Browsing articles tagged with " School Districts"
LONGMEADOW, Mass. (WGGB) –It took a lot of rallying to fill the gym at Longmeadow High School with hundreds of concerned community members for the annual town meeting Tuesday night. “We did a lot of outreach to PTOs, a lot of social media, we had Facebook events going, and we had people sharing that information,” said Michael Clark, Chairman of Longmeadow’s School Committee.
All in order to make sure people who were voicing their concerns to him showed up at Longmeadow High School to vote. Across the board budget cuts known as the sequester means the town’s public schools would see less funding next year on both state and federal levels. “We would’ve lost a 7th grade social studies teacher, 2 high school teachers in science, and physical ed teachers, 2 reading assistants, we would’ve lost another $73,000 that has yet to be determined where they would take it from,” Superintendent Marie Doyle stated.
That’s also in addition to slashing writing and music programs.
At first the school committee’s strategic plan said they needed $1.4 million to make sure everything could continue running as is. They went to the select board, and both sides compromised on $353,000. “I think sometimes we only look and numbers and talk about taxes. But behind every single dollar that the citizens give us, there’s a mission that needs to be carried out, and a child that needs to be helped,” she added.
Clark says they’re not adding anything next year, but for fiscal year 2014-2015, if the economy doesn’t improve they’ll likely have to face a similar dilemma.
Superintendent Doyle says Longmeadow public schools are also still in limbo about a special Circuit Breaker program, where the state reimburses some of the money school districts spend on special needs children.
Doyle says if the state cuts funding to that, it could really hurt the district.
CAMBRIDGE — The school district is proposing a budget that adds six positions — including five teachers — and maintains programs.
After cutting 35 positions in the last three years, the district wants to maintain all current programs and add support for areas of high need.
“We have cut to the bone in most of the areas in the past,” said Superintendent Vince Canini. “That’s why we felt it was important to stabilize and maintain everything we did have.”
The district is proposing an $18.8 million budget that increases year-to-year spending by $1.5 million, or 9 percent.
The six positions add about $325,000 in spending. The jobs include a teaching aide and teachers for elementary school, foreign language and physical education, along with an educator who will teach math, science and general education development (GED). The elementary teachers are needed to keep class sizes small, Canini said.
Other major increases are in health insurance and pensions, which are going up $348,500 and $324,000 respectively.
In addition, debt to pay off a construction project will cost an extra $457,000, although state aid will offset this expense.
The district is proposing to raise the tax levy by 3.5 percent over the prior year. Under the state’s property tax cap, Cambridge can raise the tax levy by roughly 3.6 percent.
Canini said the board reviewed different options on spending and raising the tax levy.
The tax levy increase and a $373,000 state aid boost allows the district to restore positions, Canini said.
This is the first time in four years the district will receive an increase in state aid, he said.
Over the last four years, school districts lost state aid because the state reduced its spending to close a deficit.
In Cambridge, the state aid cuts were severe because the district’s high property values made the district, from the state’s perspective, appear wealthy. But household incomes have not increased at the same rate as property values.
Data collected from one of a largest studies ever conducted on clergyman efficacy will be done accessible to usually 10 groups nationally. One of those teams will be led by a University of Pittsburgh professor.
“It’s a outrageous dataset and allows us to answer questions that we formerly weren’t means to poise or answer since information simply wasn’t accessible to do so for normal researchers like myself,” pronounced Tanner LeBaron Wallace, a highbrow in Pitt’s Department of Education.
The database comes from a Gates Foundation-sponsored three-year investigate project, that concerned 2,500 teachers in 317 schools. The $50 million endeavour was conducted in 7 vast propagandize districts.
Wallace’s group will concentration on perceptions of clergyman efficacy by classroom management. She pronounced information gathered by classroom videos suggests 98 percent of teachers trust they are “very strong” on classroom management, while distant fewer students see it that way.
“I’m going to partisan a new representation of civic teenagers to come in and perspective a video and speak by what they see, what they compensate courtesy to,” Wallace said, “see if their perceptions assistance fill in a blanks, assistance us know because students can understand one thing though adult observers understand something differently.”
The 9 other teams will concentration on other areas of clergyman effectiveness. Wallace pronounced a significance of such an bid will assistance strengthen collection and supports offering to educators via a country.
“It allows us a event to offer really targeted veteran growth for teachers on specific aspects of their enlightening use that matter to students’ learning,” she said.
Wallace and her group members went by a powerful confidence screening before being among a 10 teams postulated entrance to a data. They had to infer a information would be protected – it will be accessed by a practical information conference complement that prevents teams from downloading a information to computers. The team’s entrance began Mar 1 of this year and will finish on Mar 1, 2014.
“One year is not adequate time,” Wallace said, “but a good news is a information doesn’t go away. The information will be accessible for other researchers who can request for access.”
It’s misleading either her group will have continued entrance after a year, or if they will have to reapply.
I would like to correct a statistic that was published in the most informative series “Forgotten South Carolina” as well as respond to a recent letter regarding charter schools.
It was reported, as part of a larger point dealing with school funding, that the South Carolina Public Charter School District (SCPCSD), a statewide school district created to facilitate the authorizing and monitoring of charter schools in South Carolina, receives $7,894 per student in state money, making it the second highest funded district in the state with respect to state funds. Oh that it were so! Actually, our district receives approximately $6,000 per student in state funding, making us the lowest funded district in the state. We are also among the lowest 2 percent of all school districts in the country in per pupil funding.
I should point out that this error was not the fault of the reporter. The incorrect number appeared as a mistake in our audit. While that was corrected, the incorrect number was what the Department of Education used in discussions with the reporter.
Also, a letter from Dr. Paul Thomas, a well-known detractor of charter schools, made misleading claims about charters — at least as relates to the SCPCSD. He mentions that outcomes are pretty much the same as traditional schools.
Yes, but we do so for a fraction of the money as we get zero local funding. The SCPCSD is only five years in existence, so our schools are still ramping up, and our results will continue to rise. Certainly we have some under performing schools. We have revoked the charter of one such school and have several others on probation. Name me another public school district that is being that proactive in demanding results for hard- earned taxpayer funds.
The letter states that there are significant differences in the makeup of charter students vs. traditional public schools. The fact is that the demographics of the SCPCSD come very close to mirroring the population of the state with regard to income, ethnicity and special needs.
We, by law, have to take any child who wants to attend as long as there is room, and we use a lottery when there are more students than spots available. Every child in our schools is there by choice; if we were not doing something right our schools would simply dry up and go away.
Lastly Dr. Thomas mentions that teacher attrition is higher in charters. He is absolutely right. If the purpose of schools is guaranteed employment for all teachers, we are an abject failure.
Everyone who works for our schools is an at-will employee just like almost every taxpayer in the state. We have no tenure. Our focus is on children and the quality of their experience — not protecting failing schools and teachers.
We have great teachers, many of whom teach in our schools at lower salaries than they could get elsewhere. That is because they know we are serious about innovation, classroom discipline, quality teaching and creating schools that work.
We are by no means where we want to be, but the public can rest assured that the board and staff at the SCPCSD are determined to deliver a quality educational experience while at the same time being good stewards of the taxpayer’s money.
Don McLaurin
Board of Trustees
S.C. Public Charter School District
Water Street
Charleston
HANFORD — People looking for teaching jobs got a chance to present their qualifications to hiring school districts on Wednesday.
Brandman University held its second annual Teacher Job Fair at the campus. Representatives from six districts, including Hanford Elementary School District and Hanford Joint Union High School District, were available to conduct interviews and accept résumés.
More than 30 positions were up for grabs at the event. The districts also took résumés for future reference for positions not currently open.
“We saw that there was a need for teachers in the community,” said Shelsy Hutchison, the organizer of the event. “These districts need to fill positions and they aren’t finding the qualified candidates they need. This is a good way to achieve that.”
Hutchison said last year’s event came together within a two-week period, but they had more time to prepare this year.
To make sure that only qualified job-seekers were allowed, the university required attendees to bring a copy of their teaching credentials, show they will receive their credential by the fall or show proof of being in an internship. Attendees were also advised to wear professional attire, bring multiple copies of their résumés and be prepared for on-the-spot interviews.
“We’re trying to weed out people that aren’t eligible and that the districts won’t be interested in,” Hutchison said. “Several people got hired on the spot last year, so we hope we can continue that precedent this year.”
Job-seeker Amy Walker is looking for any position from all the Kings County districts. Walker is just starting out and is trying to nab her first teaching position.
“I want to make sure that I would be able to stay in Kings County, because that’s where my family is,” she said.
Walker said she was a little nervous about the prospect of interviews, but said she practiced beforehand.
“I think I’m prepared,” she said. “I studied really hard for this.”
For Trish Starling, this was not her first time looking for a teaching job. Starling was a teacher for 12 years in Cutler-Orosi before she was recently laid off. She is looking for a position teaching single or multiple subjects.
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” she said. “I’ve never been to a fair that’s just focused on teachers before, though. This is great because there are a lot of laid-off teachers like me out there looking for work. It’s truly a great opportunity.”
Attendee Pablo Lerma, who lives in Visalia, is seeking a position teaching English at a high school, but said he is looking for anything that’s available that would fit his skills.
“I feel really confident,” he said. “I’ve done job fairs similar to this before in Tulare County.”
Lerma said he likes the idea of a job fair focused on teaching positions and said it was very appropriate given the current economic climate.
“If a district is trying to find the best people, they need to participate in events like this to find the right people to fit the positions,” he said.
Hutchison said the event is unique because it’s the only one available in Kings County that just offers teaching positions. She said Tulare County offers a similar job fair.
“This is really something that needs to be focused on,” she said. “There’s a lot of people out there looking for jobs.”
The reporter can be reached at 583-2429 or by email at jluiz@hanfordsentinel.com.
In Griswold, a propagandize apparatus officer was some-more than only a apparatus — he was a vicious thread in a school’s fabric.
Trooper First Class Frank Galley ran a district’s DARE anti-drug module for fifth-graders. At Griswold High, he came into civics classes to addition lessons about law and rights. Principal Mark Frizzell recalls fondly that Galley took special “drunk goggles” to propagandize and, as partial of a doctrine on inebriated driving, had students wear a goggles while pulling a mutated grass mower by a march of cones.
Galley and Paul Vera, a district’s propagandize apparatus officer before Galley, “really became fixtures of a high propagandize and helped us get over that mound of ‘I’m a trooper, I’m a bad guy.’ It helps us mangle down a separator of ‘I’m an administrator, I’m a bad guy,’ ” Frizzell said.
But in Jun 2010, when Galley went behind to a Troop E fort in Montville, that support ended.
The state military grudgingly dropped their propagandize apparatus officer module for a skip of funding. State military orator Lt. J. Paul Vance is still hapless that it was cut, and pronounced he hopes to restart it in a future, should appropriation come back.
In 1999, schools opposite a nation mobilized in response to mass shooting, Columbine and Jonesboro among them. Congress upheld a COPS (Community Oriented Policing Services) check which, among other extend programs, combined one to offer grants of adult to $125,000 over a march of 3 years to propagandize districts to sinecure school-based military officers. Connecticut became one of a initial states to accept funding, and Griswold was one of a initial districts in a state to seek, and receive, a propagandize apparatus officer.
But as a economy plummeted, appropriation dusty adult — initial a sovereign funding, afterwards a state appropriation that had transposed it. Eventually, all a troopers were put behind on unchanging duty.
While Connecticut’s module was in operation, 19 troopers walked a halls during technical high schools via a state and during schools like Griswold High, normal high schools in essentially farming areas yet a internal military force.
“We felt it was a inestimable program. It gave law coercion a ability to mangle a separator down with immature people. They taught some classes, interacted with immature people and had a participation in a schools,” Vance said. “We call it ‘omnipresence’ — that participation almost deterred some issues. Illegal activities, fights, things like that — only a participation of a guard had some impact on a bland activities within a school.”
When a sovereign supports dusty up, Vance pronounced he fought for state appropriation to keep a module going. But shortly that, too, was eliminated. All yet one or dual of a state military propagandize apparatus officers returned to unchanging avocation as troopers, Vance said. The returning propagandize officers filled existent vacancies within a state police, saving $1.2 million.
“We’ve been examination really hard, and certainly, if a event arises, we would like to get behind into that business,” Vance said.
Since a horrific facile propagandize sharpened in Newtown in December, calls for bringing behind sovereign appropriation for propagandize apparatus officers have ramped up. President Barack Obama has called for 1,000 new propagandize apparatus officer positions nationwide. Legislators in Washington and in some-more than a dozen state capitals, including Hartford, have introduced bills to move behind or boost appropriation for propagandize apparatus officer programs.
Nationwide, a swell in legislative support for a specifically lerned officers has scarcely doubled direct for training courses in a past dual months, pronounced Mo Canady, a executive executive of a National Association of School Resource Officers, formed in Alabama.
“Our training calendar has doubled given (the Newtown shooting). Our organisation lerned 250 new ones (school apparatus officers) final year. Based on a numbers I’m seeing, we design to blow that series out of a water. It’s a contrition that it takes a tragedy to emanate this, yet it does,” Canady said.
Most states don’t need propagandize apparatus officers to take any additional training; it’s a dialect decision. However, Canady said, many opt for a association’s weeklong, $500 course, offering during sites via a country. Classes embody modules on spontaneous counseling, techniques for interviewing youngsters, special preparation law and vicious occurrence formulation in schools. A apart march focuses on traffic with propagandize shootings.
“A propagandize is a really opposite operative environment. a really singular assignment. They have to know their purpose in this environment. We learn them opposite classes, generally classroom management, given we design a officers to spend time in classrooms, educating students on law enforcement-type things,” Canady said. “This is not a kind of thing we learn in a military academy. It’s unique, and specific to a assignment.”
Meanwhile, in Griswold, Frizzell waits.
Without a guard is his school, Frizzell has worked on rebuilding a rapport he had with internal unit troopers before a propagandize apparatus officer was in place. He’s also struck adult a loyalty with Jewett City proprietor state Trooper First Class Adam Chittick.
Each week, Chittick and Frizzell travel a high propagandize halls. Chittick’s visits are timed so he and Frizzell will be in a hallways, dodging students relocating between classrooms. They ramble into a lunchroom for visits with students, and, after school, into jaunty teams’ practices. For students and teachers, saying a uniformed officer offers assent of mind, Frizzell and Chittick said, generally given a Newtown shooting.
“I’m not there to find out who’s stealing stuff. I’m there to correlate with kids,” Chittick said. “I consider that’s a biggest square we mislaid with a propagandize apparatus officer, and a square we’ll skip many down a line. By not carrying a propagandize apparatus officer, we don’t build that relationship. We’re seen even some-more as unapproachable.”
Chittick and Trooper Jay McCarthy are reserved to a Jewett City borough. Borough residents’ supplemental taxation bills, in part, compensate for a force of two. While a propagandize lies outward a precinct by a few thousand feet, a borough’s Board of Warden and Burgesses gave Chittick a unanimous uncover of support for a use in Jan after Chittick approached them for permission.
“There’s a lot of Jewett City children in a schools,” Warden John Connelly said. “It’s value it to make all of us feel safe.”
Nationwide, a calls for some-more appropriation for apparatus officers given a Newtown sharpened have come from a handful of capitals, including Washington and Hartford.
In Hartford, Rep. Steven Mikutel, D-Griswold, and Rep. Michael Molgano, D-Stamford, have any introduced bills pursuit for a state to compare internal supports for propagandize districts to sinecure their possess apparatus officers.
Mikutel pronounced he introduced his check after conference how successful a module had been in Griswold. But, he said, his check provides for relating supports rather than true extend supports to safeguard communites were invested and that it wasn’t treated as a charge or as a “freebie.”
“With a Newtown tragedy, we only felt that schools should have an option,” he said. “What I’m reading, people are fighting about their children in propagandize some-more than ever, and they’re fighting about safety.”
He disturbed a discuss about apparatus officers is focusing on a worst-case unfolding some-more than a day-to-day functions.
“A propagandize apparatus officer’s pursuit is not only to stop an armed intruder,” he said. “A lot of students dedicate aroused acts opposite other students, quite in civic areas, and that’s how a propagandize officer originated — to offer as a relaxing outcome on students in propagandize and forestall violence.”
In towns such as Griswold, that have no internal military force, a city relies on a state military for protection, including during a schools. A apparatus officer for Griswold High, or for Griswold’s facile or center school, for that matter, would be a state decision. It’s still formidable to keep apparatus officer programs going in a incomparable towns, though. Funding cuts separated Plainfield’s module in 2010, for example.
School apparatus officer programs still have critics, however. While Connecticut’s section of a ACLU concluded that their participation creates schools safer, propagandize apparatus officers also “may inspire a rapist probity response to bungle improved addressed by propagandize administrator,” researchers wrote.
The organization’s study, focusing on formula of propagandize apparatus officers’ participation in schools in Hartford, West Hartford and East Hartford, showed in-school referrals — for children 17 and younger, arrests go by youthful justice and are called referrals — increasing almost in schools where an officer was stationed. In East and West Hartford, a investigate of detain reports from a cities’ schools found that minorities who committed a same disciplinary offenses were some-more expected to be arrested than white students — 10 times some-more expected in a cases of drug, ethanol or tobacco possession.
Those aren’t a kind of formula Frizzell saw in school, he said. In fact, he said, carrying a guard students knew work with them and their families during an detain helped.
“It arrange of malleable a blow to an hapless situation,” he said.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in Wednesday’s State of a State speech, did not residence mandates and losses that are pushing propagandize districts toward bankruptcy, internal propagandize officials said.
Some officials did support Cuomo’s skeleton for improving a peculiarity of teachers, observant that improved educators are a pivotal to tyro success, though a governor’s remarks left out solutions to a many obligatory issues confronting propagandize districts.
“There was no plead of charge relief, and charge relief, we think, is a many vicious emanate for a Legislature and administrator to address,” pronounced Douglas Huntley, superintendent of Queensbury.
Huntley pronounced Cuomo combined a skill taxation top — that affects a income districts accept — though has not taken movement to revoke districts’ expenses.
Pensions and health word are dual vital losses that have increasing in new years for districts, and will boost again for 2013-14. Districts have tiny control over these costs.
“Those are a losses that districts are confronting that are heading districts in New York state to insolvency,” Huntley said.
Paul Jenkins, superintendent of a Glens Falls City School District, also felt a administrator missed a many vicious emanate involving education.
“I was unhappy a administrator did not plead any form of charge relief. That was a large square that was missing,” Jenkins said.
Cuomo wants to enhance a propagandize day and educational year, permitting for some-more classroom time for students. He has also called for full-day pre-kindergarten, generally in high-poverty districts where those services are some-more needed.
Grants will be accessible on a rival basement to districts to cover a cost of fluctuating a day and calendar, and for full-day pre-kindergarten.
While those programs are good intended, and would assistance boost tyro achievement, internal superintendents pronounced districts should not have to contest with any other for a money. Doing so puts small, farming districts during a waste since they are some-more expected to miss a resources and crew with grant-writing imagination compared to larger, wealthier districts, officials said.
“It shouldn’t be rival grants unless they are guaranteed grants, where we write a concentration and we get a money,” pronounced James Watson, superintendent of Whitehall. “You are pitting one propagandize opposite a other. That’s not integrity for a credentials of a state.”
Rather than set aside income for grants, it should go toward state assist for all districts, Huntley said.
Local propagandize officials have argued that a state’s regulation for distributing income to districts is unfair. High-poverty districts accept some-more state assist than others, though also continue a larger cut when a supports are reduced. Poor districts have a larger commission of low-income homes, creation it formidable to lift propagandize taxes to equivalent state assist cuts.
Some internal credentials experts did support Cuomo’s devise to put improved teachers in classrooms.
Cuomo wants a State University of New York to lift a admissions mandate for clergyman credentials programs. He wants impending teachers to take partial in some-more visit and higher-quality student-teaching programs in propagandize settings.
Cuomo has called for substantiating a “bar exam” for teachers, and to prerogative “master teachers” with $15,000 per year for 4 years to sight other teachers. His devise does not specific how a module would be funded.
Stephen Danna, vanguard of SUNY Plattsburgh’s bend campus in Queensbury, that has a training program, pronounced lifting a customary for students who wish to turn teachers will urge a profession.
“I consider lifting a bar is a good thing,” he said. “We wish graduates to leave a schools prepared to strike a belligerent running, to safeguard students grasp to a biggest capacity. We don’t wish them to figure it out over a two- or four-year period. We wish them to be prepared from Day One to effectively change a expansion of any student.”
Huntley pronounced he likes a thought of regulating master teachers to sight new teachers. It creates a career ladder that could advantage gifted teachers, though how it’s saved is a concern.
“If it’s going to yield a cost-burden to a internal taxpayer, afterwards we could not support it,” Huntley said.
Dee Winter-Barclay, boss of a Glens Falls teachers union, wrote in an email to The Post-Star that investigate studies have found that a peculiarity of instruction is a No. 1 predictor for tyro achievement. She wrote that training schools should be like training hospitals, where a final dual or 3 years would be tuition-free residency in that a training claimant would combine with a group of master teachers.
“After a rigorous, competitive, ‘real school’ program, training possibilities would connoisseur as rarely qualified, effective teachers,” Winter-Barclay wrote. “I only consider when we’re building new teachers, we should concentration on a unsentimental knowledge of teaching.”
Others were some-more vicious of Cuomo’s devise for a bar examination since it shows a stream complement for training teachers is not working.
“Why do they need to pass a bar exam?” Watson said. “He (Cuomo) is revelation a SUNY credentials complement does not work. That falls underneath his jurisdiction, too.”
By Lisa Fleisher
Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday due rival grants to tempt propagandize districts opposite New York state to adopt policies such as full-day prekindergarten for low-income students, longer propagandize days and years, and new record programs.
During his state of a state address, a administrator didn’t contend how many income he would make accessible for a programs — or how a districts would continue appropriation a programs after a grants run out.
Cuomo also pronounced that districts would once again be compulsory to have new clergyman evaluations in place in a 2014-15 propagandize year in sequence to accept any boost in state funding. This year, New York City and a handful of other districts are during risk of losing adult to 4% of their state assist since they haven’t beaten out a understanding on those evaluations yet, and a deadline is Jan. 17.
Cuomo’s recommendations mirrored many of those outlined in a news released final week by a elect he convened in April.
Cuomo has used rival grants in any of his final dual budgets to try to prerogative good opening or potency in schools — about $250 million out of $20 billion sent to internal districts this year. Some propagandize officials and members of a Board of Regents have pronounced a income shouldn’t be hold behind in a segregated pot when all propagandize districts were feeling a splash of a 2% skill taxation cap.
Signs of pushback on Wednesday were immediately apparent as Cuomo delivered his speech. The New York State School Boards Association tweeted that a administrator should keep rival grants out of ubiquitous preparation funding.
“We don’t wish to make schools contest for ubiquitous propagandize assist or revoke simple handling aid,” one twitter said.
On Wednesday, a administrator laid out a many some-more minute turn of grants, with comparatively renouned ideas such as appropriation to supplement 25% some-more training time to propagandize days or years. Districts could also request for grants to supplement full-day prekindergarten — or during slightest 5 hours a day — for a highest-need students.
Cuomo also due worse standards for new teachers, including some-more severe student-teaching mandate and aloft admissions mandate for training programs during a State University of New York and City University of New York, that aides pronounced would come in a form of GPA requirements. The state also is in a routine of formulating a new examination for incoming teachers, that has been likened to a bar examination for law students.
The administrator also pronounced he would like to compensate a best teachers additional stipends to act as mentors and instructors to other teachers by expanding a module called Math for America via a state. The module would yield $15,000 a year for 4 years to supposed “master teachers.”
The preparation proposals avoided some-more argumentative topics, such as a placement of state assist to districts formed on need and anything associated to licence schools.
Cuomo also pronounced he upheld profitable teachers for good performance, though his outline stopped brief of what many people consider of as “merit pay”: increasing compensate or bonuses formed only on either teachers are effective. Instead, Cuomo pronounced he upheld profitable effective teachers to assistance coach and sight other teachers or profitable them some-more for doing more.
The proposals were widely praised. Both a care of a city Department of Education and of a visit kinship adversary, a United Federation of Teachers, found things they liked. The kinship generally upheld a offer to centralize services in particular schools, while a city highlighted extended training and early childhood preparation programs.
A longer propagandize day and some-more pre-kindergarten programs are among a recommendations expelled Wednesday by Governor Andrew Cuomo’s allocated preparation commission. While Cuomo praised a “bold” and “fundamentally changing” recommendations, he also voiced regard about their intensity costs.
“Frankly it’s going to be a doubt of money,” he said, during a assembly with a elect members in Albany. “That’s something that we’re going to have to import when we demeanour during a altogether financial scene.” The administrator combined that a recommendations would surprise his State of a State debate after this month.
The 25-member elect was chaired by Richard Parsons, a former authority and C.E.O. of Time Warner. After 11 open hearings around a state and research, he pronounced a row dynamic that a propagandize day and propagandize year should be longer, and children from disadvantaged backgrounds should start their preparation earlier, with all-day pre-kindergarten.
“Get them sooner, keep them longer and do some-more with them when you’ve got them,” he said.
Its 8 pivotal recommendations are:
—Increasing entrance to early preparation by high peculiarity full-day pre-kindergarten programs for students in propagandize districts with a tip needs.
—Restructuring schools by integrating social, health and other services by village schools to urge tyro performance. The news cites a Harlem Children’s Zone and Cincinnati Community Learning Centers as examples of programs that can support students inside and outward schools.
—Begin restructuring a propagandize day and year by fluctuating tyro training time with academically enriched programming. The news doesn’t contend how most longer a propagandize day should be though it says, “Many other nations and states have begun to renovate a length of a propagandize day and year to extend training times for students. To contest in a tellurian economy, New York contingency do a same or a students will be left behind.”
—Recruiting and training high peculiarity teachers. The news recommends lifting a bar for students requesting to training programs during CUNY and SUNY to a smallest 3.0 class indicate average, expanding swap acceptance programs, and formulating a career ladder for teachers.
“We called it a F-word. The F-word stands for Finland,” pronounced authority Richard Parsons, observant that a Northern European nation recruits usually a tip college graduates for teaching.
—Increased use of innovative technology, by a use of rival grants awarded to propagandize districts. However, a elect warns, “While integrating record is important, a state should inspire evidence-based programs that are evaluated for quality.”
—Building improved bridges from high propagandize to college and careers. The elect recommends some-more early college high propagandize programs and career and technical preparation programs “by leveraging public-private zone partnerships and funding.” It cites a P-TECH High School in Brooklyn, that collaborates with IBM and CUNY, as an example.
—Consolidating smaller propagandize districts and formulating some-more informal high schools to equivocate replicating services.
—Greater transparency, to see that programs are working, by a opening government system.
The elect will recover a subsequent news in a tumble when it might excavate into some-more specifics, including a argumentative issues of clergyman peculiarity and evaluation.
Karen Dewitt contributed stating from Albany.
WATERVLIET — Travis Hogan ended a recent school day in his sweats, rolling around a mat in a damp basement.
Wrestling makes Hogan, 16, want to come to Watervliet High School, to keep his grades up. But for the 2013-14 school year, wrestling and every other sport and extracurricular activity in the district is facing elimination as the district struggles with a fiscal cliff of its own.
“It’s an incentive to come to school. It builds your character as a person,” Hogan said. “It makes me want to do better in school.”
Watervliet Superintendent Lori Caplan said her district may be among the first in the state to become educationally and financially insolvent. Caplan said Watervliet has no savings, no ability to raise the taxes it needs to maintain its current programs and may not be able to meet state standards within the next two years if she has to cut more teachers, which seems all but inevitable.
There is a “No Whining” sign outside Caplan’s office, and she recognizes that dozens of districts across New York face a similarly dire situation. Still, she said so much is on the chopping block as they begin to put next year’s budget together that it is hard to imagine how Watervliet will be able to keep any programs or activities that are not mandated by the state.
“I can’t see how we can survive without cutting,” she said. “I literally can’t give them a meaningful education if I have to cut one more person.”
Caplan said she is concerned that there is little wiggle room other than large staff cuts. Watervliet has just 10,000 residents, a median household income of $41,000 and an annual school budget of $23.1 million. More than two-thirds of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, a key poverty indicator. The teachers union already agreed to a one-year pay freeze, she said, and a larger share of health care costs.
And though the district is relatively small, with just 1,400 students, it represents the shape of things to come for many of New York’s public schools in the next few years as they struggle to contain rising employee costs, a loss of state aid and a property tax cap.
At the end of last school year, the district made some cuts, canceling bowling and tennis, eliminating about 20 teachers, teacher assistants, coaches, custodians and an administrator. Bus routes were extended, and the school building was closed on Sundays. These days, such trimming has become routine.
Next year, however, Caplan says Watervliet will enter a new era, one in which every class that graduates after 2013 will get a worse education than the one that came before it. She expects an increased dropout rate and lower student performance on standardized test scores.
Without some sort of intervention or change to the state aid funding formula, Watervliet will likely lose some of the following in the 2013-14 school year and even more in the following academic year: advanced placement classes; gym, art, music and anything that is not a required core class; sports teams; and after-school clubs. Pre-kindergarten and kindergarten are also on the chopping block.
Taxpayers are already strained to their limit, she said. Fifty-six percent of the district’s property is tax-exempt because Watervliet Arsenal, a federal facility, is located there. Even in the unlikely event taxpayers supported a budget that exceeds the property tax cap, Caplan said she couldn’t raise enough tax revenue to support teaching jobs. Each percentage increase in the tax levy earns the district about $61,000 and the average teaching job costs the district $75,000 in salary and benefits.
In the spring, heavy equipment will roll in to the district as part of a $20 million capital improvement project. Workers will replace 50-year-old windows in the historic part of the junior and senior high school and rip up its asbestos floors. Next to the gleaming new tennis courts, which no longer have a team to play on them after the district cut it last year, the workers will install a new track and football field.
Caplan does not want them to do this. She wants to use the money to save teaching jobs, but the money is earmarked for capital improvements by state law and cannot be touched for any other purpose. She said that inflexibility is indicative of flawed state rules that weigh down school districts. Caplan has grown weary of advocacy and demonstrations for funding at the Capitol. She said nothing will help schools — other than a dramatic funding increase she knows is not coming — more than true mandate relief, which can be a heavy political lift.
The state Education Department has warned lawmakers that school districts will soon begin to become insolvent because they can’t legally declare bankruptcy. However, they say real change rests with state lawmakers, who have done little to address the problem in recent years. Hundreds of public education boosters descended on the Capitol Wednesday to protest cuts, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo responded by saying “You can’t get water out of a stone.”
Assemblyman Jack McEneny said he’d like to see large school districts run out of their local Board of Cooperative Education Services. He said efforts to consolidate school districts usually fail at the ballot box and that it is not an effective way to achieve savings. He said individual districts should keep their unique schools and identities but centralize their administrations and reduce higher-level jobs while keeping employees at the bottom of the pay scale. like teachers.
“The way to do efficiencies of scale is to cut the top, not the bottom,” he said. “People like the bottom.”
Watervliet won’t be alone. Sixty school districts across the state reported that they won’t be able to pay their bills within two years, according to a survey by the New York State School Superintendents released last month. That’s 9 percent of the state’s total districts and the number of districts will jump to 40 percent within the next four years.
So, with the possibility that the school won’t have a team to run on it, Watervliet’s new track will be in pristine shape for years to come.
swaldman@timesunion.com • 518-454-5080 • @518Schools
