CEC/DOE update @March 1, 2015:

• The DOE’s Division on Family and Community Engagement is currently accepting applications for the Community Education Council and the Citywide Community Education Councils. The deadline to apply is March 11th, 2015. You are eligible to run if you are the parent of a student who currently attends kindergarten through 8th grade in a school under the jurisdiction of the Community School District where you wish to serve on the CEC. Eligibility information for the other councils such as the Citywide Council on High Schools, Citywide Council on Special Education, and Citywide Council on English Language Learners and the online application is available here. 
• Our district CEC has focused on middle school admissions this year. We discussed overhauling the entire admissions process to achieve equity, diversity, less stress for students and families, and more transparency. The importance of maintaining choice was also advocated by many. We were unable to reach a consensus to make major changes in time for the 2016 middle school application period but will continue meeting and discussing ways to improve the middle school admissions process. We did agree no matter what system, there should be more transparency. Currently 80% of the middle schools in our district accept students after a screening process and the other 20% of schools have a limited screen so the lack of transparency leads to undue stress on applicants and there are about 200 students who do not get into any of the schools they rank. We did discuss smaller changes in time for the 2016 application period that will increase transparency by having schools publish details such as what scores, grades, special education services, and learning styles they are looking for/offer, and whether a student must rank a school first in order to be considered for admission. We also briefly discussed increasing the number of zoned middle schools to make the admissions process less stressful, more equitable, and less competitive. There are only 4 zoned middle schools in district 2 and in fact Spruce’s middle school is not a zoned middle school and most of Lower Manhattan including the Financial District, Battery Park, and Tribeca are zoned for Baruch which is on 20th Street between 1st and 2nd Ave. A new 600+ seat middle school (75 Morton) will be opening in 2017 in the West Village and there will be ongoing discussions about whether this school should be zoned for parts of Lower Manhattan.
• At the last CEC meeting on Feb 25th we passed a resolution against Gov. Cuomo’s proposed education budget.  The CEC was opposed to much of what is in the proposed budget. The most objectionable in the proposed budget were to make standardized test scores account for 50% of a teacher’s evaluation (up from the current 20%), teacher performance evaluations by outside evaluators that would have to be paid for by the DOE – meaning our taxes or money diverted from our children’s education, increase in charter school cap and eliminate geographic limits, and continue mayoral control of DOE for 3 more years. Besides the many specific issues the CEC is opposed to the process so that many stand-alone issues in this budget are not available for line item vetoes or for issue specific public discussions/hearings.
• On March 12th there will be city-wide protest against the governor’s proposed education budget.  More details about this protest sponsored by the UFT, Class Size Matters, NYS Allies for Public Education, and the Alliance for Quality Education can be seen by clicking here.
• The City Council's Education Committee, chaired by Council Member Daniel Dromm, will hold an oversight hearing, "Overcrowding in NYC Public Schools" as well as to consider Res. 563.  Below is information regarding the upcoming hearing:

 Oversight: "Overcrowding in NYC Public Schools" and Res. 563
Date:              Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Time:              1:00 p.m.  (*public testimony is estimated to begin sometime after 3:00pm)
Place:              Council Chambers - City Hall


A July 2014 audit by the City Comptroller's office found that more than one-third of City schools are over capacity and, according to Department of Education (DOE) data, more than 40% of City students attend overcrowded schools. The Contracts for Excellence law passed several years mandated that by 2011 class sizes were supposed to be reduced to K-3rd: 20 students max,  4th-8th: 23 students max,  9th-12th:(core classes only) 24-25 students max. We all know class sizes despite this, have increased not decreased and it is common to have more than 25 students in a 1st or 2nd grade class. If you are unable to attend the hearing and wish to submit written testimony, please email your testimony to jatwell@council.nyc.gov. For more information about class size issues check out classsizematters.org.

• On March 24th, the Chancellor will be meeting with all the CECs to discuss the change in DOE structure (no more clusters or networks) next year and what this would mean. A couple of consequences from this major overhaul in the DOE structure would be that superintendents would have more of a presence and more authority than they do currently and schools would grouped geographically under superintendent’s authority unlike our current system that allows principals’ to pick what cluster they would like to join for support and the other schools in the cluster could on opposite sides of the city.
  

For more info contact: sonnimun@gmail.com