Summary Public Hearing: Implementation of Federal School Intervention Models (Turnaround) in NYC (Assembly Standing Committee on Education)

Education Committee Hearing on Implementation of Federal School Intervention Models in NYC, April 11, 2012, 10:30AM - 5:00PM. http://assembly.state.ny.us/comm/Ed/20120402/

NYSED Commissioner John B. King and NYCDOE Chancellor Dennis Walcott, Suransky and Sternberg spoke in support of Turnaround models to support rapid changes toward increasing school achievement.

The Education Committee was highly concerned about:

1. Lack of transparent NYSED oversight of the Regents Reform Agenda, which supports the use of Race to the Top funds to implement the Turnaround model (including lack of oversight of Educational Partnership Organizations and Local Educational Agencies)
2. NYCDOE inability to provide proof that the Turnaround model is effective way to improve schools
3. Lack of community input regarding implementation of radical Turnaround model

• Commissioner King spoke favorably of the NYSED Joint Investigation Teams that assess intervention needs of public schools, although the JIT does not involve parents or teachers from the school. 
• NYC DOE cited successful turnaround school, but later Leonie Haimson stated that Suransky's school was successful because it had small class sizes.
• Assembly Member Benedetto represented Lehman HS on multiple occasions stating Lehman did not have time to implement Restart funds.
• AM O'Donnell consistently argued that DOE goals are admirable but DOE does not listen to communities, and that funds would better be used to lower class sizes.
• AM Brenner suggested that Race to the Top funds only account for a minuscule percentage of the annual school budget (the fight for major changes in schools is a fight over pennies) implying that school closures/Turnaround/Restart/Transformation/Co-location along with teacher evaluation mechanisms, and push for Common Core Standards are simply part of a political fight rather than real concern over appropriate spending allocations.
• AM Hon. Catherine Nolan (Chair of Committee on Education), angry about the Turnaround model at her school Gover Cleveland HS in Queens, was concerned mostly about lack of oversight and accountability measures. She stated on more than one occasion that she had not anticipated or intended school closures when she supported application for Race to the Top funds. She requested that NYC DOE reconsider implementation of radical Turnaround model for September, especially because it is not proven effective for improving school achievement.
• All Assembly Members present, including AM Millman, Clark, O'Donnell, Benedetto, N Rivera, Brennan, Simanowitz, seemed concerned with unintended consequences of the Turnaround as a model for reform of public schools. The Assembly told NYSED and NYCDOE to expect FOILs for documentation of oversight and accountability measures.
• However, Suransky, Walcott and Sternberg agreed that Turnaround is emotional but rapid transformation is necessary.
• *NYSED and NYC DOE left after their testimonials and did not hear the testimonials of the following groups, however their representatives remained to take notes.

Testimonials:

• Ernest Logan, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, pointed to the blame game between the City and State, and that Turnaround is not an educationally sound model to support Persistently Low Achieving schools. He requested State Education Department oversight on local education authority, DOE and Chancellor to follow the rules.
• Leo Casey, VP UFT, stated that Turnaround was the most disastrous policy of the Bloomberg Administration, largely because it continues to concentrate high needs students in a failure by design model, and called for 2 year moratorium on school closures.
• Santos Crespo, Local 372 NYC Board of Education, related charter school co-location to apartheid in schools where some students are deemed better than others, and further that layoff of 642 BOE employees had a negative impact on school safety and support services. He suggested a lack of oversight in how Turnaround might increase school crime, bullying and drug use because of the shifting of teachers and BOE employees.
• Leonie Haimson, Exec. Dir. Class Size Matters, argued that Race to the Top funds should be used to lower class sizes as a proven effective model to increase school achievement. She suggested that Community Education Councils be given weight in decisions regarding school closure / co-location.
• Paola de Kock, NYC Citywide Council on High Schools, opposed the Turnaround model because it relies on replacement of personnel using "fundamentally arbitrary criteria" and relies on inexperienced teaching force from Teach for America. Further that DOE use of SIG funds is reckless when taking into account the unintended costs of ATRs, new teacher training and opening of new schools. She also mentioned how the Brooklyn Community School should not have been on the list of Persistently Low Achieving schools because it is a transfer school and therefore cannot be held to the 4 year cohort graduation rate, but that it is too late to do anything for that school.
• Natasha Capers, Coalition for Educational Justice, PS/IS298 in Brownsville, stated that PS/IS298 is facing Turnaround with no clear explanation from the DOE and that using the Turnaround model in a community school is like replacing 50% of your family.
• Elizabeth Buiss, Teacher John Dewey HS, stated that as a Restart school, Dewey had written a DOE-approved Comprehensive Education Plan to improve their school, but only given 4 months to implement the CEP when the DOE stated they would be up for Turnaround. Interestingly the Educational Impact Statement for the Turnaround proposal uses the same model that Dewey's School Leadership Team crafted for their CEP.
• Dirk Peters, Teacher Schomburg Satellite Academy Bronx and Better Bronx Schools, stated that Race to the Top promotes opening of charter schools, which has been implemented through the school co-location model. Further that SUNY and State are not engaging in oversight of co-location of charter schools in DOE public schools.
• Community Education Council 3 urged a cease on school closures and co-locations until all questions presented by the Assembly have been answered by NYC DOE and NYSED.
• Students from Grover Cleveland HS, Lehman HS, Automotive HS, Sheepshead Bay HS, Legacy HS, El Puente, and others presented their lack of faith in the NYC DOE Turnaround model to increase school achievement, especially because it would remove 50% of their teachers.

Summary by Better Bronx Schools

Afterthought:
The Education Committee did not take to the idea that using Race to the Top funding to promote co-location of charter schools was inherently connected to the Turnaround model. 

This implies that folks do not see a connection between co-location and future label as Persistently Low Achieving status followed by Turnaround implementation. 

Schomburg Satellite, although only facing co-location with a charter school in September 2012, may in the near future be slated to the same fate as Brooklyn Community School. Please lookout for negative reports about Schomburg Satellite.

ROADS 2 INVADES Part 2 -- Kelson Maynard

Video by Angel Gonzalez

Public Hearing March 12

ROADS 2 INVADES SATELLITE ACADEMY 

Statement made by
Kelson Maynard:

I have been in this school Satellite Academy for 28 years. 

I don’t understand. I don’t understand how the educational theory is going to improve the quality of education. I have not encountered an explanation, and yet that is the principle in which this decision is being made. 

Currently, I share a classroom because there isn’t enough space. We are being told by people who have not been to the school that we have too much space. Something is wrong with that logic. 

I want to know, Why is it that we in this community here have to confront this kind of problem, that Bronx Science, Stuyvesant, etc would not have to confront. Is this class warfare? Why are we being dumped on? 

Many of us have died for something called democracy. 

We are looking to see if those lives are in vain.

 Because hear me out! 

Expressing ourselves and the decisions are supposed to be democratic decision-making. 

Let's see if that were to be obtained here after this meeting this afternoon or if it is a cynical process and this proposal has already been confirmed.

Since I have been here, there have been two schools that are constant: Satellite Academy and Bronx Regional. Now a plan is being concocted to do irreparable damage to these two programs. Why is that? Why is the DOE doing this plan with such a deleterious effect as you have already heard?

I am pretty confident that the education that the well-to-do get, the education that students get in some parts of Westchester and other places are as different, the special arrangement is different and students have a different experience, but we are supposed to be crowded like cockroaches and we are supposed to get an education to compete with those same students who come out of schools from the Upper West Side from Westchester with superior facilities superior resources. 

Because of what students demonstrated tonight: they dropped out because the school system that they were apart of did not work. And now that we have something that works, DOE and SUNY say we must change that. Many of our students graduated from SUNY! 

We have a safe building, we do not have metal detectors. The program that will come in by default will… How are we supposed to be and feel comfortable with this apparatus? Something has to stop. We will see if what our voices have to say are heard, if this is the home of brave land of the free or not.

Something has to be done. 

The nonsense has to stop. 

You must give our children a chance to be successful.

 

Satellite Fights DOE Move to Increase Floor Capacity

This story is about how the DOE allegedly increased the building capacity (number of seats) from 295 seats to 432 seats in one year (with no new construction or change of rooms).

News 12 Report

The DOE responded by saying that the Bronx Regional Building is at 67% capacity--BUT we are calling for an INVESTIGATION of this capacity rate. 

Here's why:

• In 2009 the 5th floor capacity was 295 seats.
• In 2010 the 5th floor capacity was changed by the DOE to 432 seats.
• This is a 46% increase in capacity.

What accounts for this change?

Interestingly, ROADS II charter school application was presented to SUNY around the same time in 2010. The ROADS school application was initially sent by Cami Anderson, who worked in the SAME BRONX REGIONAL BUILDING (the proposal was sent back to the drawing board 2 times because of Conflict of Interest).

Further, the DOE co-location proposal requires that the 5th floor give the new charter school 46% of the 5th floor.....exactly the same amount of increase that occurred in 2010 when ROADS II application was filed.

You do the math.

http://www.news12.com/articleDetail.jsp?articleId=312032&position=1&news_type=news

(03/19/12) THE BRONX - The Schomburg Satellite School is fighting a Department of Education (DOE) plan to put a second school in the building floor it already occupies.

The DOE wants to put the second school on the fourth and fifth floors, adding 250 students to the building.

Schomburg officials say that the plan would put the floors at 121-percent capacity and the DOE isn't planning of adding additional classrooms or teachers.

The DOE is expected to vote on the issue Wednesday.

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SATELLITE PRESS CONFERENCE TOMORROW!

DOE DRASTICALLY INCREASES BUILDING CAPACITY TO MAKE ROOM FOR INCOMING CHARTER SCHOOL?

When: 3:30 p.m. on March 19

Who: Teachers and Students of Schomburg Satellite Academy 

What: Press Conference to announce their recent findings that the Department of Education drastically increased the building’s student capacity. 

These figures, which increased by 47.5% in a single year, will allow “room” for the DOE to add a new charter school to the building, despite strong opposition by parents, students, and teachers. 

ROADS 2 Charter Invading Satellite Academy: Public Hearing

ROADS 2 Charter Invading Satellite Academy: Public Hearing 

ROADS II CHARTER SCHOOL CO-LOCATION PUSHES INTO THE BRONX. 

WILL DISRUPT SATELLITE ACADEMY HIGH SCHOOL
 

YET NO COMMUNITY INPUT!

Another Charter School CO-LOCATION looms for the South Bronx and immediately threatens the very existence of our good innovative public high school, Satellite Academy (SA).

As usual, the callous Bloomberg's Department of Education (DOE), without any input of our parents, students, staff and Bronx communities, moves impose the ROADS II Charter School into the Bronx Regional High School Building complex where the three schools already exist (i.e. Bronx Regional, GED Plus, and Satellite Academy).

Without community input, the DOE arrogantly claims that ROADS II Charter School will have no educational impact. This is an insult our community's intelligence! The placement of hundreds more high needs students will have negative consequences on all the schools housed in the Bronx Regional High School complex. This is simple math.

All three high schools already serve a high needs Latino & Black student population from our least mobilized neighborhoods. All students in the Bronx Regional Building are transfer students -- over-age, under-credited and many formerly drop-outs. ROADS II aims to serve the same population that SA already serves while at the same time would take away 47% of SA's classroom space!
There is no need for the offerings of the ROADS II charter school. Satellite Academy already exists with a proven track record and offers a far more superior program with an experienced staff that has successfully served transfer students. SA implements a reputable collaborative project/ portfolio learning process that engages students, and has a State-approved Waiver to support its non-Regents-tests-based approach.
ROADS II CHARTER, with the private backing of an outside Wall St. profit driven firm, Centerbridge Partners, comes from outside the Bronx community and promises an questionable computer-based method (promising 15 students per class, ROADS II will instead host 25 students per class where teachers work with small groups while the rest will be placated on computers) and teach-to-test curriculum with a focus on Regents exams. ROADS thus will provide more of the same old methods that contributed to the alienation and pushing out of "transfer" students in the first place. Test-driven teaching negatively impacts on learning.

By adding more students into the Bronx Regional building and segregating these needier students into ROADS II, what results is overcrowding and heightened tensions between four, instead of three schools that all already service very high need students. Instead of using available spaces to promote smaller class sizes, this crowding can result in a negative climate that will beg for demeaning metal detectors, surveillance cameras and the police interventions. The co-location of the ROADS II Charter School is an invitation for unwarranted competition, disharmony and disruption.

The Bronx Regional campus is extra-ordinary in that it is one of the few Bronx high school buildings that to date has no such prison-like scanning, stop & frisk protocols. Instead has a generally more student friendly and welcoming atmosphere. In fact, it holds no scanning as a building-wide policy!

SA classrooms are welcoming with rich learning and decorated environments (a family school atmosphere rarely seen at the high school level). Make an unannounced visit to SA and a respectful low-volume demeanor of the staff will blow you away. The ROADS II co-location would force the doubling-up of teachers and the dismantling of such a wonderful model school that all students deserve.

If more students must be placed here, the public believes that Satellite Academy should be expanded and this fourth unnecessary competing school, the private ROADS II CHARTER, should not be accepted. Its impact can only be negative for all programs at the site.

betterbronxschools@gmail.com

DOE DRASTICALLY INCREASES BUILDING CAPACITY TO MAKE ROOM FOR INCOMING CHARTER SCHOOL?

March 17, 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT

Dirk Peters

Better Bronx Schools

betterbronxschools@gmail.com

347-450-9853

DOE DRASTICALLY INCREASES BUILDING CAPACITY TO MAKE ROOM FOR INCOMING CHARTER SCHOOL?

At 3:30 p.m. on March 19, teachers and students of Schomburg Satellite Academy will hold a press conference to announce their recent findings that the Department of Education drastically increased the building’s student capacity. These figures, which increased by 47.5% in a single year, will allow “room” for the DOE to add a new charter school to the building, despite strong opposition by parents, students, and teachers. The charter school, ROADS II, is proposed to open in September of 2012. 

Monday’s press conference comes in advance of Wednesday's highly-anticipated PEP vote on the co-location of ROADS II with Schomburg Satellite Academy and Bronx Regional High School. The dramatic changes in building's operational capacity were uncovered after the DOE announced plans to add a charter school to the building. The drastic increase in capacity, from 295 students to 432 students, gives new weight to on-going protests by parents and students that the DOE plan would lead to severe over-crowding in the building. Local representatives including State Senator Ruben Diaz, State Assemblyman Eric Stevenson, and City Councilmember Maria del Carmen Arroyo have all expressed their opposition to the plan. 

At Monday’s press conference, teachers and students will call for an investigation into the DOE’s calculation of the building’s capacity, and for a delay of Wednesday’s PEP vote until the results of the investigation can be reviewed. According the DOE plan, enrollment at Satellite would remain constant, but the number of classrooms at would be reduced by half, with the remaining space designated to ROADS II. 

What: 

Press conference demanding investigation into the DOE's radical student capacity increases, and a delay to Wednesday’s PEP vote on co-location

Who:

Schomburg Satellite Academy students, teachers, and parents

Where: 

1010 Rev. James A. Polite Ave, in the community garden, across the street from the main entrance to the school 

When: 

3:30 p.m.

JOINT PUBLIC HEARING: MARCH 12

SATA-WHAT? 

SATELLITE Joint Public Hearing

When: March 12 at 6:00pm (come early to sign up at 5:30)

Where: Bronx Regional Building, 1010 Rev. James Polite Ave, Bronx, NY 10459

(Photo Credit: Patrick Wall, DNAinfo.com)

• What: Share your comments about the proposal to add a fourth school to the Bronx Regional Building.
• How: prepare a comment, letter or 2 minute statement to read or submit to the Department of Education (we will have a presentation and information if you are unsure of what you want to say)
• Bring: parents, guardians, grandparents, aunties and uncles, students, siblings, neighbors, friends, pastors, counselors, and anyone who is interested in the future of Satellite Academy, Bronx Regional and the state of their community schools

How will co-location impact your school? 

How has our community been involved in this discussion?

What do you want the Department of Education to hear? 

Speak out on March 12 @6pm!

 

Get your voice heard! 

(Photo Credit: Patrick Wall, DNAinfo.com)

Photos from:

Bronx Students Walk Out of Class to Protest Charter Co-Location Plan  

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20120309/south-bronx/bronx-students-walk-out-of-class-protest-charter-co-location-plan#ixzz1om9zz289

Satellite Community Garden in Bloom!

Yes, our Community Garden is officially in bloom!

Stay Tuned for Open Hours!

 

 

Satellite Parents and Teachers working in the Community Garden on Saturday!

Schomburg Satellite Student Walk-Out to Speak with Sen. Rev. Ruben Diaz Sr. Bronx

 

Students in the office of Sen. Rev. Ruben Diaz Sr. 

 

"You are supposed to be with us Not against us!"

 

"We can make a difference!" 

 

"1 School 1 Floor"

"CUT/TING SCH/OOLS IN H/ALF!"

 

Outside of the office of Sen. Rev. Ruben Diaz Sr.

Photo Credits: Patrick Wall, DNAinfo.com

http://www.dnainfo.com/20120309/south-bronx/bronx-students-walk-out-of-class-protest-charter-co-location-plan

Bronx Students Walk Out of Class to Protest Charter Co-Location Plan

By Patrick Wall DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
March 9, 2012 6:49pm
  
LONGWOOD — When several dozen students at Schomburg Satellite Academy High School heard the 12:05 bell ring Friday afternoon, rather than meander to their next class, they stood up, pulled out neon-colored poster boards and marched outside.

 

Cheyenne Lee, 18, addresses students from Schomburg Satellite Academy High School during a protest on March 9, 2012. Aiesha Vegas, 17, holds a sign. (DNAinfo/Patrick Wall)

 

Some 60 students joined in the walkout to protest the Department of Education's plan to move a new charter school into the five-story building at 1010 Reverend James Polite Ave., which already houses Schomburg and Bronx Regional High School, as well as a full-time GED program and childcare, medical and student-referral centers.

The protest comes days before a public hearing Monday on the proposal, and following weeks of organizing, outreach and even talk of legal action on the part of Schomburg students, who worry the city’s plan will lead to overcrowding, strained resources and even conflicts between the building’s current occupants and newcomers.

Students from Schomburg Satellite Academy High School staged a walkout on March 9, 2012 to protest the city's plan to move a new charter school into their building. (DNAinfo/Patrick Wall)

“You’re invading our space and the family we have here,” said student Crystal Samuels, 18, whose mother, Nona Samuels, is president of the school’s Parent Teacher Association.

Crystal added, “You bring in more kids — that’s more altercations.”

Like other students at the protest, Samuels emphasized that she was not opposed to the planned charter school, called ROADS II, but rather to the Department of Education’s plan to place ROADS in a building with two other schools.

The students proceeded down Polite Avenue to the district office of State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr., where they chanted “No new schools!” as about a dozen police and school safety officers looked on.

The senator briefly stepped outside and offered the students his support, then he and a staffer met with four student representatives in his office.

Rev. Diaz told the students he supports charter schools, but not when the DOE uses them to “pit communities against each other.” He advised the students to recruit as many supporters as possible to attend Monday’s hearing.

“You have to get that place packed,” Diaz told the students, adding, “You’re doing the right thing.”

Resistance to the so-called co-location plan has slowly gained momentum since the DOE announced the proposal on its website about a month ago.

Students, parents and staff from Schomburg, along with a few representatives from Bronx Regional, held their first serious meeting about the plan on February 21. Since then, Schomburg’s student council has taken up the cause, the Parent Teacher Association discussed the matter, and a public interest law firm was reached to explore possible legal action against the city.

Both Schomburg and Bronx Regional serve older students who transferred from other high schools, often because they struggled with academics or discipline. ROADS II would also admit older students who are behind in credits, but they plan to give preference to teens who have faced serious setbacks, such as homelessness or run-ins with the law.

At Friday’s rally, students said classroom space is already limited. For example, Schomburg students currently have access to a single computer lab and must share a cafeteria and gym with Bronx Regional.

While both schools now occupy their own floors, students said it seems inevitable that next year they will have to split floor space with the charter school.

“We’re going to be overcrowded and uncomfortable,” said Schomburg student Eygribelk Ramirez, 15.

He and other students said they fear the co-location will lead to fights and fewer resources for students.

According to the DOE, only 67 percent of available space in the 162,000 square-foot building is being utilized. Adding another school to the building will not harm the current occupants, the DOE noted.

But Schomburg students and staff disagree. They have pointed out that Schomburg would eventually lose about half of its instructional space, going from 20 classrooms this year to a proposed 10-and-a-half classrooms in 2014, as ROADS moves in.

ROADS II is scheduled to open in the Bronx this fall with 150 students, while another branch, ROADS I, will launch in Brooklyn.

The schools, whose charter application was approved by the state last year, boasts a high-powered board of trustees that includes Jeff Li, the executive director of Teach For America in New York, and chairman Mark Gallogly, co-founder of the private equity firm Centerbridge Partners, as well as a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

The DOE will hold a public hearing on its proposal at 6 p.m. Monday at the school building on Polite Avenue. 

An educational oversight panel, which traditionally approves the DOE’s proposals, will vote on the plan the following week.

Regarding Friday’s walkout, a DOE spokeswoman said: “Students have a right to express themselves, but they cannot walk out during school hours and disrupt classroom time.”

Representatives for ROADS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the protest.

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20120309/south-bronx/bronx-students-walk-out-of-class-protest-charter-co-location-plan#ixzz1ofnmYz3m