortable sending our children to schools that will be viable next year, but in a precarious position again the year after that.

Ultimately, long-term solutions are needed. Large questions require sound answers: How can the district secure adequate resources from the city, state, and federal governments? How should we manage all the underfunded mandates? How should the district balance the rights of employees with the rights of students? How can all the stakeholders in the district best cooperate? How should we address poverty? How should the district interact with the middle class? How should district resources be divided equitably?

We should be talking about these things anyway — because the answers need to be reflected in next year’s budget.

We need to to talk about them now, though, because the answers should drive our search for a new superintendent. What do we, the parents, want in a new superintendent?

Do we want a reformer? Almost certainly, no one wants a superintendent who hopes that the graduation rate will, of its own accord, rise. Or a superintendent who hopes that, of its own accord, the achievement gap will disappear. Or a superintendent who hopes that, of their own accord, uninvolved parents will become involved parents and involved parents will become satisfied parents.

But what sort of reformer do we want? There are many kinds of reform. Now is the time to figure out what kind we want.

Come to the forum to join the discussions about the budget and search for a superintendent:

From the latest posts on the forum:

From Thursday’s board meeting:

“Malik Evans said the board will vote Monday on “the board’s budget,” which will include approximately $6.4 million in ‘addbacks,’ mostly to the arts, librarians, physical education. He also said the board hopes to announce something soon – in May – about an interim superintendent, and about a “community engagement process” for selecting a permanent superintendent.

“Brizard thanked Rochester for opportunity here, said he was not cutting off ties with the city since wife is still opening a charter school here.

“Van White on charter schools sharing space with RCSD schools: We do not need to step in this direction yet since Brizard is leaving.

“Willa Powell suggested that schools that don’t like new budget or policies should look into becoming conversion charters – RCSD schools that convert to charters and are approved by the board rather than the state. She suggested that School #15 and SOTA might want to look at whether they would be better off as charters.”

On the budget:

I think it is critical that we show up for budget approval meeting and express dissatisfaction.  Is it legal for them to vote on a budget they have not deliberated on?  Or, if the changes are so minimal that deliberations can be done during a few minutes in the same meeting, will we as a community watch them undermine our public schools in this way?  What are the consequences for dismissing the public’s will (has anyone heard ANY non-RCSD-administrator DEFEND this budget?) — after all the work we have done studying, blogging, problem-solving, emailing, speaking, meeting, organizing and writing?

On the Rochester Curriculum:

OK – so while there seems to be some consensus on the usefulness of the curriculum, according to the 2010-11 budget the “Division of Teaching and Learning is responsible for the core work of our District – teaching and learning. The division‘s primary role is to create the framework teachers will use through the creation of the Rochester Curriculum – referred to as the “what” teachers will teach. … The division encompasses all subject areas and support areas (including English Language Learners, Academic Intervention, Specialized Services, African and African American Studies, and accelerated learning).” So what does this cost us? In the 2010-11 Budget the Division’s budget was $39,863,264. Now the division does other things than writing the Curriculum. So if anyone can break down exactly what is spent on the Curriculum that would be great. So the question is while people like the Curriculum, how much is it costing the District and can we afford it?

 

I feel like we have every right to be suspicious about a curriculum developed under a man the business community believes to be the best superintendent that the Rochester children [they wouldn't want their kids to go to school with] have ever had.

I think I will be reassured when the RBA and RBJ declare that the Rochester Curriculum is the curriculum all Monroe County schools have to follow if they, too, want the support of the business community (i.e. campaign contributions and not too much incitement to taxpayer revolt).

We can call it the Greater Rochester Curriculum.  And each suburban school can pay us 0.50 per kid, per subject, per year for the use of it.  This will help defray the cost of having written it.

On Urbanski:

“The only constant here in Rochester has been Adam Urbanski and while I believe him to have had phenomenal ideas, I don’t believe he makes sense anymore. I am uncomfortable with him believing that the parent community is entirely in his pocket and cannot and does not question his control. Even if we were discontented with Brizard and even if you know your child’s teachers are awesome, you can still believe that the current contract and union’s inflated power puts teachers over kids.”

On Brizard’s departure and the search for a new superintendent:

“I hope for someone who will be a unifier of families, the BOE, the Unions, City council and the community at large.  Someone who will put their ego aside for the greater good. Someone who isn’t using this opportunity as a steppingstone for their own career.

“It could happen and I hope our board members will see that this time around.  That they can put their egos and differences aside for the greater good.

“Here’s keeping my fingers crossed.“

“The vast majority of people involved in “Urban Education Administration” (Broad et. al.) are far more interested in what the business community wants than what we parents want. It is time to tell these folks that they cannot ignore us. We have the power to get what we want from our district, we must exercise it. Maybe it’s time to put together a FCPN ticket for the school board elections (and I am serious about that).”

“I think it’s probably time for someone with local roots and serious ties to the community. A revolving door in the superintendent’s office is not going to help us. We need someone to stick for a while. While vision is great, we can’t have a leader who is willing to cannibalize our schools today in order to implement their long-term vision. Art, music, and gym are simply vital to a child’s education and are every bit as important as math, english, history, etc. (and this is coming from a math professor!). Children need to want to go to school in order to get something meaningful from it! I hope our new superintendent recognizes that.

“Ideally (and I know I am dreaming here), our new superintendent will push back against the standardizing and standardized testing so prevalent in our current system. I am shocked at how narrow our curriculum has become, and the resulting knowledge of our students (this is not unique to the RCSD, of course). Children are all unique, and they need to be treated as such.

“Wouldn’t it be great if the new superintendent could see the wonderful things already going on here in Rochester (WOIS, Franklin Montessori, SOTA, IB, and a number of charters come to mind, but I am sure there are other examplars out there) and really try to replicate and expand them. This seems like such a no-brainer to me, I don’t know why this isn’t being aggressively pursued. We do not need another Broad cronie, we need someone who will make our public schools the best they can be.

…

“However, I think whoever the new superintendent is, the most important factor will be us, the parents. When we moved to the city last summer and began meeting folks, settling in, and looking at school, one thing really struck me. It is truly amazing the amount of effort RCSD parent put in to making their children’s schools fantastic places. Really, I am astounded at the things parents are doing. However it’s not enough (it never is, is it?!?). It’s not enough to focus only on our own school. Of course, we need to start there, but there are forces larger than our individual schools that we cannot ignore. We must show the Board that we mean business. We must make our voices heard across the district. We must be organized on a larger scale than we are now ... It’s not enough to make our neighborhood school a better place. We have to make the entire district a better place.“

“At this point, I don’t feel the least bit of excitement with a void in leadership. (Although since there has been no communication and collaborative work amongst the leadership maybe the only difference is we won’t be paying anyone to not make things happen…) …To Mr. Urbanski and all of the teachers that voted no confidence, you’ve got what you’ve been asking for. Now, please step up to the plate!! Your expertise in educating the children of our community is needed now more than ever before.”

Join the discussion … what do YOU hope for in a new superintendent?

Also … Willa Powell on “hardening” zone boundaries (ie. making children go to school in their own zones, except for citywides)

and discussion of the allegedly existent Parent Council

From our calendar:

May 2 (Tonight!)

Special Board meeting on budget, Conference Room 3-A.

This meeting will be streamed live on RCSD-TV.

6 p.m.

Tuesday, May 3

Community Forum to suggest names for a New School and a New Program being offered in the fall.

Jefferson High School Auditorium

1 Edgerton Park

6 to 7 p.m.

 

Wednesday May 4

Community Forum to suggest names for a New School and a New Program being offered in the fall.

Charlotte High School Auditorium

4115 Lake Avenue

6 to 7 p.m.

Community Education Task Force working group on parent, student, community involvement

School Without Walls

480 Broadway

6 p.m.

May 26

RCSD Board meeting, Conference Room 3-A.

6:30 p.m.

 

Final Thoughts from Hilary (but not really final):

You may have noticed a greater presence by Santosha lately on the Flower City Parents Network forum, and in fact, much of this month’s newsletter is written by her. That’s because I (Hilary) have some major personal news: my family is planning to move this summer to State College, Pa., where my husband has taken a teaching job at Penn State University.

While we are excited about the move, we feel a great sense of loss in leaving Rochester, and I am particularly sad to leave the wonderful community of parents, teachers, and others I have found through the Rochester city schools. I believe strongly in this community and the wonderful things we can make happen, and I believe the terribly painful period the district is now in also provides opportunity for positive change. I’m thrilled that Santosha (skuykendall) as well as Elaine (beanqueen) and others are willing to help keep FCPN running, and I hope that you will help keep it going as well.

Without your posts, the forum does not exist – and without your voices, we cannot be heard. For me, the budget process has been an important reminder of the power of individual voices when we raise them together. We can make a difference for our children. We DO make a difference. Please drop Santosha or me a line if you’d like to know how you can help keep Flower City Parents running – it will be much appreciated!

Thanks for your support.

Sincerely,

The Flower City Parents Network

http://www.flowercityparents.org

Volume 37 March 8, 2011

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These are trying times for the Rochester city schools. The District, facing a massive budget deficit, is implementing deep spending cuts.  At the same time, it has chosen to implement a new “equitable student funding” formula to redistribute resources among schools. In addition, it is opening new high schools, phasing out and redesigning others, and (also at the same time) expanding nine elementary schools to be K-8 schools.

The result? Devastating cuts at the District’s existing schools. While some school board members said they expected cuts of around 10 percent in the schools, principals in fact were told to cut 20, 25, 30 percent and even more from their budgets for next year, which they had to submit by last Friday. One elementary school was told to cut 36 percent of its budget. One high school, 35 percent. Across the District, principals submitted suicide budgets that wiped out art, music, gym, librarians, high school foreign languages, AP classes, and other basics for city children.

You can see our running list of school cuts here: http://bit.ly/dMepei. If your school is not on the list, please add any information you have. (If you haven’t heard anything yet about cuts at your school – call your principal and find out!) Let’s not have a repeat of last year, when the School Board approved the budget without knowing what cuts were being made in the classrooms!

The District itself, meanwhile, has remained strangely silent. As parents, students, teachers and principals face the potential decimation of their schools, we have yet to hear a word from Superintendent Brizard. A press release from Deputy Superintendent John Scanlan said there would be “the reduction of hundreds of positions across all departments and across all buildings, including central office.” No word, though, as to what those central office cuts might be. No guidance on whether this could be a false alarm and these cuts might not be necessary once the state budget comes out. No leadership on whether we should be fighting these cuts in Albany, writing our legislators, calling the governor. Not much word from our elected school board, either.

You can follow the discussion on the forum.

There you can find contact information for the school board, our state legislative delegation, and ideas for action. (Among other things, there is a bus going to Albany tomorrow to push for more state aid to schoolchildren.)

From the inimitable Santosha, (who provides this input with a disclaimer that she is not an accountant), a summary of the budget discussion so far:

Here is what we know so far from official RCSD sources:

The RCSD has $29 million less to spend in 2011-12 than it did this year.

The RCSD anticipates a $51 million increase in expenses in 2011-12.  (About $36 million of that comes from expected salary and benefit increases.)

This adds up to an $80 million funding gap.

Beyond that, we have only questions, speculation, concern, and conflicting information.  For instance, the principal at SOTA released figures on equitable student funding and its impact on her school.  Scanlan, who is in charge of the RCSD’s budget office, said he wasn’t sure the figures were correct — but did not provide alternate figures.

What information we have suggests that schools will get several different kinds of money from the district:

An Equitable Student Funding (ESF) allocation for each student attending the school:

$3,682 for each student with no special needs.

$5,856 for each special ed student.

Between $4,880 and $7,276 for each English Language Learner (ELL) student.

This is considered “unlocked” money.  The principal decides how to spend it within his or her school.

“Locked” RCSD funds for maintaining and operating school buildings, paying certain non-classroom salaries and funding other non-classroom expenses

This will vary from school to school.  The amount being allocated to each school is either not available or impossible to determine (depending on who you ask).

This is money controlled at the district level rather than at the school level.

“Locked” District Priority Funds

This is money the District allocates for specific programs the district believes to be important.

There is no information available to us about the total amount of money to be divided up as District Priority Funds or about how the district has decided to divide up this money.

The principal spends the money on the program for which it was allocated.

There is plenty of information that we don’t have:

How did the district settle on base funding of $3,682 per student?

Will the district’s available financial resources be divided up more or less evenly across the schools – that is, will schools with similar populations receive similar proportions of the district’s financial resources?  Or will the District Priority Funds substantially affect the way available financial resources are divided up across schools?

The district usually talks about spending roughly $18,000 per student. In the 2011-12 budget, how much of that will actually spent IN the schools and how much of it will be spent at the district level (on IT systems, Central Kitchen, the salaries of employees inside district headquarters, etc.)?

How much money is the district cutting from Central Office operations?

From our calendar:

Tuesday, March 8 (tonight!)

RCSD Arts Education Open House

Central Office, 131 W. Broad St.

6 p.m.

Integrated Arts & Tech High School Family Night

950 Norton St.

6:15 p.m.

School 29 Open House

Adlai E. Stevenson School 29

5:30-6:30 p.m.

Wednesday, March 9

Education Lobby Day

Free buses from all over New York will travel to Albany to stand up for our children. Reserve your seat to be part of hundreds in attendance saying  “Yes” to College and Careers and “No” to devastating cuts to education.

School 8 Open House

1180 St. Paul Street

10 a.m. – 12 p.m. or 5 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Thursday, March 10

Integrated Arts & Tech High School Family Night

6:15 p.m.

Friday, March 11

Community Education Summit

East High School

Dr. Adelaide L. Sanford, Vice Chancellor Emeritus, New York State Board of Regents 5:00 – 5:45

Reflections / Local Perspective – Professor William Johnson 5:45 – 6:15

Questions/Discussion and Working Program for Saturday 6:15 –7:00

Reception and Dinner in East High Cafeteria 7:00 – 8:00

Saturday, March 12

Community Education Summit

Rochester Plaza Hotel (note different location from Friday!)

Introductions and Comments from Dr. Sanford 9:30 a.m.

Overview 10 a.m.

Work Session 1 10:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Lunch 12:30 p.m.

Work Session 2 1:45 p.m.

Closing 4 p.m.

Northwest Zone Pre-K and K Recruitment & Registration

Dr. Louis A. Cerulli School No. 34 (530 Lexington Ave.)

Learn about the district’s Pre-K and Kindergarten programs and register Pre-K and kindergartners for fall.

In addition to the schools from that zone, citywide schools will also be on hand to accept registration.Parents/Guardians will need their child’s birth certificate and record of immunization, proof of address, and a photo ID.

Refreshments and child care will be available.

9 a.m. – 11 a.m.

Monday, March 14

High school applications due for entering 7th and 9th graders

Wednesday, March 16

Health Forum

Central Office, 131 W. Broad, Conference Room 3A

School Board forum to hear from parents and community members about critical health issues affecting our youth, including the alarming increase in the incidence of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases among young people.  The Committee would like to discuss options with parents and community members for addressing this critical issue (including the possibility of making condoms available in high schools.)

Anyone wishing to speak must register by noon on March 15 by contacting the Board office at 262-8525.

6 p.m.

Thursday, March 17

Rally to Protect our Schools

5:30 at the Liberty Pole

sponsored by Metro Justice

Saturday, March 19

Northeast Zone Pre-K and K Recruitment & Registration

Audubon School No. 33 (500 Webster Avenue)

See March 12.

9 a.m. – 11 a.m.

Thursday, March 24

Board of Education Meeting

6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, March 29

131 W. Broad St, Conference Room 3A

Special Board Meeting – Superintendent’s Budget Presentation

6 p.m.

Thursday, March 31

Kindergarten applications due

Parent Representative applications due

Final Thoughts:

We wrestled with how to approach these budget cuts. As the District pointed out, they have not been approved. They may never be approved. The state may come through with more money, or the District and/or School Board may find somewhere else to cut. The Democrat & Chronicle, which so far has declined to even COVER the threatened cuts, says “it’s too early to get overwrought.”

We disagree.

It is REALITY that principals have been told to submit these starvation budgets. Art, music and language teachers know their jobs may be eliminated next year; many of them are probably already looking for jobs in other districts. More importantly, our CHILDREN know what is happening. At a town meeting on the budget at School of the Arts last week, student after student got up to ask why their educations were being taken away. It could break your heart.

If this is a political game, it is one that is hurting our children. And that should not be allowed to happen. Before you put your house on the market, before you wash your hands of the city school district — pick up the phone or write an email to your school board representatives. To the superintendent. To our state legislators. To the governor. Tell them our children deserve better. They deserve what their counterparts in the suburbs have. They deserve not to be toyed with in the interest of adult politics.

Our deep thanks to School of the Arts Principal Brenda Pacheco and other principals who have stuck out their necks to make sure we know about these devastating developments when the District would prefer that we did not.

There is a Facebook page - RCSD Adequate School Funding – created to brainstorm ideas for fighting these cuts. There are ideas for action on our forum — as well as contact information and links for sending emails to the School Board, the governor etc.

PLEASE let your voice be heard on this issue. If not for your children, then for all the city’s children. As we have all said so many times to our own children, “This is not OK.”

Thanks for your support.

Sincerely,

The Flower City Parents Network