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Community Education Council 24

P.S. 91 Room 119 68-10 Central Avenue


Glendale, New York 11385
Phone: 718.418.8160 / Fax: 718.418.8168/ Cec24@schools.nyc.gov

New York City Department of Education


Nick Comaianni Dmytro Fedkowskyj Lelani Bomani Ernest Cury Marge Kolb
President 1St Vice President 2nd Vice President Treasurer Secretary

Council Members Department of Education Region 4 Officials


Cecilia Chavez Charles Amundsen
Bill Kregler Regional Superintendent
Deborah Tscherne Catherine M. Powis
Peter Vercessi Deputy Regional Superintendent and
Community Superintendent District 24

FINAL BOARD APPROVED MINUTES


Minutes of Calendar Meeting
February 27, 2007
PS 58, Maspeth, New York

1) Call to order and Roll Call -- The Calendar meeting convened at PS 58 at 7:00
PM

Roll Call – Present

• Lelani Bomani
• Cecilia Chavez
• Nick Comaianni
• Ernest Cury
• Dmytro Fedkowskyj
• Marge Kolb
• Bill Kregler
• Debbie Tscherne
• Peter Vercessi

Also in attendance

Catherine Powis, Community Superintendent, District 24; Chris Cerf, Deputy Chancellor
for Organizational Strategy and Human Capital; Richie Scarpa, Director of Pupil
Transportation; Sandy Brawer, Executive Director Regions 4 & 5; Jean Laupus,
Campaign for Fiscal Equity,; Anne Krysysanowski, Representative, Office of
Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan; Richard Alices, Representative, Office of Senator
Serphin Maltese; Welland M. Fuller, Representative, Office of Assemblywoman
Margaret Markey; Vernon McDermott, Community Board 5
2) Approval of Minutes – Minutes of January 23, 2007 were unanimously approved.

3) Report of the President

Mr. Comaianni acknowledged the afore mentioned guests and thanked them for
attending. Mr. Comaianni stated that the council is very dissatisfied over the way the
busing routes were changed mid year. He stated that the parents should have been aware
of the changes much earlier. He also thanked Mr. Scarpa for handling the problems as
best as he could.

4) Report of the Community Superintendent

Ms. Powis stated that the New York City Department of Education is pleased to
announce that 199 students in District 24 received an offer to attend one of the City’s
nine specialized high schools beginning in September 2007. Offers to eight of the
schools are based on the results of a competitive admissions exam taken by
approximately 27,000 students; the 9th is based on auditions in the performing arts.
Deadline for accepting an offer is February 27, 2007. Ms. Powis further stated that
students who do not accept an offer by February 27th will forfeit their place and be
entered into the main round of high school admissions process. Students who do not
receive an offer are automatically entered into the main round. Results of the main round
will be announced in late March.

Ms. Powis stated that starting this April the DOE will administer an annual survey to
parents, teachers and secondary students that will give them an opportunity to reflect on
the learning environment at their schools. Additionally, principals will complete a survey
about how well the DOE serves the needs of their schools and students. The results of
the parent, teacher, and student surveys will affect the grade a school receives on its
Progress Report in September. The results of the principal survey will be a part of the
system that evaluates the level of service DOE divisions providing to schools.

Ms. Powis stated that the deadline to apply for the Community Education Council’s is
March 9, 2007. (After the meeting the DOE extended the deadline to March 19). She
stated that parent coordinators will reach out to schools and their surrounding
communities to persuade parents to get involved in the process. The selection process
will be held between April 30th and May 8th.

Ms. Powis also stated that Promotion in Doubt letters are in English and 12 other
languages. There are several versions of the letter. The version a student should receive
depends on his or her grade level, whether he or she is general education, ELL or a
special education student, and whether he or she is subject to standard or modified
promotion criteria.

Ms. Powis announced that on Saturday, March 24th 2007 at IS 61 from 8:30 AM to 12:30
PM there will be a parent conference. Parents will be given the opportunity to attend
workshops on various topics. Community based organizations will also be present to
provide information to parents. Breakfast, metro card and child care are available.

5) Guest Speaker Chris Cerf, Deputy Chancellor for Organizational Strategy,


Human Capital and External Affairs.

Mr. Cerf asked the rhetorical question: “Why are we doing things like empowering
schools, building an accountability program, etc” (in regards to the new Children First
Reforms). The point is not that any one particular change is meaningful as it stands alone
but all the changes together will make a big difference. We have been moving the district
forward over the past few years but we have not landed in a place that any of us feel very
comfortable. He then gave some statistics such as 140,000 students in New York City
will not graduate on time and 1 in 4 African American students are very likely not going
to get a regents degree. These statistics are something that should trouble us all. We are
making structural changes in the DOE because we feel this is in the best interest of the
students. We need to ask ourselves if the way the current educational system is set up
benefits all children.

The particulars of the reforms are as follows:

Empowerment: The DOE needs to take money out of the central bureaucracy as much as
possible and put it in the hands of the people who make a difference in the lives of the
children. We need to give power, authority, resources and discretion to the great
educators that are running our schools. The schools need to have the dollars to do what
they know they have to do and to spend where they know they have to spend. We need
to give people the power to make important decisions but at the same time we need to
hold them accountable as well. Last year we asked principals to take on this job, 332
principals signed up to be accountable for their schools, thus becoming empowerment
schools. This year we’d like to take this notion of empowerment schools and are
expanding it to give all 1,400 principals the power of choice. They will all be in the
position to choose one of three different options: those who prefer to work without a net
can build their own systems (empowerment schools) secondly they may opt to work with
one of several internal learning support organizations and the third option is to work with
an external organization. The old system said we are going to do it for you, this new
system asks what support do you need and holds principals accountable. The results will
be much better than in the prior system.

Accountability: If we are going to put principals in the position to determine their own
course we must hold them accountable for results. Accountability means that every
school is given a report card with grades A-F. It will be posted on the web and handed
out to students so that parents can understand how their school is functioning. The DOE
is doing a qualitative review of every school, a collaborative effort between schools,
communities and individuals to collect data on schools and report back to parents and
those interested community members. There is also a computerized accountability system
that has been developed called ERIS. It is a research and innovation tool which gives the
system capabilities that have not been seen before. For example, imagine a system where
you can look and find out why a particular school is soaring while another school with
similar characteristics is doing poorly.

Quality of Teachers: there are a lot of people who under-appreciate teachers. It’s very
important work and the people who do this for a living deserve our utmost respect and
admiration. It’s also true that the quality of teachers are the most important variable in
student success. The quality of teaching is decisive. It is important to all of us. First
under the reforms we would like to take the idea of tenure and give it the respect it
deserves, the respect it gets in higher education. Tenure is something that currently
happens by default. If after 3 years no one denies a teacher tenure, they receive it. The
changes to tenure come in that we are asking that principals make decisions, affirmative
decisions as to whether or not a teacher should be granted tenure.

Fair Student Funding: Right now schools are funded, students are not. Under Fair
Student Funding children will be funded. There is a weighted system. If students come
to a school as an ELL student they might carry different amount of funds with them into
the school. There is a notion of fairness under this system. One school will not gain
funding that another school could not attain, again the funding will go directly to the
student. In this manner it will make funding much more transparent. We all want to
make this a responsible, smooth transition. We are working very hard to design a system
where this transition can go very smooth.

Deputy Chancellor Chris Cerf took questions from the council.

Cecilia Chavez asked if something could be done about the lack of effort some older
teachers may exhibit compared to newer teachers to which Mr. Cerf stated that he
believes that there are superb teachers of all level in the NYCDOE. He stated that
research shows there are great teachers at all levels and not so great teachers at all levels.

Dmytro Fedkowskyj asked 3 questions regarding principals who make the choice to work
with an external organization. They are as follows: How long is the contract? Who
negotiates the contract? Is it a standard contract and can it be broken at anytime? Mr.
Cerf stated that the DOE put out a request for proposals and bids have come back in from
a number of different groups. The first step is to have the DOE determine which of the
proposals meets that level of qualifications set forth by the DOE and negations will then
take place. Every school then would decide whether or not to work with an external
organization, an internal region or become an empowerment school. Prices will not be
negotiated by schools. For the first two years of the contract you are committed to that
contract, after that on a yearly basis there will be a chance to switch to another choice, i.e.
become an empowerment school, etc. Mr. Fedkowskyj stated that he feels that parents
will become more alienated without a region in which to turn should they have any
problems. He asked if the Community Superintendent have an office in the district to
hear parent concerns and what kind of staff will the Community Superintendent have, to
which Mr. Cerf stated that yes the Community Superintendent will have a staff in each
district to assist parents.
Nick Comaianni stated that the Community Superintendent will have a staff and an office
in the district. Even though the principals have choices as to whether or not to become an
empowerment school if there is a problem the principals will still go through the
Community Superintendent. Mr. Cerf stated that he was correct and that it is set out by
statute. The power, authority and responsibilities are not going to change.

Marge Kolb asked if all the empowerment schools will report to the District
Superintendent next year to which Mr. Cerf stated that the Superintendent has a lot of
power and authority. He further stated however that there is an enormous amount of
work that a Community Superintendent has to do from evaluating principals and picking
a team to assisting principals decided whether or not they want to become an
empowerment school. In empowerment schools, schools and principals are given a very
long leash and Community Superintendents are not expected day to day to micromanage.
Their role is critical in hiring, firing, etc. but the idea is to give the power to the educators
and hold them accountable.

Nick Comaianni added that a good Community Superintendent would give principals
leeway to work how they choose and intervene as they see fit.

Dmytro Fedkowskyj pointed out that three years ago the mayor said that to improve the
quality of education all phases of such should be centralized. He questioned doing an
about face on something we spent a lot of money. He then asked what research has been
done to substantiate such a turnaround and how much administration money was spent on
decentralizing the system for the upcoming school year to which Mr. Cerf stated that he
respectfully disagreed with Mr. Fedkowskyj’s views on centralization and
decentralization, and he suggested both were not a as simple as they seemed. We are
using the core literacy and math curriculum which was part of centralization and the
Chancellor retains at all times the power to intervene and all the critical policy rules are
going to still apply. The collective bargaining agreement applies to all schools. The
DOE is transforming the ROC’s into Integrated Service Centers which will function
better as it is an improvement to the older system.

Mr. Fedkowskyj asked if the DOE knew the cost of changing the organization by
eliminating the Regional offices to which Mr. Cerf replied that the DOE does know. Last
year each empowerment school received at least $100,000 that came out of a downsizing
of the regions and most of those funds went to reducing class size and hiring teachers.
Principals have voted overwhelmingly to hire more teachers if they had more money.
Mr. Fedkowskyj pointed out that it’s the same money, just switching hands to which Mr.
Cerf agreed. It’s basically moving money from the central office to the schools. Mr.
Fedkowskyj stated that there seems to be sufficient money within the DOE to roll out
these reforms. He then asked what would happen to the additional CFE funds when they
come in to which Mr. Cerf replied that Governor Spitzer announced a “Contract for
Excellence” and that this money would come down but now without conditions. There’s
a discussion going on in Albany right now regarding what those conditions will be. Mr.
Fedkowskyj stated that in essence that money will increase by the amount coming to the
CFE.

Mr. Comaianni asked why the DOE thought they could save $10 million dollars by
changing bus routes in the middle of the year and think that was the right thing to do in
which Mr. Cerf stated that he apologizes on behalf of the DOE and asked if he could
provide an explanation, not an excuse. He stated that $10 million dollars every year over
of the course of ten years is a lot of money. He further stated that the DOE believes
money wasted that could be spent in the classroom needs to be eradicated and archaic
systems need to be fixed so that more money could go directly into the classrooms. He
admitted to making a mistake with the timing of the bus route changes but asked that the
council to appreciate what was driving the actions of the DOE. We were paying for 5000
students to take the bus that didn’t need the services and hence the cuts.

Peter Vercessi stated that 6 students in the Gifted and Talented program at PS 91 were
affected. He further stated that these children do not have a choice of schools in which
they could attend because they are in a special program to which Mr. Cerf asked if this
problem was dealt with and addressed to which Mr. Vercessi replied in the affirmative.

Mr. Vercessi asked how, under Fair Funding a teacher would be drawn to a high needs
school to which Mr. Cerf stated that teachers apply to a specific school or transfer
between schools. Mr. Vercessi asked if the high needs school would offer more money
for the teacher to which Mr. Cerf replied that the amount a particular teacher gets paid is
determined by the contract and the system. All senior teachers who are currently in a
school, the school will not be charged because they are senior teachers, the only way that
your experience will be relevant is when a new teacher comes into the school and we are
still discussing that. Mr. Vercessi stated that although Fair Funding might work in his
experience one of the biggest concerns teachers have is school safety and discipline.
Considering the weighted funding by need should gifted and talented students receive
more funding to which Mr. Cerf stated that the DOE has looked very hard at gifted and
talented but the basic view is that the current system is such that we do not know enough
to change that and we need community input.

Bill Kregler asked why the bus routes changed in the middle of year. He stated that no
matter what system was put in place it’s up to the families of these students to lend the
most help to their children.

Marge Kolb asked the following questions: Where will all the functions that are
currently handled at regions be handled? She pointed out that special education was a
huge issue. There is supposed to be a District Committee on Special Education which
should be centrally located, where will that be? Where will the District office be located?
Will we rent offices for the District office? What will the support staff be like? These
details are totally missing from this plan. Further, regarding empowerment schools Ms.
Kolb cited statistics that stated 49% of principals in NYC have been at their post 3 years
or less. Will the principal be required to serve a certain number of years before being
allowed to become an empowerment school? Will the District Superintendent be
responsible for the empowerment schools? If parents go to monthly meetings and have
issues with empowerment schools will the District Superintendent know what’s going
on? Will he or she meet with that principal monthly? There is an extreme lack of
information. She further stated that other cities have done research on Fair Student
Funding of which there is no hard evidence that it is effective. She then cited the
research. She stated that she prefers top down decisions, she doesn’t want 1400
individual decisions being made in the city public school system. She asked Mr. Cerf to
give her a definitive answer as to if the empowerment school principals will be reporting
to the Community Superintendent and further inquired as to where Special Education will
be handled. Mr. Cerf stated that the ROC’s functions will be moved to Integrated Service
Centers which are similar to ROC’s but with improvements. All transactional work done
in the ROC’s will be served by the Integrated Service Centers which will serve all 1,400
schools. Regarding Special Education, Deputy Chancellor Alonzo is leading a group to
decide and it looks as if things might stay the same in Special Education for the most
part, however some functions will be moved to the Integrated Service Centers.
Regarding principals having a certain amount of service before being able to lead an
empowerment school the hardest part of empowerment schools is the assumption that all
principals are equal to the task. The short answer is probably no. We will have a tough,
rigorous set of expectations regarding rules and such.

Mr. Cerf took questions from the audience.

Mr. Comaianni noting that Mr. Goldstein of the Office of Pupil Transportation was in the
office addressed the dangerous conditions of the underpass on Cooper Avenue. He then
asked Mr. Goldstein if he was aware of the current busing transportation issues between
IS 119 and PS 49 and PS 128 to which Mr. Goldstein replied that he was aware and the
inspector’s view is that students would be better served by public transportation. He
further stated that students should not walk under the underpass. He did state however
that he will send inspectors out again. Mr. Fedkowskyj urged that this situation be
looked at again to which Mr. Goldstein and Mr. Scarpa agreed.

Mr. Comaianni introduced Guest Speaker Jean Laupus, representative of the Campaign
for Fiscal Equity.

6) Guest Speaker Ms. Jean Laupus, Campaign for Fiscal Equity.

Ms. Laupus stated that the CFE law suit was settled in November for $1.93 billion over 4
years but did not include capital spending or accountability. Governor Spitzer’s plan
“Contract for Excellence” proposes $5.4 billion over 4 years. There is a new funding
formula based on student need per district. Funding is based on enrollment, special
needs, ELL, etc. District poverty and inflation is also taken into account. Governor
Spitzer is also including an accountability factor which was the result of work done over
the course of the CFE lawsuit. There is actually a menu which the CFE funds can be
spent on and are to be kept separate from other funding. Listed on the menu proposed is
class size reduction, teacher quality, and full day pre-k among other things. This menu is
not a fixed menu and depends on the needs of the district.
7) Resolution #27 – Changing Bus Routes

Bill Kregler read the following resolution:

Be it resolved, the Community Education Council for District 24 disagrees with the
Department of Education "DOE" in regards to the change of school bus routes mid year
without seeking parental and public input. The changes hereby implemented by the
DOE unfortunately endanger the safety and welfare of our students while providing
insufficient and misguided information to the public.

Be it further resolved that the Community Education Council for District 24 strongly
recommends to the DOE that they reinstate the necessary school bus routes for students
and families interrupted by this poorly planned change. In addition, the DOE should
identify to the public the amount of the cost savings and where all of the cost
savings would be utilized for the remainder of the school year.

Roll was called; Resolution #27 was passed unanimously.

8) Report of the Committees

Marge Kolb, Chair of the Curriculum Committee had nothing to report at this time

Debbie Tscherne, Chair of the Committee on Gifted and Talented/Honors had


nothing to report at this time.

Dmytro Fedkowskyj, Chair of the Building, Zoning and Maintenance Committee


stated that because of the late hour he will give his report at the next meeting.

9) New Business – Mr. Fedkowskyj pointed out to the council the fact that CEC’s have
the opportunity to provide comments and questions to the DOE regarding the
reorganization and Fair Funding.

10) Old Business – None

11) Adjournment

Dmytro Fedkowskyj motioned to adjourn, Nick Comaianni seconded, meeting was


adjourned at 10:15 PM

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