1
1
2 TASK FORCE ON COMMUNITY SCHOOL
3 DISTRICT GOVERNANCE REFORM
4
5
6
7 Task Force on Community School District
8 Governance Reform Developing recommendations
9 regarding the powers and duties of the New York
10 City community school boards
11
12
13
14
15 Queens Borough Hall, Room 213
16 120-55 Queens Boulevard
17 Queens, New York
18
19 Thursday, December 12, 2002
20 10:25 a.m.
21
22
23
24
25
2
1
2 MEMBERS OF THE TASK FORCE
3
4 ASSEMBLYMAN STEVE SANDERS, Co-Chair
5 TERRI THOMSON, Co-Chairman,
6 ROBERT DELEON
7 C. BUNNY REDDINGTON
8 ASSEMBLYMAN ROGER GREEN
9 ASSEMBLYWOMAN AUDREY PHEFFER
10 EARNEST CLAYTON
11 ASSEMBLYMAN PETER RIVERA
12 GERALD LEVIN
13 ASSEMBLYMAN JOHN LAVELLE
14 JANE ARCE-BELLO
15 YANGHE HAHN
16 CASSANDRA MULLEN
17 RENEE HILL
18 PENELOPE KREITZER
19 VIRGINIA KEE
20 KATHRYN WYLDE
21 ROBIN BROWN
22
23
24
25
3
1
2 LIST OF WITNESSES
3 PAGE
4 COUNCILMAN JOHN LIU 13
5 Council Member, New York City Council
6 KENNETH COHEN 36
7 President, Northeast Queens Branch of NAACP
8 DOROTHY WILLNER 48
9 Member, Community School Board 30
10 GERTRUDE GONISH 60
11 Block Association President, District 29
12 DR. GLORIA BLACK 70
13 Chairperson of the Education Committee of
14 Assemblyman Bill Scarborough in Assembly
15 District 29
16 RONNIE ROGERS 85
17 Parent, Member of Assemblyman Scarborough's
18 Task Force in District 29
19 HELEN MARSHALL 112
20 Queens Borough President
21 MARGE KOLB CORRIDAN 152
22 PTA President IS 73 Q
23 LU MING LI 170
24 Asian American Coalition for Education
25 District 26
4
1
2 LIST OF WITNESSES (cont'd)
3 PAGE
4 REVEREND CHARLES NORRIS 178
5 Executive Secretary of Southeast Queens Clergy
6 BASIR MCHAWI 191
7 Executive Member, International African
8 Arts Festival
9 MEG BAKER 217
10 PTA President, P.S. 129
11 SANDRA SMITH 223
12 Parent
13 DR. DELOIS BLAKELY 230
14 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. High School
15 DEBRA JACKSON 238
16 District 29 School Leadership Team
17 MARIA DAPONTES-DOUGHERTY 257
18 Co-President, PTA P.S. 2
19 COUNCILMAN LEROY COMRY 269
20 LISA BOOTH 286
21 Co-President PTA of M.S. 202
22 NORMA PAUPAW 289
23 Co-Chair, District Council of Presidents
24
25
5
1
2 LIST OF WITNESSES (cont'd)
3 PAGE
4 LEW SIMON 296
5 Democratic District Leader, 23rd A.D.
6 ROBERT CERMELI 302
7 Member, Community School Board 24
8 SHARON MAURER 310
9 President, Community School Board 26
10 ASSEMBLY MEMBER BARBARA CLARK 318
11 PATRICIA CRUZ 332
12 President, President's Council, District 75
13 MICHELLE DUDLEY 333
14 PTA President, District 75, P.S. 177
15 ERNEST BROWN 337
16 Member, Community School Board 27
17 MS. DOLORES BEVILACQUA 347
18 2nd Vice President,
19 Community School Board 27
20 FRANCES BRYANT 353
21 Community Activist
22
23
24
25
6
1
2 LIST OF WITNESSES (cont'd)
3 PAGE
4 ROWENA V. SCHWAB 360
5 Community School Board 27
6 DAVID HOOKS, JR. 365
7 Community School Board 27
8 DEBRA FALCONE 370
9 Parent, P.S. 146, Howard Beach
10 DORY FIGLEOLA 373
11 Vice President, I.S. 119 in Queens
12 ASSEMBLYMAN WILLIAM SCARBOROUGH 378
13 NAT WASHINGTON 386
14 Parent, District 29
15 TOM LOWENHAF 393
16 Vice Chair, Community Board 3, Queens
17 DORIS DESTOSO 397
18 Vice President of P.S. 177, District 75
19 KAREN BLANDING 401
20 President, NAACP, Corona/East
21 Elmhurst Branch
22
23
24
25
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: If everyone
3 would begin to find their seats and get ready for
4 what will be a long but interesting day. Good
5 morning everybody. My name is Steve Sanders. I
6 am Co-Chair of this task force, The Task Force on
7 Community School District Governance Reform. To
8 my left is Terri Thomson, a daughter of Queens
9 and also Co-Chair of this task force. In a
10 moment we will have all of the members of the
11 task force who are here this morning introduce
12 themselves.
13 I just want to spend a moment or two
14 explaining the whys and the wherefore's for this
15 task force and a little bit about the road map
16 for today's proceedings and what people can
17 expect over the next couple of months.
18 This task force was created in a law
19 that was passed by the State Legislature in June.
20 That law is, most people know I think in this
21 room, changed a lot of the decision making and
22 the powers that are exercised in the New York
23 City School District and the 32 community, local
24 community school districts as well. That law
25 gave a substantial, a new authority to the Mayor
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2 and to the Chancellor and to the District
3 Superintendents. The law also did a number of
4 other things I won't discuss this morning, but
5 the law also abolishes local community school
6 boards as of the end of this school year on June
7 30th. It doesn't abolish them, however, without
8 replacing the school boards with some form of
9 school district governance and in it's place this
10 task force was appointed to find a substitute for
11 the local community school boards.
12 The task force was comprised, the
13 members were appointed on October the 31st. It
14 is our responsibility to hold at least 5 public
15 hearings, one in every borough, to make a
16 progress report on December 15th and then to
17 issue a final report with recommendations as to
18 how this task force, based on the public input,
19 how this task force believes that we ought to
20 proceed in having a school district
21 representation and what we want to do to replace
22 the local community school boards that will be
23 going out of existence.
24 So that is what we are doing. We
25 have had two task force meetings and we had a
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2 hearing in Manhattan on Tuesday. This is our
3 second hearing. We will be having our third
4 hearing in the Bronx next Thursday, followed by a
5 hearing on Staten Island on Monday, January the
6 6th and concluding with a hearing in Brooklyn on
7 Thursday, January the 16th. We are very
8 interested to be informed by as many citizens
9 from around the city who wish to participate in
10 these hearings. I know that in some cases, the
11 hearing notice was a little bit of a short
12 notice, but we are doing our very best to inform
13 as many people as we can about the activities of
14 this task force. Let me now introduce again to
15 you the other Co-Chair of this task force, Terri
16 Thomson and then we will, you will have
17 identified for you the other members of the task
18 force who are sitting here today.
19 MS. THOMSON: Good morning.
20 Welcome to Queens for those who are visiting
21 today. I just want to say to everyone here that
22 this task force is taking this responsibility
23 very seriously and we see this as a very
24 important responsibility, determining what needs
25 to be put in place to assure that there's
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2 meaningful parental and community input and
3 involvement in our schools that will make our
4 schools better. We had a wonderful hearing on
5 Tuesday. A great dialogue, a great testimony,
6 very thoughtful testimony and a wonderful
7 dialogue between our task force members and the
8 community and we will do the same today. So, let
9 me assure you that we're here to hear your voice
10 and hear what you have to say and we will take
11 this very seriously.
12 Why don't we start on my far right,
13 Mr. DeLeon.
14 MR. DELEON: Robert DeLeon, welcome
15 everyone and thank you for inviting us.
16 MS. REDDINGTON: Bunny Reddington
17 from Staten Island.
18 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: State
19 Assemblyman Roger Green from Brooklyn.
20 ASSEMBLYWOMAN: State Assemblywoman
21 Audrey Pheffer representing Queens County on this
22 task force.
23 MR. CLAYTON: Earnest Clayton,
24 President of the United Parents Association for
25 New York City.
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2 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: Assemblyman
3 Peter Rivera from the Bronx.
4 MR. LEVIN: Gerald Levin, retired
5 CEO, AOL/Timewarner and with a family that's
6 committed to education in the City of New York.
7 ASSEMBLYMAN LAVELLE: Member of the
8 Assembly, John LaVelle from Staten Island.
9 MS. ARCE-BELLO: Jane Arce-Bello,
10 Community Activist from the Bronx.
11 MS. HAHN: Yanghe Hahn, Vice
12 President of the Korean-American Association of
13 Flushing.
14 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: And during
15 the course of the day, undoubtedly, there will be
16 a few other task force members who will be
17 joining us. Some may have to leave to fulfill
18 other responsibilities. Each of these hearings,
19 incidently, have been divided into two sessions.
20 A daytime session from about ten in the morning
21 till about four in the afternoon and then an
22 evening session that begins at six o'clock in the
23 evening. Obviously we are attempting to adjust
24 the schedule so that people, especially working
25 men and women and parents who are looking after
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2 their kids, will have an opportunity, a time that
3 will be convenient for them. We will schedule a
4 short lunch break probably in the twelve thirty
5 vicinity so that the task force members and the
6 members of the audience get some sustenance and
7 not have to keel over and faint during the day
8 for lack of food. We actually tried to work
9 right through on Tuesday and that just didn't
10 work out very well, so. We know that there are a
11 lot of people. We know there's a lot to say and
12 a lot to hear and we'll try to do all of that as
13 expeditiously and as civilly as we possibly can.
14 I am going to ask people who are
15 testifying as we indicated on our hearing notice
16 to try very hard to confine their remarks to
17 about five minutes. That is primarily so that we
18 can hear as many people as possible and also it
19 will give the task force members a little bit of
20 an opportunity to ask some questions where there
21 are some questions that need to be asked and
22 still be able to get through our schedule. We
23 have a witness list. These are people who have
24 signed up in advance, but we will also try our
25 very, very best to accommodate people who arrived
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2 without having signed up. But before,
3 beforehand, that was the case on Tuesday. We
4 heard from many people, some who had not signed
5 up earlier in the day.
6 MS. THOMSON: I want to acknowledge
7 that Assemblyman Mike Generas was here earlier to
8 wish us well. And we'll begin with our first
9 speaker Councilman John Liu.
10 COUNCILMAN LIU: Good morning
11 Co-Chair, Honorable Steve Sanders the Assemblyman
12 and Terri Thomson, one of our favorite daughters
13 from Queens and good morning to all of the most
14 distinguished members of this task force. I'm
15 happy to be here this morning particularly to
16 warm up for Helen Marshall who you will find no
17 greater an advocate for public education.
18 I am here to talk about the
19 governance issue, especially with respect to our
20 school boards and how we can maximize parental
21 input, parental and community input. But before
22 I talk about those issues, I want to emphasize
23 that I have always made to believe that
24 governance is important with respect to our
25 schools, but without the adequate resources,
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2 there's only so much we can do with governance
3 and so for a city that spends on average about
4 nine thousand dollars per student as compared to
5 a state-wide average of thirteen thousand dollars
6 per student and even surrounding suburbs in the
7 New York City area spending seventeen thousand
8 dollars a student, we will only go so far with
9 governance reform if we do not provide the
10 adequate resources and I would remind everybody
11 that there is a campaign for fiscal equity that I
12 strongly believe in and I hope that that will,
13 that the outcome of that campaign and lawsuit
14 will ultimately come out in everybody's interest
15 in this state and give adequate and equitable
16 funding to the schools of New York City.
17 I am proud to be a product of New
18 York City schools from Kindergarten through 12th
19 grade and going on to public university and more
20 importantly, I am proud to be a parent of someone
21 who will be attending public schools. He's only
22 two years old now, but if you ask him what he
23 wants to do, he will tell you with a straight
24 face right away, "I want to go to school". And
25 if you ask him which school, he'll tell you,
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2 "P.S. 21 in Queens". And, so, I think that as a
3 parent of a student who will be in school and
4 certainly when he is in school, I will be very
5 involved in what my local school is doing and I
6 think that parents do need the opportunity to
7 have strong input into the schools. I think that
8 in the past, school boards, local school boards,
9 have worked well. I think that they have been a
10 channel for parents to have meaningful input into
11 how their local schools are run, how the school
12 district is run and how the, even in terms of
13 setting curriculum issues as well as budgetary
14 issues, finding the right people, the best people
15 to run the schools as well as the district. I
16 think that local school boards have worked in
17 many ways.
18 They have also provided new
19 Americans an opportunity to be part of the
20 democracy that this country is so favorable on.
21 I think that in the school board elections, that
22 is actually one, the only place in this city or
23 state where people who are not citizens of the
24 United States actually have a voting voice. I
25 will remind everybody that citizenship has not
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2 always been a requirement for a voting in this
3 country. In the 1800's it was actually not part
4 of the requirements for voting and I think that
5 that is really one way that new Americans have
6 been allowed to participate in the democracy we
7 have.
8 What I'm here to talk about is, I
9 want to urge and advocate for the need to look at
10 this city, not in an across the board method, but
11 to try to look at areas of the city where things
12 have worked and things haven't worked. I think
13 if you read all the reports that have been
14 published and the press that has discussed the
15 school boards and how they've worked over the
16 last ten years or so, you will read about some of
17 the failures where school boards have not lived
18 up to their promise, decentralization has not
19 worked as well as was hoped in the 1970's. But,
20 there are also places in the city where school
21 boards have done a good job. I think in Queens,
22 right here, we have a number of school boards
23 that have worked out very well from the top
24 ranked school district 26 in Bayside, in Bay
25 Terrace in Whitestone, to other well performing
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2 districts like the one we have in Flushing,
3 District 25, District 30 in Woodside.
4 Other districts, I don't mean in any
5 way to say that those are the only well
6 performing school districts. We even have a
7 school district, District 24, that is by far the
8 most overcrowded in the city and yet, has done
9 well even through very contentious discussions
10 about what the curriculum should be. The parents
11 got involved, the local elected school board
12 members got involved in that very heated
13 discussion and in the end, I think it worked out
14 well because people's input were reflected. Not
15 everybody was happy about the outcome,
16 nonetheless, there was a democratic process in
17 what happened in District 24. So there are
18 examples where school boards have worked well and
19 in deliberating the different options that we
20 have to, in terms of a system to succeed the
21 decentralized school board system that was done
22 away with this past spring, I think it, we should
23 look at structures that are similar to the local
24 school boards where in places that they did work.
25 They were not failures throughout the whole city.
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2 It's a big city and though it
3 requires more thought and more work to figure out
4 a system, perhaps a two prong system where one
5 method will work better in some parts of the city
6 and another method will work in another part of
7 the city. I think the city is very diverse,
8 that's almost become a clique, but the fact is
9 the city behaves differently in different parts
10 of the area, in different parts of the boroughs
11 and so it does warrant thoughtful consideration
12 and I would advocate that in many parts of New
13 York particularly here in Queens. We do have
14 areas that have been well served by local school
15 boards and a system that's somewhat similar to
16 the way school board members were elected by
17 parents, parents who didn't have to be citizens,
18 but simply had to have a kid in the school. That
19 has worked well to represent the concerns of the
20 parents and the school board members have
21 generally been accessible.
22 I have been to many of the school
23 board meetings in my two districts, 25 and 26,
24 and the parents have never feared yelling and
25 screaming at the school boards members during the
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2 meetings and the school board members have always
3 been very conscientious in trying to address,
4 really sincerely addressing the concerns of the
5 parents. So, that kind of structure has worked
6 and I caution all of us against changing a system
7 across the board when in fact there are areas
8 where the current or the old system did work and
9 by changing that system, while you may improve
10 the situations in other parts of the city, you
11 may actually experience a deterioration in the
12 places where the current system worked.
13 Thank you very much and I'd be happy
14 if there are any questions to answer to the best
15 of my abilities.
16 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
17 very much Councilman for your very thoughtful
18 remarks. I think we probably have a few
19 questions, but I just want to acknowledge, before
20 I go to questions, I just want to acknowledge
21 that Virginia Key, a member of the task force,
22 has also arrived. Ms. Reddington.
23 MS. REDDINGTON: Do you have any
24 suggestions? Could you tell us how you would,
25 how the new unit that we're to recommend would be
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2 established? Would it be through elections or
3 appointments? What would, how do you see this
4 coming?
5 COUNCILMAN LIU: Well, I wouldn't
6 pretend to be able to do the work of the task
7 force, so my input is to --
8 MS. REDDINGTON: What would you
9 recommend to us?
10 COUNCILMAN LIU: I would recommend
11 that in areas of the city where school boards
12 have worked, and I think if you look at the
13 documentation, both at the central board and
14 through reports in the media, as well as the work
15 papers and proceedings of the individual school
16 districts. I think it wouldn't be impossible.
17 It certainly, it wouldn't even be difficult to
18 ascertain districts that have worked, the
19 districts where local school boards have been
20 effective and in those areas, I would advocate as
21 extreme a measure as continuing the local school
22 boards in an elected capacity. There have been
23 people, including our current Mayor, who have
24 talked about the low participation rates in
25 school board elections, but there again, don't
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2 apply that kind of principal to the entire city.
3 You will find that some school
4 boards do have much higher voting rates whereas
5 in other school boards you may have very, very
6 low voting rates. I think that the elected
7 capacity of local school board members in Queens,
8 in many, not every single district in Queens, but
9 in most of the school districts in Queens, has
10 worked well.
11 MS. REDDINGTON: Thank you.
12 COUNCILMAN LIU: And unlike, and I
13 certainly don't mean to be critical of colleagues
14 in government, but unlike other bodies, I believe
15 the school boards have experienced a higher
16 turnover then other bodies may have. Sorry.
17 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Let me also
18 recognize the arrival of Catherine Wild from the
19 New York City Partnership. Thank you for being
20 here Catherine. Gerry Levin.
21 MR. LEVIN: Councilman, it's not
22 necessarily in our purview, but I wanted to get
23 your perspective on the districts in Queens.
24 Do they represent, in your view, the adequate
25 geography for the differences in various parts of
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2 Queens and then maybe you could talk about, since
3 you represent two districts, how much diversity
4 is there in Queens and how do we recognize that
5 community diversity?
6 COUNCILMAN LIU: Well there's
7 plenty of diversity in the people of Queens, in
8 the school children of Queens. If you're talking
9 about the diversity on the school boards,
10 District 25 and 26 and a few other school boards
11 in Queens are very diverse and in fact, if you
12 look at the one, one segment of the population
13 that is actually about a fifth of Queens, the
14 Asian-American population, there aren't too many
15 elected Asian-Americans. In fact, in the City,
16 we just have one in the Legislature. No one in
17 the executive or a few in the judicial branch,
18 but many in the school boards, especially in
19 Queens.
20 We have Korean-Americans, we have
21 Chinese-Americans, we have Bangladesh-Americans,
22 Indian- Americans, Filipinos who are serving on
23 local school boards and in fact, in those areas
24 the voting rate has been pretty substantial, not
25 approaching eighty or ninety percent, but
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2 certainly much more substantial then the single
3 digits that may be experienced city-wide and so
4 there is afforded an opportunity for these new
5 Americans to participate in a democratic process,
6 but more importantly, the parents, regardless of
7 how new they've been in this country, if you have
8 a kid in school, you have a voice in a vote.
9 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Virginia Kee.
10 MS. KEE: Councilman John Liu,
11 we're truly proud of the work that you're doing
12 at City Council. We thank you. I thank you for
13 your recommendation to look at the school boards
14 that really work. Do you think that if we had
15 such a board that does not have the power of the
16 purse to decide budget items and things like
17 that, we can still have the same type of track
18 record?
19 COUNCILMAN LIU: I think the power
20 of the purse, going back to our founding fathers,
21 is certainly one of their most legislative powers
22 any legislative body can have. At the same time,
23 I don't think that's the only power. I don't
24 think that's the only place you can have an
25 impact and even having a pulpit to speak from,
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2 school board members even without the power of
3 the purse can have an impact on educational
4 policy, can have an impact in terms of how
5 parents and students are communicated with and I
6 think that should not be minimized.
7 MS. KEE: Thank you.
8 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assemblyman
9 Green.
10 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: You've
11 essentially said that we need to look at the best
12 practices in the different school boards. One of
13 the things that some of us are looking at also is
14 the existence of the community boards, the former
15 community planning boards, community boards of
16 which you as a City Council person would have
17 some relationship with because I think City
18 Council members appoint some of the members to
19 these community boards. Do you think that these
20 community boards might serve as the best practice
21 example of a new alternative for how local school
22 boards might be run?
23 COUNCILMAN LIU: If we're not able
24 to stick with an elected form of school boards I
25 think that having the Borough President have a
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2 great deal of input in the school system is a way
3 to go. I have, in the past, been an advocate of
4 borough boards of education because I think there
5 are a lot of commonalities within boroughs. Less
6 commonality when you go across boroughs. Here in
7 Queens we have, probably the biggest issue is
8 overcrowding, whereas that particular issue
9 doesn't effect other boroughs. Certainly not as
10 much as it effects us in Queens and so there are
11 certain common themes that really are restricted
12 within a borough and will span school districts
13 so that I think it makes sense to have the
14 Borough President have a very strong voice in
15 selecting these people. In the absence of an
16 elected form of a school board or a school
17 commission or a parental input board or whatever
18 you call it. I think the, I don't think we
19 should do this through the current community
20 boards though.
21 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: I understand
22 that. Would, I guess what I'm asking also, is
23 the possible role of the City Council in
24 appointment of members, particularly given one of
25 the arguments that was made about the need for
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2 changing the structure of the school system was
3 the issue of political accountability and so, on
4 one hand folks argue that the Mayor should be
5 held accountable for the school system, but some
6 of us believe that in addition to the Mayor there
7 are two other legislative bodies or at least one
8 definitely legislative body that has some
9 responsibility which is the City Council because
10 you contribute to the decision about how much
11 money will be given to the school system. And so
12 the question is, do you think it would be
13 appropriate to look at the City Council also
14 having a role in appointment of members to school
15 boards?
16 COUNCILMAN LIU: I think there
17 would be a clear line of accountability and
18 therefore that certainly is a very viable and
19 preferred method, but in my opinion, less
20 preferred then a directly elected board, directly
21 elected by parents. And let me just, and I
22 certainly agree with you Assemblyman Green, that
23 we're looking for best practices and the best
24 practice in one part of the city may not be the
25 best practice in another part of the city and so
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2 I think we should look at multiple pronged
3 approaches that can be applied in different parts
4 of the city. And let me also say, I neglected to
5 mention before, that the best part, in my
6 opinion, the best part of the change in school
7 governments that we have experienced this past
8 Spring in terms of giving the Mayor and the
9 Chancellor the control, but therefor, the
10 accountability, is that part of that agreement
11 was that the city would never reduce it's, the
12 proportion of it's city budget that is used for
13 schools and I think that really was the most
14 positive aspect of that. I hope we can increase
15 the ratios, but certainly not decrease the
16 ratios.
17 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assemblyman
18 Rivera.
19 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: Councilman,
20 thank you very much for your testimony and I'm
21 particularly interested in what you said about
22 having looked at what works in Queens and what
23 makes a successful community school board. In
24 your opinion, where does diversity fit in in make
25 a school board successful?
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2 COUNCILMAN LIU: Diversity fits, a
3 diverse representation on a school board is,
4 makes that school board more effective as it
5 would any other governmental body. As an
6 example, in Flushing we have many new immigrants,
7 many new immigrants who are in need of bilingual
8 education and while in other parts of the city
9 where fewer new Americans may be arriving and
10 entering the schools, in Flushing we do have a
11 tremendous need for bilingual education.
12 Bilingual education happens to be one of those
13 things that I think is very poorly understood.
14 I think that in parts of the city where there are
15 fewer new Americans, bilingual education is often
16 considered a crutch that immigrant students rely
17 upon, perhaps for too long, and that we should
18 speed up the instruction of their English
19 abilities whereas, in Flushing, people would
20 generally understand that while a four or five
21 year old who is entering Kindergarten may not
22 need bilingual education, you do have to make
23 some accommodation for a junior high school
24 student that is coming from a different country,
25 is very limited English proficient and therefore,
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2 you certainly want to speed up the instruction in
3 their ability to speak and read and write in
4 English, but at the same time fi their not, if
5 their simply not able to use English as the
6 medium of instruction, you don't want them to
7 slip in the areas of Science and Math and History
8 either because their simply not able to use those
9 English text books.
10 And so, that's an area where
11 bilingual education is sorely needed and in a
12 diverse district like Flushing that has many new
13 immigrants, new Americans, that is understood
14 better because the school board there is diverse.
15 It is representative of the local community and
16 that makes it different from other school boards
17 in the city where there is less diversity and
18 therefore, less of a need for issues, less of a
19 need to understand issues such as bilingual
20 education. That is just one example of, I
21 believe, many.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: In the Bronx,
23 we have some school boards that have been
24 criticized for not being diverse even though the
25 student body may be eighty to ninety percent
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2 African-American and Latino. Getting back to the
3 same question, is it essential, in your eyes,
4 that a school board be diverse and be truly
5 representative of the parents and the students
6 that are going there or would you say that there
7 are other things that are more important then the
8 diversity issue like an understanding of some of
9 the other issues that effect, understanding of
10 curriculum and the understanding of some of the
11 other issues that effect the quality of education
12 that goes on in our schools?
13 COUNCILMAN LIU: I think
14 understanding the quality of education and the
15 effectiveness of the delivery of that educational
16 process to the students is a lot more importance.
17 That's certainly more important then the make-up
18 of school boards or even the whole, my opinion,
19 even the whole school governance question itself.
20 The bottom line is we're trying to effectively
21 educate every single kid in this city, all 1.1
22 million of them at a time. I don't think that
23 we're looking for quotas. I don't think that you
24 have to look at every single school board and
25 judge whether the school board is racially and
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2 ethnically in proportion to the population to the
3 students. I don't think that's necessary. It's
4 certainly one of the measures you can look at,
5 but there are so many other measures. You can
6 look at how the schools are performing, how many
7 of the schools are on the sur list, the turnover
8 of the principals, the turnover of the teachers.
9 You can look at a lot of different measures, but
10 that should be one of the measures you look at.
11 MS. THOMSON: Councilman, as we
12 grapple with what should be this new structure
13 that replaces community school boards, how
14 important do you think it is that parents be part
15 of that structure?
16 COUNCILMAN LIU: It's very
17 important. I think that parents, parents have to
18 retain the ability to have significant input into
19 their kids education. There's been some
20 criticism that some parents don't care and I
21 don't think that's true for anybody. I think
22 that we live in a different age, and I think
23 everybody understands this, where parents are
24 working longer hours, we have both parents
25 working or in many cases, you only have one
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2 parent in the family and that person is working.
3 And so, they certainly have a huge stake in the
4 educational process of their students and they
5 should be. The onus should mainly remain on the
6 parents, but if you cut them out of the school
7 system, well then, it's going to be the
8 responsibility of the government and even if the
9 parents wanted to get involved, they wouldn't
10 have a very strong say. I think they have the
11 strongest say in an elected form, such as the
12 school boards, in the absence of that, something
13 that's a combination of appointees from the
14 Borough President and the City Council members or
15 other elected officials. As long as the line of
16 accountability is clear. I think that provides
17 parents with a strong and sufficient form of
18 input.
19 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assembly
20 member Pheffer.
21 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Thank you.
22 I guess along the same line as my colleague are
23 asking, the school board or similar to a
24 community board, but we've had a lot of testimony
25 on Tuesday about the leadership team, about
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 parent councils and maybe that should be a forum.
3 In your involvement through the communities, what
4 do you hear about the leadership team and is that
5 a way or the Parent's Association setting up a
6 parent council representative of the parents
7 instead of or the community school board?
8 COUNCILMAN LIU: I think the school
9 leadership teams have been effective and I know
10 of some of my constituents who are running for
11 the school leadership team so that is an elected
12 process and I think that's something that we can
13 build upon. I don't think that 32 school
14 districts as currently drawn necessarily need to
15 be intact. I think that should be looked at as
16 well. They haven't been looked at for a very,
17 very long time and communities have changed and
18 I'm probably going to get in trouble for this,
19 but I don't think, I think we're looking to think
20 outside the box and if the lines have to be
21 changed or the number of school districts within
22 this New York City school district have to be
23 changed, then so be it.
24 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Thank you
25 and by the way, good luck, he's Chair of
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 Transportation for the City Council so we wish
3 you good luck.
4 COUNCILMAN LIU: Yes, my phone been
5 continually vibrating in my pocket.
6 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. DeLeon.
7 MR. DELEON: Councilman whatever
8 the structure is, how would the parents enforce
9 whatever their views are in light of the
10 legislation that in effect took away the power
11 for the school boards to enforce anything?
12 COUNCILMAN LIU: Well, there's
13 always a question of how much actual authority,
14 how much actual power any kind of body or
15 structure would have. In an elected capacity, a
16 school board or whatever you call it, that body
17 would have more of a say -- In the City Council,
18 it worked deliberating any bills or we're going
19 through the budget process, if these school
20 elected school bodies representing parents are
21 able to be unified and voice certain positions on
22 certain positions, we would give a lot of weight
23 to that. The school leadership teams, I think
24 they're very effective at the individual school
25 level, but we have, we have a couple of thousand
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2 schools in this school, in this city and so the
3 voice there would be somewhat more diluted. It
4 would be much more difficult to really reflect
5 the concerns of individual schools.
6 MR. DELEON: But you're saying that
7 an avenue would be at City Council hearings, if I
8 understood you?
9 COUNCILMAN LIU: An avenue
10 currently exists at City Council hearings as well
11 as State Legislature hearings, but the voice from
12 single parents, not single parents, individual
13 parents, that is certainly heard. The voice from
14 a unif -- The voice representing the unified
15 position of a school leadership would be heard as
16 well. But, the school, if there was an elected
17 school body representing parents, if they made
18 their position heard in a City Council or any
19 other kind of legislative hearing, their voice
20 would be heard much more loudly. Not to diminish
21 the importance of individual parents or schools,
22 but that's the nature, there is significance in
23 numbers.
24 MR. DELEON: Thank you.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well Council
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 member, we very much appreciate your testimony
3 this morning and I think all of us congratulate
4 you on your historical action a year ago and
5 we're expecting great things from you over the
6 next few days and over the next few years. So,
7 thank you very, very much.
8 COUNCILMAN LIU: Thank you all very
9 much and thank you for your endurance in this
10 process.
11 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you.
12 MS. THOMSON: Our next speaker is
13 Norma PauPaw, Co-Chair of District Council of
14 Presidents. She's not here. Our next speaker
15 Kenneth Cohen, President of the Northeast Queens
16 NAACP. I'd also like to acknowledge that Evita
17 Belmonte, the Queens representative for the Panel
18 for Education Policy is here. Evita, wave your
19 hand so everyone can see you. Thanks for joining
20 us.
21 MR. COHEN: Yes, good morning to
22 Co-Chairs, Honorable Steven Sanders and Terri
23 Thomson and the distinguished panel. My name is
24 Ken Cohen. I am President of the NAACP
25 Northeast/Queens Branch. As an activist a parent
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 who has served on PTA's in almost every capacity
3 including President on the 100.11 Team, School
4 Leadership Team, and currently a Community School
5 Board member of District 25 and President of a
6 branch of the oldest civil rights organization
7 the NAACP which has a call to action plan on
8 education of which, I believe, the Honorable
9 Steve Sanders and many of the panel do have and
10 in fact, we will forward copies to this
11 distinguished panel.
12 I come to speak on the governance of
13 our school system here in New York City District
14 One. I will state from the beginning the need
15 for some group to support, represent and advocate
16 for all children, parents and communities is
17 necessary. Through the years, we have
18 experienced some benefits of community school
19 boards and experienced many reasons for drastic
20 change. Never should we have no representation
21 from outside the realm of government or the
22 educational system. As you know, the NAACP has a
23 long standing history and has maintained a
24 commitment to the successful and completion of a
25 quality education for all students throughout
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 this city and the nation and in particular to
3 those schools that are failing.
4 To this extent, the New York State
5 Conference of NAACP branches has developed and
6 adopted, and adopt a school program which has met
7 with success in some districts right here in New
8 York City and across the state. However, there
9 are those skeptics who have mistaken the idea of
10 partnership in trying to solve a problem as a
11 desire to take over. I do believe that this task
12 force should consider developing a format
13 inclusive of youth, parents, community and
14 business representatives that would reflect and
15 give input on curriculum, funding and mediate on
16 issues pertaining to the schools within the
17 jurisdiction while meeting with Superintendents
18 on a monthly basis for periodic updates.
19 In the youth category, young people
20 from High Schools or the CUNY system, selected by
21 their peers as they do in local school, or in
22 their school government which would add fresh
23 views to needed education as well as providing
24 valuable experience towards the indoctrination of
25 their leadership skills.
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 Parents would be selected by a
3 district's PTA's and President's Councils or by
4 demonstration of an outstanding educational
5 involvement. Community representation should come
6 from active organizations that have demonstrated
7 a history of involvement in education, be it in
8 the day program or through after-school
9 involvement. The business would be the most
10 difficult though, but by developing a program
11 similar to SCOR, we are sure their knowledge
12 could be used with these bodies serving for a
13 period of one year.
14 The time for reform is evident and
15 necessary for the productive future of education
16 in New York City. Accountability is the key to
17 success of those young people that one day will
18 fill this room in the future as we do today. No
19 matter which direction this task force should
20 take, the road to educational success must be one
21 actively considering the inclusive involvement of
22 youth, parents, community and business which will
23 facilitate true accountability.
24 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well,
25 Mr. Cohen I just want to say at the outset to how
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 much we appreciate the fact that you are here.
3 We are all mindful of the very involved and
4 effective track record of the NAACP for so many
5 years, 50 years ago almost, was a Brown v. Board
6 of Education and another very distinguished
7 representative by the name of Thurgood Marshall
8 led the charge to make a public schools a better
9 place for all children, so we are absolutely
10 delighted to have your presence here and your
11 testimony and I suspect that maybe a question or
12 two. Mr. Levin.
13 MR. LEVIN: Thank you Chairman
14 Sanders and I support the remarks you made about
15 the NAACP. If I could ask you and appreciate
16 your testimony, you referred to community
17 involvement, but with respect to the business
18 community that that might be more difficult and
19 I'd like you to at least expand on that and
20 indeed, your own history with the NAACP with
21 getting business involved because some of us
22 believe that that may be very important going
23 forward.
24 MR. COHEN: Well, I will relate to
25 my past seven years as a community school board
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 member in District 25 where I don't really see
3 the immediate involvement from business. At
4 public hearings where the business doesn't
5 provide input and yet, they reap the benefits of
6 those parents and children that go into the
7 different stores, be it clothing stores, food
8 stores and I believe they are an essential part.
9 Not only that, they have the experience of
10 dealing with cash, cash that is so needed in
11 individual schools and I'm not talking about the
12 donations that come through, the hard work of our
13 parents, through the different funding processes,
14 I'm talking about the kind of money that provides
15 the books and the other pieces of education that
16 aren't being provided in the system currently
17 today.
18 MR. LEVIN: To the extent that
19 every business leader is also a parent, I hope,
20 there may be some way of getting that kind of
21 activity because I agree with you there is much
22 to contribute.
23 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Ms. Kee.
24 MS. KEE: You mentioned a program,
25 SCOR, could you explain what that program is?
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 MR. COHEN: Well, there are several
3 programs including one in Borough Hall here and I
4 believe the Office for Queens SCOR is right here
5 in Borough Hall. These are retired executives
6 that lend their expertise to young people
7 starting out or even just new people starting out
8 in business and they also, in some cases, lend
9 their expertise to non- profit organizations.
10 This could be something that is much needed if
11 we're looking at, and I am very much in favor of
12 parental involvement, as we look for them to
13 manage financially in the budget system. The
14 school boards have not been a part of voting on
15 the budget system for the past six years, as of
16 the first change in the governance. So,
17 therefore, this would be something new that we're
18 reintroducing to parents and could use, in some
19 cases, assistance and as Mr. Levin said, there
20 are parents of all walks of life in public
21 schools and that's why parents are very important
22 to this system.
23 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
24 MR. CLAYTON: Yes, I want to thank
25 you for coming here today and there were a few
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 things you said that were very especially
3 appreciative of my organization, the United
4 Parent Association, because we do feel that
5 parents are a crucial part of the system and they
6 should have a huge stake in the saying so of the
7 direction of their children. Now in your
8 testimony, you also ring a theme that we heard a
9 lot Tuesday, that you feel that this new body
10 should have responsibility of curriculum and
11 budget, I read that somewhere, curriculum and
12 budget and you also said that you feel students
13 should also have a say and you even went as far
14 as to say students, for instance, like in the
15 CUNY system, so that brings me to higher ed. Do
16 you think that these new bodies, that possibly
17 will be created, governing bodies, should have a
18 connection to higher education, do you think
19 there should be a bridge there?
20 MR. COHEN: I think from the first
21 day a child steps in school there should be a
22 constant link to education. We're never to old
23 to learn. I do believe that our whole life span
24 is based on a learning process, therefore we
25 should constantly have our children experienced
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 in interaction with all facets of education be it
3 from the pre- school age through to the graduate
4 age where young people, as I was, sort of given a
5 momentum, a lust for education. I think it's
6 very important that young people interact. The
7 NAACP, through their youth councils, provide such
8 an activity and I'm quite sure there are other
9 organizations that do the same. We need, as in
10 our public schools, in our public system,
11 constantly encourage to develop our new leaders
12 because, as I said, I don't want to be wheeled up
13 to this podium 20 years from now when I think a
14 young person can forcefully deliver the message.
15 MS. THOMSON: Mr. Cohen, you come
16 to us with a wealth of experience as a parent, as
17 a member of a school leadership team, as a
18 current school board member and certainly as
19 President of the local chapter of the NAACP.
20 You're suggesting a different model. You're
21 suggesting a model that is inclusive of the
22 community of the young people, of the parents and
23 of the business community. What would be the
24 responsibilities of this group that are different
25 or the same then your role as a community school
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 board member?
3 MR. COHEN: Well, as I said, there
4 are several things that were removed in the
5 1996/97 governance process. I think those pieces
6 should be brought back to the table for those
7 this new body. I also believe that because of
8 the community and the diversity, I bring that
9 word back into the picture, of New York City that
10 these groups should only serve for one year.
11 You're adding a rotation to the process. I think
12 the three year process is a little bit too long,
13 (extensus), and I do believe that we constantly
14 need a fresh turnover of people, thoughts and
15 ideas. So, therefore it is a must that we
16 introduce something new to the idea of revamping
17 a much needed education system.
18 MS. THOMSON: Okay.
19 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Green.
20 Assemblyman Green.
21 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Yes, I'm glad
22 to see you here as well. The NAACP, it's history
23 is really rooted in two major causes. One was
24 the plight to end segregated and to enhance
25 educational opportunity and the other the fight
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 for the right to vote. What would be your
3 response to a new governance model that
4 essentially would not enable or empower citizens
5 to vote for elected members to school boards or
6 some body, some local governance body?
7 MR. COHEN: In the testimony I do
8 state that we would consider a voting process
9 through the different categories. I would, not
10 wanting to give up the voting process because
11 everybody has the right to vote, but there are
12 also those individuals not involved in the
13 process that wind up in the voting system for the
14 current community school board process which
15 involves and develops into a political being
16 which takes away from the education process
17 which, in my own personal feeling, has destroyed
18 some of the true meaning of what community
19 schools boards were meant in 1972 through that
20 long battle to get to this decentralization
21 process.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: So what you're
23 saying is a wiser approach should be developed
24 with respect to how elections might be run to
25 ensure that the right people are on these boards.
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 MR. COHEN: Most definitely, that
3 we do have people that are currently active and
4 involved and it doesn't mean there's an age
5 barrier because those people that are sincere to
6 quality education, whether they're very young or
7 very old and we have some very young intelligent
8 shining stars that are on the horizon, that are
9 still participating in public high school that
10 are very worthy to sit on any panel and have
11 discussion and we have some brilliant seniors
12 with the experience that would educate even this
13 panel and myself that would be worthy also. So,
14 therefore, you're opening a door of total
15 involvement on all levels by adding in from youth
16 to community and the business community.
17 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well,
18 Mr. Cohen, we thank you so much for being here
19 this morning and congratulate you on your very
20 distinguished career both in education and civil
21 rights. Thank you so much.
22 MS. THOMSON: Did Norma PauPaw
23 arrive? No. How about Mattie Cruz? No. Dorothy
24 Willner, Secretary, Community School Board 30.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: I have an
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 announcement to make. There is a gray colored
3 Jeep, a four by four, parked in front of Borough
4 Hall. If anyone is the owner of that vehicle,
5 the message is, "Move the car as soon as
6 possible". Okay.
7 MS. THOMSON: Good morning.
8 MS. WILLNER: Good morning. My
9 name is Dorothy Willner. Thank you for coming to
10 Queens to hear our concerns and suggestions for a
11 new governing structure for our community's
12 schools.
13 As a member of Community School
14 board 20 since 1983, I have spent these 20 years
15 since my retirement from teaching in District 20
16 schools taking an active role in the governance
17 of our district's 31 schools. Having been a
18 member of the New York Coalition for Educational
19 Reform, as well as a member of the citywide
20 monitoring task force on Special Education,
21 having represented my school board at Central's
22 Consultative Council for most of these years, and
23 as the Co-Chair currently of the Education
24 Committee of the Women's City Club of New York, I
25 have devoted much of my adult life to the field
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 of education, and specifically, to the community
3 of Western Queens in which I have lived and
4 worked for more than 50 years. My opinions are
5 therefor colored by my experiences in this area.
6 Because the very existence of school
7 districts appears to be in doubt, and because the
8 air is rife with speculation that the school
9 system may be restructured in way that we have no
10 knowledge of, I think it may be premature to
11 postulate a governance before we know what the
12 system itself will look like. However, I do
13 offer some thoughts on this matter that I hope
14 you will consider when you formulate your
15 recommendations to the State Legislature.
16 I believe there should be some body
17 of residents of a district, or region, or area,
18 that will have oversight of the educational
19 system of that area. Much like the newly created
20 Panel on Educational Policy which replaced the
21 former citywide Board of Education, these bodies
22 should be composed of people who have an interest
23 in education and are willing to devote time to
24 monitoring the schools. Whether they are
25 appointed, or recommended by that area's
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 Superintendent, much as the May appoints the
3 Chancellor, who appoints the Superintendent, who
4 appoints the Principals, or are elected, as the
5 school boards have been since 1970, is not a
6 major issue. I believe these panels should have
7 specific functions, be trained on how to work in
8 a group, and be familiar with the population of
9 their community and the culture of that
10 community's schools.
11 I differ with the people who are
12 recommending that parent leadership teams take on
13 this role for a variety of reasons. This is not
14 to deny parents the right to participate in these
15 bodies, but only to assure that parenthood in and
16 of itself not be the determining factor of who
17 may be a member.
18 District 30 is an excellent district
19 which initiated school leadership teams when they
20 were first proposed more than six years ago.
21 Currently, each of our 31 schools has a school
22 leadership team, fifty percent of whose
23 membership are parents. As the district with the
24 largest number of immigrants in the country (one
25 quarter of our children live in households where
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2 the native language is not English), where some
3 of our schools have children speaking forty
4 different languages, and where a majority of
5 mothers, especially those in single parent
6 families are working full- time, it has been an
7 ongoing struggle for many parents to participate
8 in the work that is required of functioning
9 teams. Despite the fact that training has been
10 offered to these teams, and that we have had more
11 years of experience with teams than many other
12 districts, their mission of monitoring the
13 implementation of their school's comprehensive
14 education plan and of signing off on how their
15 school's budget is allocated is still as much as
16 any can manage.
17 Philosophically, too, I believe that
18 the education of our children is the concern not
19 only of parents, but of the whole community.
20 Where schools fail, the community fails, and
21 where schools succeed, the community succeeds.
22 As the chairperson of my district's zoning
23 committee and a member of its advisory
24 committees, I have found that decisions based on
25 equity for all the schools are more easily
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2 arrived at by members who are impartial and do no
3 have a vested interest in one school but are
4 committed to the success of all schools.
5 Preventing special education classes from being
6 assigned to a school when there is space for them
7 or attempting to keep gifted students from
8 leaving a school for the gifted academy when
9 schools are unfortunately fudged entirely on the
10 scores achieved on standardized tests is not a
11 temptation for the disinterested community
12 member.
13 Whatever the governance, whoever
14 participates in policy decisions, monitoring, and
15 oversight of the schools, must receive
16 appropriate training for their tasks. Their
17 functions must be clearly defined and the
18 parameters of their responsibilities clearly
19 understood. The perks and the salaries that are
20 not given to the Panel on Educational Policy
21 which were given to the former members of the
22 Board of Education should also be denied to
23 members of the district panels. Those
24 perspective members who have the knowledge, time
25 and willingness to serve should be public
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2 servants whose only incentive should be the
3 satisfaction of knowing that they will be helping
4 schools achieve their mission.
5 A final recommendation for a
6 function these governing bodies should undertake,
7 I believe, is to act as a two-way funnel of
8 information from the community to the educational
9 establishment and from the educational
10 establishment to the schools. As the editor of
11 my cooperative housing development's newsletter,
12 I write a regular report on what our schools are
13 doing which is carefully read by the 730
14 shareholders, I speak before our senior group,
15 many of whom are retired educators, and give a
16 yearly talk to our nursery school's parents who
17 look for guidance on choosing which school to
18 enroll their five year olds at the semester's
19 end. Other members of my school board are
20 liaisons to our local precinct advisory boards
21 and community planning boards. These are the
22 services they and I will miss performing when our
23 term ends next June, but which can and should be
24 picked up by members of the new group.
25 I wish you well in your difficult
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2 task of organizing the many different suggestions
3 that have come before you into a coherent body of
4 recommendations and again thank you for
5 undertaking this job.
6 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: And we thank
7 you for your testimony Ms. Willner. Let me just
8 make mention the fact that to your right, several
9 more members of the task force have arrived.
10 Mr. Jack Friedman and Ms. Cassandra Mullen have
11 both arrived. Mr. Levin.
12 MR. LEVIN: Thank you Ms. Willner.
13 It's always a pleasure to hear such an articulate
14 presentation. Your journalistic credentials are
15 probably equal to your teaching credentials.
16 Since you have so much institutional experience
17 and you made reference to why you thought parents
18 should be understood in composing this new body,
19 could you define for us what you think the ideal
20 characteristics would be of the kinds of
21 individuals who should serve on the new structure
22 that we're empowered to design?
23 MS. WILLNER: You know, this may
24 sound stupid, integrity has to come first and
25 having worked for 20 years on a school board with
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2 people who did and did not have integrity having
3 been a person who almost single handedly got a
4 district superintendent thrown out because of his
5 corruption, I can tell you that, for me,
6 integrity is the most important. As I said to
7 our current Superintendent, who has been there
8 for the past 15 years and is a wonderful
9 Superintendent, I said what you don't know you
10 can learn. You know a lot now already, but
11 nobody can teach you to be honest. Are you
12 honest? And, of course, he said I am honest and
13 you can believe that. So, that would be the
14 primary thing. If you have a background in
15 education, that's great, but I have known people
16 who were on our school board who were principals
17 who were dishonest, so it's not who you are,
18 rather, you know what I mean, it's a character.
19 MR. LEVIN: So, let's focus in on
20 parents because a lot of our discussion is try to
21 encourage parental involvement. So, what kind of
22 parent would be an ideal candidate to be on this
23 new board?
24 MS. WILLNER: I think a parent that
25 shows a commitment to helping her own child and
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2 other people's children. Parents, I have been
3 involved recently in a study of charter schools
4 which some of you may have received from the
5 Women's City Club, and one of the things that we
6 found in charter schools was that the parents who
7 send their children to charter schools had a
8 commitment to look for the best school for their
9 child. So, I would look for a parent who want's
10 the best and who is willing to go out and search
11 for the best and if she or he doesn't find the
12 best, to work in his or her own community to make
13 a school into a better school and we have such
14 parents in District 30. There are not many of
15 them because many of them, most of them are so
16 involved with the issues of daily life. As a
17 district with an enormous number of single parent
18 families who are working full time, many of them
19 have enough to put bread on the table and to see
20 that their own little child is being taken care
21 of. So, it should be a parent that has the
22 willingness, the ability and the time to serve.
23 You've got to have the time.
24 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assemblyman
25 Rivera.
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2 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: Thank you also
3 Ms. Willner. I have a question on what role
4 should local business people play on a
5 reconstituted school board? Should it be just
6 limited to parents or should there be a search
7 for parents and other kinds of individuals to
8 serve on a school board?
9 MS. WILLNER: I think there should
10 be a search for anybody willing to devote himself
11 to this task. One of the things that we found
12 wonderfully effective was what Pencil initiated a
13 couple of years ago and that is the principal in
14 a school and once you get one of these people to
15 come into a school, they have done enormous
16 things. They have painted murals, they have
17 brought in money, they have given grants, they
18 have given resources, so once you form some kind
19 of connection with any one of these organizations
20 they will do marvelous things and I would not
21 hold back any group from running for an elective
22 office if it is elective or from serving as a
23 volunteer. We have Citicorp in Long Island City
24 that for years has been sending mentors to a
25 school that serves the largest low-income housing
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2 project in the entire country. That's the
3 Queensbridge houses and Citicorp has been taking
4 a group of children every week for years,
5 bringing them to the big Citicorp building in
6 Long Island City and working with these children
7 and with their parents.
8 We have Mr. Friedman who started the
9 I Have A Dream for the children in the Long
10 Island City area. To our great dismay, when I
11 learned a majority of those children and their
12 parents have opted out from this marvelous
13 program after a couple of years, I was
14 devastated. Our Deputy Superintendent,
15 Dr. Phillip Composto, right here, was the
16 Principal of the school that the I Have A Dream
17 children were working in. So, anybody who is
18 willing to give, we want you and we'll help you
19 if and you'll help us.
20 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
21 MR. CLAYTON: Yes, thank you for
22 coming here today and giving us your testimony.
23 I'd just like to jump back on the parent aspect
24 of this. Last year when the task force was
25 studying the governance through the Mayoral
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2 control and one of the issues was that we wanted
3 parents to have a meaningful role and what did
4 not happen was we did not set a parameter or any
5 sort of criteria of what type of parent that
6 should be and so in the spirit we were thinking
7 like you said that they should be committed and
8 they should have children in the system and this
9 was just all in the spirit. But as it turned out
10 when the five parents were finally selected there
11 was some disagreements across the city on some of
12 the Borough President selection. They felt it
13 was not in the spirit of what the board really
14 wanted. So now, with that said, with this new
15 governance structure that we're trying to see how
16 it would look and you were saying that parents
17 should be committed, should have children in the
18 system, would let's say a parent who served for X
19 amount of years on their Executive Council, would
20 that be a candidate, sort of a candidate you
21 would be talking about for a role on this new
22 governance body?
23 MS. WILLNER: Yes, yes. Why not.
24 When I was on the Executive Board, years ago, of
25 my children's public schools, most of the parents
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2 at that time were not working and were very
3 involved in being in the schools all the time.
4 Now, you know, we have the C-30 process where the
5 parents are involved in helping to choose the
6 supervisors. It is very difficult to get five
7 parents to be on these boards. Why? Because
8 they're busy working and taking care of their
9 families. That's the reality.
10 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well,
11 Ms. Willner, we thank you so much for joining us
12 this morning. We appreciate the work that you've
13 done for so many years on the Local Board 30 and
14 of course your work with the New York City
15 Women's Club is very well-known to all of us. We
16 thank you for your advocacy.
17 MS. THOMSON: I don't believe I see
18 Reverend Norris here yet. Has Norma PauPaw or
19 Mattie Cruz arrived yet? No. Debra Falcone?
20 No. Marge Coridan I don't see. Gertrude Gonish,
21 Block Association President (inaudible). We can
22 xerox them for you.
23 MS. GONISH: Good morning
24 distinguished panel. I am going to present it
25 from the grass roots. I used to live in
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2 community school board 30 and I moved over to
3 community school board 29. My name is Gertrude
4 Gonish, for the record, President of the Nemmis
5 Street, National Boulevard, Montauk Street Block
6 Association and a very active community person.
7 I've heard the word parent. A parent doesn't
8 mean that you gave birth because in my
9 neighborhood I have about 20 to 30 children and
10 they look upon me as a mother because I give them
11 guidance.
12 My concern today is the voting
13 aspect of this because I am in a troubled
14 District 29 and many of you are familiar with it.
15 I look at the voting because too many of my
16 people died for the right to vote and I am
17 concerned from the aspect that when I moved into
18 District 29 many of my older people would take me
19 by the hand and say, "C'mon, let's go", taught me
20 how to be active in my community. And the only
21 reason why I'm speaking, I'm not reading from the
22 paper because I heard many of the things that
23 were said by some of my former speakers.
24 Activity, the school boards and the voting.
25 Now if you take this away from us
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2 what are we going to have in it's place? I
3 remember in District 29, we couldn't even get
4 anything from the Board of Education because
5 there was no one to represent us. We walked, we
6 marched, we did everything until we had some
7 representation. I'm not saying every school
8 board is functional. But I'm saying the one's
9 that are working and on this paper I have quite
10 about, how many, about four or five suggestions
11 for the non- functional boards. We really and
12 truly need our rights back to vote because if you
13 take this away from us, what about the general
14 election voting? What about the other voting?
15 And we need to clean up our district, so please,
16 and I'm going to read.
17 The civil rights of the people
18 within New York City are being violated by the
19 powers that be. I cannot speak for those that
20 have a different hue then me, but I do know that
21 they have always had and still have privileges
22 that I cannot enjoy. President Bush is preaching
23 to the people abroad of these United States about
24 the cruel and inhumane living conditions they
25 endure in other parts of the world. If this is a
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2 democratic society and we have been given the
3 right to vote for the people we want to represent
4 us, why do we illegally do with the sch -- Why
5 do you want to do illegally do so with the school
6 boards of New York City. We all know that many
7 of the school boards do not function properly.
8 What have the powers to be done to correct it?
9 Hundreds of years ago many people
10 died who were beaten, named, just so I could have
11 this opportunity to voice my opinion for my
12 choice to represent me. Let us not return to the
13 era where only certain members of society could
14 vote or voice their likes or dislikes or
15 important issues. If you really are serious about
16 improving this school boards performances try
17 these suggestions.
18 Number one: Survey all of the
19 successes of the functioning school boards;
20 Number two: Compare the
21 relationships between the Superintendents and the
22 school boards;
23 Number three: Do not allow working
24 individuals in political office to run and serve
25 on local school boards; Have successful school
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2 district boards work with the dysfunctional
3 school boards;
4 Number five: Have the voting of the
5 school board members during the election time of
6 minor offices voting; If the local school boards
7 do not improve, have a special team work with
8 them until they know how to function as a unit;
9 School boards were created to give each
10 member of the community their say of who should
11 represent them, so their offsprings would obtain
12 a decent education. We forgot a long and
13 difficult battle to achieve this right. Please
14 do not cheat us of this right and as some of them
15 have stated that the younger people being
16 involved in the school boards. I learned how to
17 become an activist at a young age because
18 somebody took me by the hand and taught me and if
19 we do this to the younger generation I can assure
20 you success. Thank you.
21 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Ms. Gonish,
22 we thank you very much for being here and as a
23 President of your Block Association, I think I
24 envy the people who live on your block. I can see
25 why they consider you their leader, you're
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2 remarks were both passionate and very well
3 delivered. Do we have any questions? Ms. Kee.
4 MS. KEE: Ms. Gonish, thank you so
5 much for your passion and your caring about
6 school boards. We really do appreciate it. Do
7 you assess, as we do, minority people in trying
8 to get people out to vote that there is a
9 difference in today's climate of 1960 versus 2002
10 that the whether it's better now or less so?
11 MS. GONISH: Today, trust me, it is
12 so difficult. With me, I don't think, no see,
13 I'm older then some of the people in this room
14 but we did not pass something down to them. We
15 did not take them by the hand the way the older
16 generation took me by the hand and it's like
17 pulling a good tooth out of your head to get them
18 out. They have every excuse in the world why
19 they cannot attend, but the faithful one's that
20 come, they work. So it is difficult today.
21 MS. KEE: Thank you.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
23 MR. CLAYTON: Yes, thank you for
24 your passion as well. My mother always taught me
25 to respect and always remember what the rights
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2 that people have fought for and died for and one
3 of my objectives, being on this task force, is to
4 try to make sure that our rights are not
5 infringed upon and I just want to assure you that
6 also the Justice Department has a hand in this so
7 whatever comes out of this, they have to also
8 make sure that the people's rights, voting
9 rights, isn't infringed on. So, you could rest
10 assured that we don't want to move backwards,
11 that is totally for sure. We want to move
12 forward in a more progressive and a governing
13 body that will work and I'm sure we will look at
14 those school districts that are functioning well
15 and try to distract or take from whatever they
16 have that we can put into some sort of new
17 governing body. But I just wanted to assure you,
18 as far as the voting rights, that it is being
19 reviewed and any recommendation will be reviewed
20 just for that purpose.
21 MS. GONISH: Thank you.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. DeLeon.
23 MR. DELEON: Ms. Gonish, thank you
24 for being here. I was very moved by what I heard
25 you say. In terms of functioning school boards
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2 helping dysfunctioning school boards, am I
3 hearing you say that there should be money
4 appropriated for that?
5 MS. GONISH: No. You don't need
6 money to help each other because we in District
7 29, see I'm going to be honest, anybody in here
8 who knows me, I get into trouble for honesty. We
9 in District 29, no leadership team working, we
10 don't have a curriculum, we don't have a budget,
11 we don't have a lot of things in District 29 and,
12 trust me when I tell you, every week the Mayor
13 and the Chancellor they get a letter from me and
14 if the school board is working, what is your
15 success? You know the word sharing? Help us.
16 We learn from each other. And this is what we
17 need to do. Stop being selfish. Forget the name
18 that is attached to you. Help me and in helping
19 me I can help others and make my community more
20 liveable and attractive and my house that I own,
21 to be of good value on the market. That's what
22 we're looking for.
23 MR. DELEON: Thank you very much.
24 MS. GONISH: Your welcome.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assemblywoman
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2 Pheffer.
3 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Thank you.
4 Some of the comments have been that the school
5 boards are not representative of the students
6 going to school and the system we have now, of
7 the way we're voting and everything, I mean, do
8 you have any thoughts about that. Is it
9 representative of the students attending, do you
10 feel that there should -- I don't want to say
11 quotas, but should it be in some way that through
12 appointment or through election, some way in
13 making sure it's, the community school boards is
14 distributed throughout the community as far as
15 representation?
16 MS. GONISH: I think the community
17 school board members should be a representation
18 of the community. I have heard the first speaker
19 spoke about the number of immigrants or different
20 people. He needs to come to Southeast Queens.
21 We are much richer then he is and they have no
22 representation. So I really and truly think that
23 it should represent the population. This is
24 what, this is only my opinion. Okay? Yes.
25 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Thank you.
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2 MS. GONISH: Your welcome.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well, I want
4 to thank you very much for being here and Terri
5 Thomson still has a comment. Let me thank you
6 again.
7 MS. GONISH: Your welcome, thank
8 you.
9 MS. THOMSON: Ms. Gonish, nope,
10 don't sit down. Thank you for coming and thank
11 you for your voice on education and for your
12 passion for your district and I for one have been
13 one of the people in your sights who have
14 received correspondence from you for a lot of
15 years and I've always appreciated that. And I've
16 always appreciated your honesty.
17 MS. GONISH: Thank you.
18 MS. THOMSON: District 29, as you
19 said, if I can quote you, is a district that
20 isn't performing well, it's not working, it's a
21 very troubled district. If you were to wipe the
22 slate clean, if you were to start anew, if there
23 was no school board, there was no leadership
24 team, nothing was there, what would you build to
25 make that district better?
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2 MS. GONISH: A leader. A leader
3 that can relate to everybody in the district and
4 I don't care what you look like as long as you
5 are knowledgeable and you have the people skills
6 and you know how to deal with every faction in
7 the neighborhood. This is what District 29
8 needs, alright. We are troubled Ms. Thomson. We
9 really and truly are. We really, you have no
10 idea what's going on in this district, okay and a
11 lot of people have blinders on their eyes, but I
12 look at it from the truth, from the perspective,
13 okay. So, your welcome.
14 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Again, Ms.
15 Gonish, we thank you very much. I acknowledge
16 that District 29 has a lot of difficulties, but
17 they're lucky to have you as a springfield
18 gardens. Thank you for being here today.
19 MS. THOMSON: Ronnie Rogers,
20 parent, Assemblyman Scarborough Task Force on
21 Education in District 29. Dr. Gloria Black,
22 Chairperson of the Education Committee of
23 Assemblyman Bill Scarborough in Assembly District
24 29.
25 DR. BLACK: Thank you very much
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2 Ronnie for having yielded to me and good morning
3 to you distinguished people, the forum of the
4 task force for the State of New York. As was
5 said, I am Gloria Black, B-L-A-C-K, and I might
6 say to you that I come from a long history with
7 three characteristics. One, I'm a parent, a
8 parent of two girls who were educated in District
9 29 and who are professionals. One a lawyer and
10 one an Administrator in Norfolk, Virginia.
11 Secondly, I have been an advocate for children
12 two-thirds of my life and you detect possibly a
13 southern accent. I hail North Carolina where I
14 tediously worked with Martin Luther King in the
15 Civil Rights Movement and that leads me to the
16 focus where we are now having worked very hard in
17 the late '60's and 70's with Roll McCoy for the
18 expressed purpose of doing what? Establishing
19 community control and of course what happened?
20 We do get a version of that in decentralization
21 which I question. I wanted to say this from the
22 onset and didn't do it, that's screwy again.
23 When I look at the panel, and I've
24 worked with you Honorable Sanders. When I look
25 at this panel, I have the understanding that you
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2 were created in terms of membership, ten from the
3 Senate and ten from the Assembly. When I think
4 in terms of making an assessment in terms of the
5 representative for Queens, it's a large
6 geographical area and has been stated to you
7 prior with the individual who has just spoken, we
8 do have problems over there. I'm not so sure
9 that they're all in District 29. My assessment
10 is a little different. However, I question the
11 viability and the functional well being of South
12 Queens being represented. No offense to you Mrs.
13 Pheffer, Honorable Pheffer because that's not
14 yours, but having been appointed, only one person
15 from the Assembly to represent all of Cent
16 Queens. What happened to Southeast Queens, a
17 large district?
18 Okay, now with that, to continue.
19 As I said before I have worked as a teacher, I
20 have worked as a counselor and I have worked as
21 an Assistant Principal. I have 39 years and
22 seven months in the field of education. I have
23 worked in public school system in Brooklyn and
24 believe it or not, the silk stocking district,
25 Lawrence High School, and I'm able to make a
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2 comparative analysis of what's happening here in
3 our school district and it's deplorable and
4 unconscionable and I can't go into that now, all
5 of it, because it's not necessary but you can
6 talk to me personally, okay.
7 I know the classic struggles and
8 high points of success in the academic arena that
9 we have experienced and I can tell you that the
10 projected centralization of the functions of
11 public education might be looked upon me as a
12 total disconnect. A total disconnect in support
13 of the local school districts, if you follow what
14 I'm saying. It is my intent to bring to you my
15 thoughts, my insights on the two areas. First of
16 which is the legislative governments. And by the
17 way, I was a part of that, but we get no credit
18 in our district. I worked with you in Albany
19 just for this structure. The law was designed
20 for inclusion of parents in policy and decision
21 making in our system. PTA Presidents who are
22 parents with a respected school districts were to
23 be appointed to leadership teams and let me tell
24 you about that.
25 Nothing wrong with that concept in
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2 theory, it's excellent. But I can assure you as
3 I go around in District 29, 27 and 28, it's not
4 happening realistically. Why is it not happening
5 realistically? Because years and years and
6 generations, there is a classic struggle between
7 those of us who are not as intellectually astute
8 and who else? Administration, faculty and the
9 more elite and that's what's happening. We have
10 parents, yes, we have given them the right to be
11 on that team, but most of our parents, and I have
12 to use the modular of the districts with which I
13 work, or assist as a volunteer, and by the way,
14 my life has taken on volunteer-ism since '92. I
15 retired in 1992 from the system. What happens?
16 We find that the parents who have been appointed
17 or elected, whatever the animal, that so often
18 these parents, classically, are intimidated,
19 highly intimidated, so therefore when one is
20 intimidated what happens? You are not likely to
21 come out with the truth of how you truly feel for
22 the good of the student. That's what we're all
23 about.
24 The other weakness of the leadership
25 team as I perceive them, perceive it is the fact
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2 that the parent who happens to stand up and be
3 counted, usually the President, can only serve as
4 long as, and if I'm in error correct me please
5 later, as long as his or her child or children
6 are in that (inaudible). She or he cannot
7 succeed himself or herself. What happens to that
8 type of skill, that type of experience? We have
9 nowhere built in this system to move on or to
10 link with the need-ness that's up the road.
11 In terms of also governance, we find
12 that the parents are not truly represented if
13 they have any representation at all. The faculty
14 represented by UFT. The Administration or
15 Principals by who? The supervisory, what is it,
16 SEA. But where do the parents turn. You see we
17 didn't think in terms of that. If you want the
18 parents voice to be made, and they are to be
19 viable agents then they to must have a protective
20 device and we don't have that.
21 Secondly, there's another piece
22 here. I'm probably skipping around. And that is
23 the local school board. I want to share with you,
24 and this is personal but I have to tell you like
25 it is. I ran for our board on three different
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2 occasions because at that time we had not, we had
3 only one educator on that board and that
4 individual happened not to have been and
5 Afro-American educated person as much respect as
6 I have for that individual. I was turned down.
7 Alright, to add to what I'm saying, we fought
8 hard, we meaning those of us who go back to the
9 '60's and the '70's, for some kind of community
10 control and as I said before, we had
11 decentralization and now we are faced with the
12 dilemma of losing our enfranchisement and I don't
13 think that's going to happen because we worked to
14 hard for it. But, there has to be a change in
15 terms of the structure, in terms of the
16 functioning.
17 Why? Number one: Because the
18 boards as they exist, no all on behalf of what
19 you said, the boards are markedly, and that's a
20 generalization, some of the boards are markedly
21 how politically influenced. Also if the boards
22 so happen they may be used as stepping stones for
23 just this, the Council, and that happens. And by
24 the way, I serve as Vice President of Community
25 Board 12 so I know about this networking. Not
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2 only that, there's a lot of nepotism on those
3 boards. If I have an aunt whose a counselor or
4 what have you, then I'm likely to get an
5 appointment. I'll get the support anyway. And
6 those others of us who are truly children
7 advocates and parental advocates for quality of
8 education of our youngsters we don't have a
9 chance. But I don't say throw out the boards.
10 There must be another way for our voting rights.
11 We're here offering, and I'm quoting on it wasn't
12 Bush's original idea, it was of a lady. I can't
13 remember her name, but she says leave no child
14 behind, is that right? We talk about
15 accountability. We talk about safe schools and
16 we can go on and on with the educative processes
17 or the concepts. What do they mean to any of you
18 or to any of us? When the structure and the
19 functioning of, I think it's the largest
20 educational system in this country, is on it's
21 knees, you've got to wake up to see what is truly
22 going on.
23 Alright, what do I recommend for the
24 two concepts of the two structures. Number one,
25 in theory the leadership teams, leadership teams
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2 are excellent, however, need to be overhauled.
3 What do I recommend? I would recommend that:
4 One: That we would, that you would,
5 whoever the powers might be, you would institute
6 regular in service training like we do for
7 teachers and we pay the teachers or we give them
8 credit and I know that because I teach teachers,
9 okay, who are elected to leadership teams for
10 parents and eligible community leaders. An
11 ongoing type of a training because education is
12 changing everyday, the needs are changed.
13 Two: PTA Presidents who serve on
14 leadership teams and who cannot succeed
15 themselves on the team structure themselves be
16 used as mentors. I would facilitate mentoring
17 for hopefully some type of a board member
18 structure to be newly established.
19 Three: That we create a vehicle whereby parents
20 with training to serve as evaluators of district
21 administrators and faculty members because you
22 can't do it now. Someone has to evaluate them
23 too, other then City Hall as we have it now.
24 Four: In terms of involvement of
25 parents in the district. I would recommend that
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2 we rate principals according to the number of
3 parents involved in the design and policy making
4 in their respected schools. Teachers are. You
5 should see the books that they're using now in
6 the district to evaluate teachers and their
7 performance with students.
8 And Five: Superintendents should
9 hold principals accountable for the same.
10 Recommendations for community school
11 boards. And I say that for lack of another
12 concept. I would refer to that board and I'm
13 recommending that we continue that kind of an
14 entity, that we might call it, and I heard that
15 before, Borough Boards where in lieu of community
16 school boards. That we restore significant
17 authority to the members of that board in terms
18 of budgeting, in terms of curriculum development,
19 however, they too need training. It's not that
20 simple in terms of -- I developed curriculum
21 development. I did it for Social Studies in the
22 State of New York so I know about it.
23 Okay, and I also say that these
24 individuals, if you were to use that type of a
25 design, that these individuals would be
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2 accountable to, if it is a borough, to the
3 Borough President and then the linkage would be
4 with the Central Board and I guess it's in New
5 York City at this time. So you have a linkage, a
6 lining. What's the composition?
7 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: I'm going to
8 have to ask you to begin --
9 DR. BLACK: Alright, but you gave
10 the other 32 minutes, initially you went to long.
11 Okay, one more point and I'm finished.
12 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Just for the
13 edification of everyone in the audience. We're
14 going to try, we try to limit the presentation to
15 five minutes and then we have time for questions
16 and answers that's the reason why we run so long.
17 But please complete your remarks ma'am. Thank
18 you.
19 DR. BLACK: In conclusion, how
20 would I structure it? I would say five trained
21 parents, we're talking about community school
22 boards. Five trained parents, two retired
23 educators, two civic leaders and it could be
24 business as you mentioned before, that the
25 criteria and requirements for candidates be
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2 overhauled, that you search them carefully and
3 finally that the retired leadership team, our
4 teams, serve and you heard me say that before, as
5 mentors to school board members. And I conclude
6 by saying even though I did have the time that an
7 initial individual had first, leave no child
8 behind, but I also say leave no community out of
9 the mix. Thank you.
10 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you Ms.
11 Black. Do we have any questions?
12 MS. THOMSON: I have one question.
13 Thank you so much for your testimony and for your
14 passion for your district. You're suggesting a
15 model with, if I have it right, strengthens
16 school leadership teams --
17 DR. BLACK: Yes.
18 MS. THOMSON: And then a Borough
19 Board.
20 DR. BLACK: Yes.
21 MS. THOMSON: Is there anything in
22 between?
23 DR. BLACK: I had not thought about
24 it. That's projection. I'd have to think about
25 it.
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2 MS. THOMSON: Okay. If you give
3 some thought to it and want to provide feedback
4 to us we can provide you with the address.
5 DR. BLACK: Thank you very much.
6 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assembly
7 member Pheffer.
8 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER:
9 Clarification. The Borough Board, maybe I missed
10 it and I apologize, was that going to be
11 appointed or elected.
12 DR. BLACK: Okay, that's -- He
13 asked me to move on and I guess I left that
14 requirement off. The Borough Board participants
15 or members should be elected. That's the power
16 of the people.
17 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
18 MR. CLAYTON: Yes, I have a short
19 one. You said that this new governance
20 structure, in your opinion, should be five
21 parents, two retired educators and two civic
22 leaders --
23 DR. BLACK: That's if it's what we
24 setting up a model in terms of the board. Yes.
25 Yes.
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2 MR. CLAYTON: My point was,
3 so you're saying that the majority should be
4 parents --
5 DR. BLACK: Yes, but qualified, I
6 qualitated it, right? Okay. Not just any of us.
7 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well we thank
8 you very much for your. Excuse me. Another
9 question. Mr. Levin.
10 MR. LEVIN: Dr. Black, I'd like to
11 learn from your experience in a historical
12 connection starting with Dr. Martin Luther King.
13 So circumstances at that time led to this
14 structure that we currently have. How would you
15 define or describe the circumstances in Queens
16 today that would help us think about the
17 structure that's appropriate today?
18 DR. BLACK: Okay. You use the
19 concept of geographically Queens. That's all of
20 Queens, right? When I worked with Dr. King,
21 there were only, as we perceived at that time,
22 two variables, two strong factors. The minority
23 and the minority at that time happened to have
24 been us and of course the majority in terms of
25 power. So that's what we were trying to
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2 establish, equality, justice among the races, if
3 I have to use that concept. Today in Queens
4 there is a different type of a mix alright.
5 Ethnicity and it's growing wider and wider. You
6 see, if I may were to make a comparative analysis
7 the problems are largely the same.
8 Each group, each of us wishes to
9 have a voice or we wish to have our expectations
10 for our civil rights, and in this case, educative
11 process for our children to be the same as those
12 in control. If that answers your question.
13 Thank you.
14 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Once again we
15 thank you very much. I have had an opportunity,
16 I think, to work with Assemblyman Scarborough and
17 I was going to say, I understand why he's so
18 knowledgeable because the task force of men and
19 women who he has appointed to advise him, and you
20 being one, offer up very insightful and very
21 thoughtful ideas. So, I was happy to work with
22 you some time ago and happy that you are here
23 again.
24 DR. BLACK: I met you in Albany. I
25 was with my daughter.
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2 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Yes Ma'am.
3 That's correct. Thank you very much.
4 MS. THOMSON: Ronnie Rogers.
5 Ronnie Rogers is a parent and also a member of
6 Assemblyman Scarborough's Task Force in District
7 29.
8 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Let me just
9 again say for the edification of people who came
10 in late. I'm probably was remised not to repeat
11 this along the way. We try as best we can to
12 confine the testimony to about five minutes to
13 allow as many people to speak and to allow the
14 members of the task force to ask questions. I've
15 been provided with this timer. I haven't
16 resorted to using it and so we just try to have
17 people confine their remarks to about five
18 minutes. I know it's a short amount of time and
19 I know there is a lot to be said, but we try to
20 get as many folks in and hear from as many as we
21 can. So, thank you very much.
22 MS. ROGERS: Good morning. My name
23 is Ronnie Rogers and I have to, I won't be able
24 to continue if I don't say this. I have a tape
25 recorder and I recorded what was being said and
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2 the first gentleman had thirty minutes to speak.
3 Wait. When it came time, maybe you didn't
4 appreciate what was being said, that's my
5 opinion, you found a time, a clock to tell us
6 that we have five minutes to speak. I take
7 offense to that because what I have to say is
8 just as important as what anyone else has to say.
9 I have a passion for children overall.
10 Now, with that out of the way. I am
11 a mother of six children, five of which are
12 adults. I'm a grandmother of twelve. Three of
13 the adult children are Administrators, one adult
14 is a teacher, a certified teacher. Now I have a
15 twelve year old. Pardon me if I'm at the age now
16 where my memory fades from time to time. I am and
17 have been an active member of the PTA from the
18 beginning when my other children were in school.
19 I was PTA -- I've always been involved. Work,
20 children and school. I've been PTA President,
21 I've been on the President's Council, I've been
22 on the School Leadership Teams in their
23 inception. I've been on the District Leadership
24 Team and I hail from District 29 and I'm proud of
25 it. I've been on the District Advisory Council,
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2 I've been on the Citywide Advisory Council. I'm
3 now on the State Advisory Council at 55 Hansen.
4 I've been on 100.11 Committee that's directed by
5 the state. I'm saying all of this to say that
6 I'm not an educator, but I'm a parent and I'm an
7 informed parent.
8 I believe that the school boards
9 should remain because our rights are being
10 violated if they are taken away. They are our
11 only avenue of representation. In my plight as a
12 parent, whenever there was a problem there were
13 channels that you must go through to get the
14 problem resolved. Those channels have all been
15 dissolved. There's no longer a Board of
16 Education as we know it. If they get rid of the
17 school board, we have no avenue in which to state
18 our complaints and Ms. Evita Belmonte who is a
19 good friend of mine is our representative for
20 Queens, but Evita is one human being and she
21 cannot handle the whole borough of Queens
22 efficiently. It's just not logical. It's not
23 feasible, so I suggest that we keep the school
24 boards in tact but that we have qualified people
25 on the school boards. People that have to go
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2 through requirements just as when you need a
3 Superintendent or a Assistant Principal or
4 Principal, you have a C-30 Committee that's
5 formed by the parents and the school members to
6 screen people for Superintendent or for
7 administrative positions in the school system.
8 Well, I think that we should develop
9 some kind of screening process for school board
10 members, not just that they are popular because
11 that's not what we're looking for. We're looking
12 for qualified people to be on the school boards.
13 If that were the case and the schools boards
14 weren't being used as stepping stones for
15 politicians to go into the political realm, maybe
16 they wouldn't have as many problems as they have
17 had. So if we could have a screening process
18 where people on the school board were first
19 screened, we would know that we have qualified,
20 educated people on the committees.
21 I would also suggest that we have
22 five parents, two civic people and two educators.
23 Five parents because it's our children whose
24 lives are in these school board's hands. Now,
25 the other thing I want to say is school
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2 leadership. I hear something that makes me
3 believe that you all are thinking of using school
4 leadership teams as the end all of end all, the
5 answer. It's not the answer and I'll tell you
6 why. School leadership teams are comprised of
7 parents, teachers, administrators and a UFT
8 person. The only constant in school leadership
9 teams are the Principal, the teachers and the
10 UFT. The parents are transients. They're in and
11 out of the school. The other components are
12 there for as long as they're in the school
13 system. Not only are the parents transients
14 because their children are only in the school for
15 a short period of time, but they're transients
16 because they are only allowed to be on the school
17 leadership team for two terms and after that
18 they're gone.
19 Secondly, about school leadership
20 teams, is that, I have to look because my memory
21 fails me, we have conflicting answers to some
22 questions about school leadership. Now I said
23 I've been on the school leadership team from the
24 inception. One area says, one mode says that
25 school leadership teams are developed by an
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2 election of the teacher by the teachers, by the
3 faculty and by the election of the parents by the
4 PTA. Well I'm here to tell you that there are
5 two modes. One is election and the other mode is
6 the PTA President appoints people to the school
7 leadership team. And thirdly, and lastly, about
8 school leaderships, as I said, I've been on
9 committees citywide so I'm not talking just about
10 my own little world. Parents don't have a voice
11 in school leadership for the most part. In some
12 areas it works and fine. I congratulate the
13 areas where it's working. In some areas school
14 boards work, fine. But in, but the gist of the
15 parents citywide is that they don't have a voice
16 on school leadership. They're told when they go
17 into the room what's on the agenda, what's going
18 to be dealt with and they go from that point on.
19 If you have a difference, it's a situation on
20 school leadership where it's a general consensus.
21 What does that mean? It doesn't mean that the
22 majority rules, it means that we all have to
23 agree.
24 But if you happen to disagree
25 because you're knowledgeable, more knowledgeable
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2 then someone else, then you're hailed a trouble
3 maker which I can understand why you would view
4 me as such, but that's not right that we don't
5 have a real voice when it comes to school
6 leadership.
7 It's not working and anyone that
8 thinks that school leadership is going to be the
9 avenue in which we are represented as parents are
10 just fooling themselves and we're going to be the
11 losers. And when I say we, I mean our children.
12 I don't have a lot at stake right now because my
13 grandchildren are out of state and they're fine
14 because I'm their grandmother and I believe in
15 education and all of my children have been to
16 college. All didn't graduate, but they are
17 educated and they're all taking care of
18 themselves. There's no one at home, thank God,
19 other then my twelve year old, so I don't have a
20 lot to lose, but I do have a lot to lose because
21 every child that I see is my child and that's the
22 way I see things. So, I'm as passionate and as
23 upset at what's going on as all hell because I
24 know what's going down the tubes.
25 I said lastly, if this goes through
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2 and we have no more school boards we need very
3 much, before you vote on this, we need very much
4 to find an avenue to educate parents across the
5 city on what a school board really is because the
6 parents don't know and they don't know what
7 they're getting ready to lose and down the line
8 like with everything else, like when school
9 governments was put into place in '96 and the
10 school boards lost all of their power, now we sit
11 back and say well when did that happen? Why did
12 that happen? That's going to happen to the
13 school board when a parent has a problem and he
14 has no place to go. And it's only if -- I
15 believe the squeaky wheel gets the oil, if you
16 know somebody, maybe you have a chance of getting
17 some kind of resolution to a serious problem, but
18 in most cases the parents won't know where to go
19 and their children will be the losers.
20 We have a whole lot of laws out
21 there against children like the safe law. I
22 don't -- It's a state law where by teachers can
23 at their whim, decide that your child is not
24 behaving to their standards and they can suspend
25 them. We have no avenue if we have nobody to go
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2 to. And there's other laws. It seems to me like
3 our children are being steered toward jail and
4 toward being slaves that are being paid at a
5 minimum salary because if you have no education
6 you cannot work anywhere and raise your family,
7 so you're lost. Our children, there was an
8 article, I didn't bring it because I knew I
9 wouldn't be able to read it, but they say that
10 our children are going to be to have to -- You
11 state people know what it is. They're going to
12 have to know physics, chemistry, what's the other
13 one, and trigonometry. They're going to have to
14 take those regents to get out of high school.
15 Well, I'm going to ask you something?
16 If they can't make it, if they're
17 not reading on grade level at grade 8, how in the
18 hell are they gonna pass chemistry, physics,
19 trigonometry. They're not going to be able to do
20 that so what does that mean. Our children are
21 not going to graduate from high school. There
22 goes that slave state that I'm talking about.
23 Where are they going to be? Where are they going
24 to work?
25 So, I, in case you didn't understand
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2 what I was saying, I think we should keep school
3 boards. I think we should revamp them. Educate
4 parents. I think we should educate parents right
5 now because what you said the first thing is
6 supposed to go in on December 15th. Today's the
7 12th. How are the parents going to know what's
8 going on by the 15th. They need to know what --
9 Before you take away something we need to know
10 what it actually is that is being taken away from
11 us and I think it's against the law and I'm going
12 to say this and I'm gonna leave. I promise, it
13 doesn't mean anything until you tell me to go.
14 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: I don't want
15 to have to do that.
16 MS. ROGERS: It's the same analysis
17 as you taking away the school boards. First of
18 all, you say it's a done deal, June of 2003. But
19 on the other hand you say but parents have a
20 right to voice their opinions. So, is it a done
21 deal or do we have a right to voice our opinions
22 and will our opinions mean anything? Now, here's
23 the thing. If, when Bill Clinton was President
24 he was doing the same thing. People didn't like
25 (inaudible) and we found fault in him and on a
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2 whole if a group of people got together and said,
3 "you know what, that Clinton is no good as a
4 President, and as a matter of fact there hasn't
5 been a good President for the last 30 years,
6 let's get rid of Presidents". That's what you're
7 saying by taking away the school board the way I
8 understand it because we elected the school board
9 and now you're saying well, it didn't work so
10 we're going to arbitrarily take it away from you
11 without us voting on it. I got a problem with
12 all of this.
13 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well, first
14 of all thank you for being here. The remarks
15 that you had to make were not only very
16 passionate but I think resonated with all the
17 members of this task force. Before I ask for
18 question, which I will in just a moment, let me
19 just very briefly make clearer what the status of
20 the law is and again what the purpose of the task
21 force is. The State Legislature did vote and the
22 Governor did sign into law as part of the
23 governance reforms in June, the abolition of the
24 local community school boards as we know them at
25 the end of June, at the end of this school year.
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2 However, the purpose is not to eliminate local
3 representation at the district level. It is to
4 replace it with we hope something better,
5 something more effective, something more
6 representative and something that I think I speak
7 for everyone in this room on the panel or not,
8 something that will actually improve because of
9 the existence of a new kind of board and better
10 input by parents and the community.
11 Something that will improve public
12 education. I don't know of anybody who was
13 satisfied, certainly no in Queens and certainly
14 no people from Southeast Queens. If anybody was
15 satisfied with the academic results of students
16 by enlarge throughout the city in 1996 when the
17 Legislature made the first of the changes in
18 Governors. I don't think anybody wanted to keep
19 the status quo because the status quo would have
20 meant 25 more years of inadequate education. So,
21 what we want to do is as we change the status
22 quo, make it better. Not leave the community
23 without representation. Certainly not. But to
24 ensure that whatever comes after the school
25 boards are phased out, whatever comes to replace
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2 them is better representation, is more effective
3 representation and hopefully will lead to more
4 effective education results on the part of the
5 students because ultimately that's really what
6 it's all about, I think. It's not about who has
7 the power so much, it's about making sure that
8 education in New York City is of a quality and
9 that our children are learning and that the
10 teachers are teaching and we're looking for a
11 structure to that will help ensure that the
12 results in the next 30 years will be better then
13 the results that have been in the last 30 years.
14 So, having said that brief editorial, let me go
15 to some question. Cassandra Mullen.
16 MS. MULLEN: Hi, how are you? I
17 took to heart many of the remarks that you and
18 the speakers that came before you made and I
19 think I understand where you're going with it.
20 I'm just going to summarize it and then ask you a
21 question about it. I too believe that you should
22 have elected members because the people do have a
23 right to choose whose in there but I take to
24 heart your statement that there needs to be some
25 kind of a screening process so that the people
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2 who are elected aren't just politically ambitious
3 and don't just use it as a stepping stone for
4 something else. How do you reconcile or how
5 should we reconcile some kind of a screening
6 process to make sure that these board members
7 truly have the children's interests at heart with
8 the idea of open election? I mean, how do you --
9 Do you screen people prior to them running, do
10 you somehow have a screening process afterwards
11 or maybe do you have some sort of governing body,
12 state wide, district wide, however wide, that
13 maybe handles complaints or grievances in that
14 fashion to make sure that everything is as it
15 should while preserving people's right to elect
16 their community leaders? How do you --
17 MS. ROGERS: I would suggest that
18 you have, they be screened before they're even
19 allowed to put in an application. Not after the
20 cow is out of the barn. Ideally there used to be
21 a situation where PTA's, I'm trying to keep my
22 train of thought where you could not be a PTA
23 President without having been on the board.
24 That's not the case anymore. But the reason,
25 which was a good one, why you couldn't be a PTA
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2 President before being on the board is because
3 you needed time to learn. Well, with that being
4 the case, I don't say that you have to have an
5 education because I don't have one. You can be
6 educated without having traditional education
7 because I only thought of telling you what I did
8 when I heard other people talking about what they
9 did and when I look at what I did, it looks good,
10 you know. So if parents, if the people that are
11 trying to get on the school board, put in a what
12 do you call it?
13 MS. MULLEN: A resume?
14 MS. ROGERS: Right, right, right
15 and show what, I'm not talking about education,
16 I'm talking about you can tell from what a person
17 has done whether they're -- I'm sure I'm not, I
18 can't be on the school board, but I'm sure I
19 would be viable candidate if I put down all of
20 this stuff. That's the way you would have to go
21 about doing it to make sure that there are people
22 that are really seriously interested in doing the
23 job because people volunteer to be on for power,
24 just to have it on their resume.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. DeLeon.
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2 MR. DELEON: Ms. Rogers, thank you
3 for being here. Thank you for your candidness.
4 I have two questions for you. One, you mentioned
5 that, if I heard you correctly, you mentioned
6 that parents were restricted to two terms on the
7 leadership teams. Did I hear you correctly?
8 MS. ROGERS: Yes.
9 MR. DELEON: Would you also
10 restrict the terms of the other people that are
11 on there, on the teachers and the Principal and
12 the UFT? I'm saying that right now, if I heard
13 you correctly --
14 MS. ROGERS: Yes, you did.
15 MR. DELEON: Term limitations are
16 just for parents and so my question is should it
17 be universal for everybody on that team?
18 MS. ROGERS: No. What I would
19 suggest is that parents are not limited to two
20 terms and surely don't take away the expertise
21 that's on the committee. The teachers also put
22 in their time and they're learning right along
23 with us, so let them stay for as long as they
24 possibly can and then after their children are
25 out of the school, for instance my child is out
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2 of elementary school now, he's now in the seventh
3 grade, I have no problems and I do it anyway with
4 being a mentor. I go back to my child's PTA the
5 school that he came from, PS 195 and I give what
6 I've learned back to the school because my grown
7 children range in age from 28 to 34, so these are
8 like children to me. These are the future.
9 These mothers that came here from
10 District twenty -- They're the future. If we
11 don't depart the knowledge that we have in them,
12 it's a lost cause, so I propose that through the
13 state's, I don't know who because I don't know
14 what the thing is now with the Board of Education
15 not being the same. Whoever formulated school
16 boards, I mean school leadership teams, I propose
17 that they have some avenue where there's a
18 mentoring program going on in the elders of the
19 clan if you will. Have a position to help the
20 youth.
21 MR. DELEON: My second question is
22 what role does, what functional roles did the UFT
23 rep?
24 MS. ROGERS: I am not a UFT person,
25 I can't tell you. I guess --
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2 MR. DELEON: Well, from your
3 experience what function roles has the UFT member
4 been on the leadership team?
5 MS. ROGERS: Well, on a school
6 leadership team ideally, when I was on the
7 leadership team, we talked about curriculum. We
8 talked about programs. We talked about programs,
9 after school programs and what not and no, he
10 want's to know where the UFT fits in. Well the
11 teachers in that forum, they need to make sure
12 that they're being protected as far as if we
13 thought of an after school program then they
14 would have to make sure they're getting paid and
15 they have to be protected so the UFT person is
16 there to make sure that their --
17 MR. DELEON: That their contractual
18 rights are protected, is that?
19 MS. ROGERS: Yes.
20 MR. DELEON: How do we protect the
21 childrens' rights?
22 MS. ROGERS: That's what I'm asking
23 you.
24 MR. DELEON: Thank you very much.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Friedman.
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2 MR. FRIEDMAN: Ms. Rogers I want to
3 thank you for your testimony. Your resume is not
4 good, it's great. If you're a trouble maker I
5 like you because we're the only advocates our
6 children have and people who are trouble makers
7 and considered pains in the necks are the one's
8 who are most important to our children's future.
9 You bring up some great points. I loved your
10 analogy about the President and I love your idea
11 about a screening committee like the C-30
12 Committee to set up a pool of candidates for
13 whatever council or body is going to be
14 established. What I want to touch on is your
15 wealth of experience sitting on a district
16 leadership team, being involved with school
17 boards when they had more authority and
18 responsibilities compared to post 1996, the
19 responsibilities and authority they have now.
20 Speaking as a member of a school leadership team
21 and knowing what works and what doesn't work you
22 discuss structure, what the body might look like,
23 but what about the functions they would have, the
24 responsibilities they would have? Have you
25 thought about specifically are there any
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2 responsible powers of former school boards that
3 you'd like to see returned or new things brought
4 into the picture to make a better body for the
5 community?
6 MS. ROGERS: Well, if I even knew
7 the answer to that question, I can't remember,
8 but one of the things that I would like to see
9 returned to the school board members is the right
10 of hiring of the Superintendents. There has to
11 be some form of accountability as far as school
12 Superintendents and school board and what I've
13 seen is a total disrespect and the school board
14 Superintendents treat, and I'm not just talking
15 about one specific Superintendent, I'm
16 generalizing, they treat the school board member
17 as if they're not important at all. They don't
18 follow the rules. No one is following the rules.
19 What they say school board members, (inaudible),
20 I've spoken to a school board member and they
21 didn't have the information, like I said, I go to
22 citywide meetings, state wide meetings, and they
23 don't have any of the information that I have as
24 a parent and what's that about. Because, I don't
25 know. Does that answer the question?
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2 MR. DELEON: Thank you very much.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assembly
4 member Pheffer.
5 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Thank you.
6 Thank you for your testimony. I know you've
7 given this a lot of thought and I just want to
8 finish. The school board that you recommend
9 after it's screens that's going to run for
10 election, we've been having the rollover system
11 or whatever it's called, do you have any thoughts
12 about that? I mean, we're now going to have 15
13 people up for election and you're going to vote.
14 Did you feel comfortable with the vote with the
15 way you had it before?
16 MS. ROGERS: No. They need to vote
17 for school board people when they're voting for
18 the lower officials. Not in mid-year --
19 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: You mean in
20 September or November with the general election.
21 MS. ROGERS: Yeah, when everything
22 is going on and that way you would only have to
23 come out one time to vote.
24 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Yeah, no, I
25 just knew you had some thoughts about that. I
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2 wanted to hear it. Thank you.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton
4 and then Assemblyman Green.
5 MR. CLAYTON: Yes Ms. Rogers. I
6 want to thank you for coming here today and for
7 giving us your testimony and I also want to
8 congratulate you on guiding six of your children
9 through the system, moving them out of your house
10 and now they are productive citizens. I mean,
11 that shows us time after time after time what an
12 involved parent, the effect they have on their
13 children. There's no doubt about it. The data
14 can't be refuted on that. Now I also heard you
15 say something that, I'm starting to warm up to a
16 little bit and that's that you feel if the new
17 body is created that again like Ms. Black said,
18 that is should have two educators. Like
19 Ms. Black said, two retired educators.
20 You know, I feel good retired
21 because now they don't have that union connection
22 but clearly their expertise, clearly their
23 expertise is needed if you're talking about the
24 responsibility of curriculum, guiding curriculum
25 and things like that and it would keep Ms. Black
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2 in the mix of things because we'd hate to lose
3 such a knowledgeable person. Now that brings me
4 also to yourself being that your kids are out of
5 the system and most of the speakers we've been
6 hearing were saying that this new paradigm should
7 be created with parents who have children in the
8 school system. Now, I tend to differ when it
9 comes to a parent of your caliber because we
10 wouldn't want parents who have been through the
11 maze, know the system, fought in the trenches, we
12 want to keep them, keep that experience and
13 expertise on a new governance structure. How
14 could we keep a parent like you in a new
15 structure?
16 MS. ROGERS: Well the reason I'm
17 not in -- I'll tell you what the reason is that
18 I'm not in the structure and then you can come
19 with some ideas as to how to keep parents in the
20 structure. You notice that I'm very outspoken
21 and very knowledgeable of certain things. Why
22 I'm not involved is because the powers that be
23 don't want parents like myself involved so it
24 would be your charge to find a way to make, put
25 in writing parents like myself must have a part
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2 in this struggle that we're in because right now
3 I feel somewhat disillusioned because you got all
4 of this information and you're dying to give it
5 to the Principal and I'm not talking about any
6 particular Principal, but their problem is they
7 don't want to appear that you know more then they
8 do, okay. Personality (inaudibly). So, we have
9 to put something in writing that will allow us to
10 be a part of it without being turned away at the
11 door even though they say parental involvement is
12 welcome. When you get to that door, and you're
13 not around, we're not welcome. So you have to
14 put it in writing where we can say well, here.
15 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Green.
16 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: I'd like to,
17 Ms. Rogers, one of the things that a number of us
18 have been struggling with is the, we know that
19 parents are the most important advocate for
20 children, in most important social capital for
21 children. I think most folks understand that.
22 The real challenge that a number of folks have
23 had is particularly looked at the school
24 leadership teams as an example. The issue of
25 what should be the essential role that parents
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2 should have in a school building as an example,
3 how do you create a mechanism that at the end of
4 the day essentially empowers an educational ethic
5 between the home and the school and do, what are
6 the powers that a parent should have in doing
7 that? Is it essential that the parent have the
8 power to select a Principal or is it more
9 important that the parents have at least an
10 advisory role? On the question of the budget,
11 should parents have complete control of the
12 budget or maybe a part of the budget? What
13 you're thinking in terms of that?
14 MS. ROGERS: I'm saying this
15 because I'm not trying to take anything away from
16 parents. I'm one. When I went through the
17 training for the comprehensive plan, trying to
18 manage a seven million dollar budget is crazy for
19 a housewife, okay. I'm not saying that we're
20 not, there are parents that are accountants and
21 educated to do things like that but for the most
22 part, I'm a housewife and I can't deal with those
23 big numbers. I think a parents part to play in
24 that is yes, they should be able to decide what
25 monies are spent on as far as whether we get math
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2 books or tools for learning. We should be able
3 to be able to choose the Principal for our
4 school, yes we should and we should be able to be
5 on a committee to choose the teachers for our
6 schools because often times once the Principal is
7 in school, they bring their friends in and we as
8 parents want certified, qualified teachers
9 teaching our children, but we have no part in
10 that. That's where the UFT comes in and they
11 protect their own. So, I think our plight is to
12 be able to choose through a process the teachers
13 on a committee with the Principal, to choose a
14 Principal for our schools, to work with the
15 Principal on the budget but in the areas where I
16 said. Like if we need a -- We have to decide,
17 which we had to do, decide on whether to have an
18 after school program or a piano. Things of that
19 nature, but by far, we can't dilute ourselves
20 into thinking that we're capable of running.
21 That's what we have administrators for, to work
22 that seven million dollar budget.
23 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: One last
24 question. You alluded to, I guess, the Safe
25 Schools Act, right. Did the parents on the
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2 school leadership team have any involvement in
3 defining student code of conduct?
4 MS. ROGERS: No. No.
5 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Do you think
6 that's a role that parents should be empowered to
7 have?
8 MS. ROGERS: I think that the code
9 of conduct that's already in place is good
10 enough. I think that the Safe Act gave teachers
11 the ability to get rid of the problems in their
12 class as opposed to dealing with it and, let me
13 just say this, I think that parents'
14 responsibility is to deal with the situation as
15 my child is having a problem and they want to
16 suspend my child. I think that it's the
17 responsibility of the parent to step up, but
18 that's ideal, really, but we know that that's not
19 working so there should be an avenue in place,
20 not that Safe Act. There should be an avenue in
21 place where we, I just thought of this, where we
22 have a committee of parents in the school to deal
23 with the problems of these problems as opposed to
24 going through the law and starting a record for
25 these children. In other words, if a parent is
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2 not able to step up to the plate and discipline
3 their child for whatever reason, there should out
4 of the PTA, I would even say, there would be an
5 avenue where that committee out of the PTA would
6 come together, this is biased, but I would call
7 all the grandmothers in on this, and we would
8 work with the parent and the child that's the
9 problem as opposed to putting them through the
10 system to give them somewhat of a record. Makes
11 sense.
12 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well
13 Ms. Rogers, you make sense and we thank you very
14 much for your insight and for your many years of
15 wisdom that you took time to share with us this
16 morning.
17 MS. ROGERS: Thank you.
18 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you.
19 MS. ROGERS: Thank you very much.
20 MS. THOMSON: Thank you.
21 MS. ROGERS: You all have a real
22 good day, okay?
23 MS. THOMSON: I'd like to invite
24 Borough President Helen Marshall.
25 MS. MARSHALL: First I'd like to
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2 welcome -- Hi Peter, how are you? I'll sit. I'd
3 like to welcome you to Borough Hall. Borough
4 Hall in Queens means education. I'm a Borough
5 President who is formerly very active in the
6 public schools with my children. I'm a teacher
7 and throughout my political career, it's been
8 education. Nine years in the Assembly on the
9 Higher Education Committee, ten years in the
10 Council, first on the Education Committee and
11 then I convinced the speaker who very graciously
12 established a Higher Education Committee which I
13 had the privilege to Chair and we brought new
14 light and new support for the City University,
15 one of the most important institutions in our
16 city which was not properly recognized before.
17 But I first of all want to welcome
18 all of you. I see many friends here. My former
19 colleagues. Steve, it's good to know that you
20 are the Chair of the Education Committee. He was
21 always a bright and shiny star on the Assembly
22 and still is and the hands of our children are in
23 your hands and I think they are good hands. And
24 I see Kathy Wylde who we go way back to the
25 beginning of housing partnership. Because of her
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2 we have about 42 nice little two family homes
3 built and at reasonable prices and knows all of
4 those homes, by the way Kathy, are still
5 beautiful and still living up to the, and they
6 all take a great deal of pride in their
7 ownership, etc. And to all my colleagues in
8 government, Audrey Pheffer, Peter Rivera,
9 probably there is, and John LaVelle, how about
10 that. I remember you. You're not a Senator or
11 you are a Senator? You're still in the Assembly,
12 good for you. I think the Assembly is the right
13 place to be. Maybe not so much for Republicans
14 but.
15 At any rate, let me start off by
16 saying we live in a democracy. How does a
17 democracy work? It's a participatory government.
18 If we don't participate in the government the
19 government doesn't work. The main channel that
20 people have for participating in the government
21 is to vote. You vote a person in and you can
22 vote a person out. Not so easy to vote him out.
23 You can vote to replace him, yes. I, without
24 realizing it, probably started my political
25 career when my children were in school. Actually
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2 when they were in nursery school. When they were
3 in the center, their nursery school was in a
4 center that was moving out of the area and I had
5 to fight to hold on to the center and hold on to
6 the nursery school. I went into public school
7 six months before my son started who is my first
8 child, in the Bronx, P.S. 2, a school that needed
9 a lot of help and I worked very feverishly to
10 replace the old building that was down on the
11 children were still using because of the
12 overcrowding. And I did a lot there in
13 education. I came to Queens and before I knew it
14 I was roped in as the Legislation Chairperson at
15 P.S. 143 and it's been a long, long, long
16 involvement for me and I am an advocate of Martin
17 Luther King and I believed in integration and I
18 went through all of that struggle and pain, I
19 would say, with people of all groups. We stuck
20 together trying to get a quality education for
21 our children. I bring that to the table.
22 I remember when my children were
23 little, of course, I was involved with their PTA.
24 It was between the Principal, the parents and the
25 District Superintendent. We always had a local
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2 school board. It's part of this city and this
3 system. They were not elected, but in most
4 cases, they were distinguished members of our
5 community. College professor, business people,
6 educators, people with long educ - - The person
7 who was the Borough President's education person
8 who had a doctorate in education sat there. And
9 I would say that because of the quality of those
10 people, particularly I'm talking about District
11 30 here in Queens, because of the quality of
12 those people and their commitment and the hard
13 work of the parents and the community we were
14 able to establish some very innovative
15 integration programs like the Princeton Plan
16 (inaudible) where you play at two schools. And
17 we did many things and all throughout the Civil
18 Rights Movement we were fighting for the rights
19 of children, minority children who were being
20 neglected in the educational system. Many
21 things came out of that.
22 And one of them came the idea of a
23 having of electing school board members and I
24 felt, well we called it school decentralization
25 and I felt well maybe this would even be a better
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2 opportunity to get involved, you know, to bring
3 the parents in and to really make an impact on
4 the education of our children and I believed that
5 when it was established that was the goal. Now
6 we know that you can put a system in place, each
7 of you legislators. I was on the Transportation
8 Committee. We wanted to establish seat belts.
9 We had a fabulous staff that did all the research
10 and we had to get very knowledgeable about the
11 death rates and all of the, everything. How
12 impacts on people and bodies and different kinds
13 of accidents. Look at some gory movies. At any
14 rate, we came up with a plan to present to our
15 colleagues and we developed the seat belt law and
16 as each of you know, you don't just stop there.
17 You do amendments to improve, improve, improve.
18 That's what amendments are. You don't destroy.
19 You don't disintegrate. I hate to say, but I
20 think some of that happened with school board
21 elections.
22 First of all, even their timing is
23 off and parents don't even feel like what good
24 does it do if I go to vote or not to vote, but
25 what we should have done, we should have done
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2 what we do with every other logical thing, every
3 other system that we have in government. The
4 minute that you step out of New York City and
5 you, in a locality, you are involved in the
6 school budget, every citizen is involved in the
7 school budget, you are involved in the
8 Principal's salary. I know. I have a house out
9 in Sag Harbor. I mean they spend the whole page
10 on the Principal of the local school and they
11 question him. They're taxes are going to
12 reflect, his salary is reflected in their taxes.
13 They have a lot of say. Why can't New Yorkers
14 have the same kind of say. Not the same kind of
15 say, but they are stake holders. They're the
16 stake holders in the most important commodity to
17 our world and that's people. Their children are
18 our people. We don't have oil wells, we don't
19 have gold mines. Our greatest resource is our
20 people. It's one of the reasons that I stick so
21 hard with education and I fought so hard for the
22 City University.
23 Now, when we say, how could we have
24 improved those school boards? First of all, when
25 we looked and we saw that in some areas they were
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2 just becoming steps for political people to
3 advance, that's not really the worst thing, but
4 on the other hand, we want people who are
5 knowledgeable of what really goes on in that
6 system. Let me ask you a question. How many
7 people here have had a child in the public school
8 system, just like the former lady said here, how
9 many of you?
10 Okay. It's not everyone, right.
11 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Some of us
12 haven't had children. But those of us who
13 haven't, speaking for myself, went through the
14 public school system all my life.
15 MS. MARSHALL: That helps too. I'm
16 really saying that there's a learning curve.
17 There's a learning curve. You just can't bring
18 people to the table, now you're a member of the
19 school board or any other thing without giving
20 them back up in knowledge. They need to know the
21 legislation. They need to know the various trends
22 in policy, how they're developed, they need to
23 have a really good working knowledge of the
24 educational system because this is what they're
25 going to be modifying. We don't have that. Even
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2 now, our present central Department of Education,
3 they don't have it and yet their expected to make
4 big, big decisions about the children. We needed
5 to educate even community boards more then we
6 were. Right now, very happy that the Borough
7 President's were given the opportunity to put
8 parents on the central Department of Education.
9 We bring parents in. We strip them of every bit
10 of resource. Every bit of resource. Not even a
11 desk. And, of course, they need to have those
12 expert, they need to have a group of experts
13 combing through all this stuff, making
14 presentations, informing them. Steve, you know.
15 You have Steve Allenger, at least, do you still
16 have Steve? I --
17 SPEAKER: The Chancellor has Steve.
18 MS. MARSHALL: Oh, the Chancellor.
19 Oh, alright, oh boy. But I know when I become a
20 Chairperson or my colleagues when they become
21 Chair person, they put you like in an incubator
22 for about two weeks and when you walk out of
23 there, you walk out there like an expert and
24 that's only the beginning of your working and
25 training. So that we do need to have, they do
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2 need to have training. They need to have, in
3 fact, when you were voting on school governance,
4 we actually held a hearing here and, by the way,
5 this hearing is not well attended. Wait until
6 tonight. Our meeting started at seven o'clock
7 and we didn't get out of here until eleven. We
8 tried to listen, we couldn't even listen to
9 everyone.
10 And remember that the parent today
11 is different then the parent of yesterday. The
12 parent today, that mother is working nearly, in
13 fact, most parents go to work when their children
14 are even three. Some are going when their
15 children are three months. Some of the jobs will
16 not hold your position any longer then three
17 months. So that parents are, mothers are
18 working. We are finding more fathers coming
19 because somebody got to be in there, but the
20 parents are not participating in the school
21 because, you have some systems in place now. You
22 have the parent leadership team. Are you looking
23 at it? What I'm told is that the teachers want
24 the meeting early in the morning because it's
25 convenient for them, the parents can't be there
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2 or they'll lose their jobs, they want to have it
3 in the evening.
4 The little things like that can make
5 a dramatic difference in how it operates and
6 parents who could really make a difference, they
7 can't sit there under those conditions. When we
8 had that hearing, it surprised me because I
9 thought they were going to talk about the school
10 governance. What they complained about was the
11 lack of respect by the teachers, by the Principal
12 and I'm talking, yes there are some crazy's, you
13 know, you've got to listen to those crazy's, you
14 know, they're hitting some points that are
15 important. And then there are those parents who
16 are not crazy's who are in there and trying,
17 sitting on those panels, switch their job time so
18 they can make sure that they sit on that panel,
19 that school leadership team. Sitting here in
20 this room telling us that it's meaningless. I
21 sit there, I participate, I talk, I do my
22 research and nobody pay attention.
23 I bring all this out because
24 whatever system we have in place, we have to
25 ensure that the stake holders, the parents, the
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2 children can't be stake holders, their parents
3 have to be the stake holders for them. They must
4 have access to this system. They must impact
5 this system. They must make it work for their
6 children. As a teacher, I know I can't work
7 without a parent. I've got to have a parent
8 working with me on their children. If I don't,
9 then I'm not getting the whole picture. I only
10 have that child for a small time of the day. The
11 parent has that child for all the rest of the
12 time. The parent brought that child into the
13 world, maybe for the first three years of their
14 lives. I've got to be communicating with that
15 parent and as a former active parent in the
16 school, I'm going to tell you as a parent, I said
17 to parents, I said, "you don't put your child any
18 place that you don't walk in with them". I mean,
19 even to know the curriculum, to know how the
20 school is structured, to know there's a bright
21 class, a not so bright class, a slow class. I
22 mean, we move from one school to the other and
23 when my children took the exam, their records
24 weren't there at the school yet, my children took
25 the exam, my daughter was placed in a very slow
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2 class. In Kindergarten, she was one of the three
3 children picked out to start first grade work.
4 Because she was -- Hi, how are you doing? She
5 didn't realize even, she was so busy socializing
6 in this new environment.
7 I had to go to that school and get
8 that straightened out. This is after she said,
9 "Mommy, I did this book already", okay, but if I
10 wasn't an alert parent, my daughter could have
11 stayed there. My daughter is a college graduate,
12 a beautiful, bright, active young business woman
13 today. I wanted my children to get science. It
14 was not being taught. Wouldn't you think science
15 would be taught? I was criticized for wanting
16 science. My son is a rocket scientist out there
17 in California designing satellites. Graduated
18 from City College School of Engineering. But
19 without the parents, there are so many
20 opportunities for parents. If you talk to the
21 District 75 parents, they are militant because if
22 they weren't militant, their children would be
23 lost. Their children would be lost.
24 I'm concerned now that they're
25 talking now about disintegrating District 75.
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2 You know that many parents don't know that under
3 the laws of this state, that their children are
4 entitled to an education where ever that school
5 can be to match their children's needs. Do you
6 know how many parents don't know that? How many
7 parents don't know that? Never mind poor parents
8 and a lot of minority parents, a lot of immigrant
9 parents, the immigrant parents come in knowing
10 nothing, alright. Without that -- And not only
11 that, but what do parents become? Parents become
12 advocates for education. They become the people
13 -- That's the strong base when I was a PTA
14 President we had the UFT. We had a train that
15 went to Albany once a year. It was the longest
16 train on the line, okay, and parents descended on
17 that capital knowing -- Like I said, I was the
18 legislator's chair person for my school. We had
19 legislative agendas, we met with all the
20 legislators. They knew that there were parents
21 in these schools and that somebody was looking
22 out for these kids. We don't have that today.
23 So, my concern here is, first of all
24 that we have the best education that we can for
25 our children. I believe that you just don't
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2 destroy a system. In our school boards, I see
3 Ms. Willner sitting behind me, hard working.
4 She's probably been on that school board, how
5 long? Twenty years. Former educator herself,
6 dedicated and committed and there are a number of
7 them that are sitting, not always educated, that
8 are sitting on our school boards. If we see the
9 slide in parent participation, and there is a
10 slide in it. It's sinking because really and
11 truly between the school boards and the UFT and
12 CSA, the parents really don't, there's no place
13 for them. Now we were given a course, as I said
14 before, the privilege of placing five parents on
15 the Central Department of Education. So far,
16 we're watching, but I don't see where they're
17 participating. They have, the Speaker told us,
18 they mandated hard bargaining, that they vote on
19 policy and budget. Nearly everything that's come
20 out there of that Department of Education has
21 been policy and budget and they're not voting on
22 those things. They're not becoming knowledgeable
23 about those things.
24 Decentralizing is going backwards.
25 Centralizing government is going backwards. John
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2 Lindsey became the Mayor, he started little town
3 halls. Those little town halls grew into,
4 eventually, community boards. We have now fifty
5 people sitting in every single patch of land in
6 New York City is covered by a community board and
7 that community board is involved in land use, all
8 kinds of things that come to that community. You
9 have a democracy. People have a meaningful way
10 of contributing to their government. I would be
11 very distressed if we removed that network.
12 First of all, let's talk about the mother of
13 today.
14 She's worked all day, she comes
15 home, puts on here jeans and her sweater and
16 she's got dinner and she's got that squared away
17 and she knows that once a month she can go
18 someplace within range, not the Tweed Building,
19 not 110 Livingston Street, although they get
20 there sometimes too, but she can go someplace in
21 here district and meet some, and there will be
22 somebody sitting at that table who she can throw
23 her problems at, she can scream and yell at and
24 the people who have the authority, the District
25 Superintendent's sitting there, and the board
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2 members and she knows and I've seen it time and
3 time again, come there. Now if there's a crisis,
4 of course, they jam the whole auditorium, but it
5 does always end up with a group of people that
6 come all the time. You can't say that you've cut
7 off their input into their children's education.
8 If we cut that off we're in trouble and I don't
9 think it's what democracy is supposed to be.
10 We are a democracy. It requires
11 participation. We are not anarchy, I mean we're
12 not a dictatorship, we are a democracy, so
13 anything that we do, we must do that. If we kept
14 somewhat the same structure, let's say that the
15 majority of parents -- People on that board
16 would be parents. The greatest majority,
17 whatever number you want to have. You also could
18 have someone from the business world. You could
19 also have an educator. You can have a community
20 leader. Also, the way that people are elected.
21 We have, District 24, we have one member here
22 from District 24, Louisa Manuel, nearly everybody
23 from District 24 which spans from all the way up
24 in Corona, part of my Assembly District and
25 Council District, all the way down to Glendale.
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2 The board is loaded from the Glendale end.
3 Glendale is now beginning to feel the
4 overcrowding and also the immigration, but they
5 haven't felt it for years, okay. And up at our
6 end, we were screaming and crying because we are
7 presently, even until today, the epicenter of
8 immigration on the Northern end of District 24.
9 Make sure that you have territorial
10 representation. We try to do that with the
11 community boards to make sure that we kind of
12 spread it around so that we're bringing in
13 everybody. Lay down the law, define what you
14 mean by territorial designations and make the
15 majority of them parents. Also, well, those are
16 some of the key elements.
17 I think we have a system that could
18 work better. We simply took away the power of
19 the school boards to select the District
20 Superintendent and certainly District 24 showed
21 that that probably is the best thing we could
22 have done, but that doesn't work in all other
23 areas, okay. That doesn't work in all other
24 districts alright. But we've had it in other
25 areas too. I would say input. I like the
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2 Chancellor having the say there. I like the
3 Chancellor having the say. I think the
4 Chancellor will try to be as fair as he can be
5 and he's interested in, whoever the Chancellor
6 is, he or she, has a broad idea, a knowledgeable
7 idea of the way the system is going and I think
8 that I would certainly, though, continue, even
9 with the principals and the District
10 Superintendents, the committee, whatever that
11 school board is, (I'm still calling it school
12 boards until we have a better name) whatever the,
13 a newly configurated school board would be that
14 they should be reviewing the different candidates
15 that are going up to be District Superintendents
16 and make a recommendation to the Chancellor of
17 maybe a few and some of that is somewhat done
18 now, but they should have input into it. But the
19 final decision should be with the Chancellor.
20 That's my feeling about that.
21 Let me see, what else would I
22 include here. Basically, you get the point. We
23 must have, we must have in this, we must have in
24 every single, for all of our parents, an
25 opportunity to participate, they need to vote,
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2 they need to vote, they should even be taking
3 votes of the parents. If you want, even include
4 the President's Council. They need to be, and
5 even the school leadership team. We need to not
6 just let it happen and let it go on and you know
7 the Board of Education, during my time, my
8 children were in school, they would come up with
9 the grandiose ideas and great ideas that sounded
10 wonderful, but they didn't follow through. They
11 also don't replicate quality, good education. I
12 could take you to the Louie Armstrong School, a
13 school that was given away by both school
14 districts, it's fabulous, and guess what. It's
15 integrated.
16 We went to court, okay. Forty-five
17 percent children are white and fifty-five percent
18 are minority. One of the things that we did, we
19 brought Queens College in. I was going to Queens
20 College and John Lithstrom was the head -- I was
21 an education major and I said,"John, come and sit
22 down and help us with this that's still there".
23 That school is one of the most outstanding
24 schools in the city. People come from all over
25 to see how it operates. It's a Chancellor's
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2 school. Parents fight to get their children in
3 it. You know we don't have an integrated
4 community anymore, so what did they do? They
5 said the whole of Queens is eligible and so they
6 pulled children from all over the borough and
7 that keeps that population integrated and now, a
8 new twist on the integration, we have children
9 from all over the country, from all over the
10 world, so when you go into that school you truly
11 see New York City. They have an orchestra. It's
12 the Louie Armstrong School, every morning they
13 listen to "What a Wonderful World" over the
14 loudspeakers being sung by Louie Armstrong. They
15 have very high scholastic ratings, everything.
16 It can happen and we've got other
17 incidence of this all over the city that's not
18 looked at by the press. You know the press is
19 conflict over substance, but we know, Terri
20 Thomson you know, that we have excellent schools
21 in this city, excellent examples. Instead, we're
22 going off with the charter schools and the da da
23 da. Look, look what we've got. My son graduated
24 from City College School of Engineering. He
25 could have gone to about six or seven of the
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2 other major colleges, but he wanted to go there.
3 Saved us money so we bought him a little car or
4 something, but we really questioned him, "are you
5 sure this is what you wanted to do?" He wanted
6 to do it. Today, he sits at the head of the
7 table with those guys from MIT and all these
8 other places, Princeton and Yale who wanted him
9 to come there too. City College School of
10 Engineering and how did many of us get here?
11 Nearly all of us are products of the public
12 school system. We're the legislators and you
13 count the legislators who went to the City
14 University there, they're countless. That's the
15 way poor people got through. That's the way poor
16 people got through and that's how this city was
17 built.
18 So, if I leave a message with you at
19 all, it's whatever system we put in place, and
20 I'm not against the present system, I'm more
21 modifying the present system. I'm for modifying
22 it and I know a lot of people will talk about
23 Borough Boards. Yes, that would be, I could say
24 as a Borough President, that would be fine with
25 me, but I'm more concerned that the parents have
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2 and if I have to be involved in some way, don't
3 worry I'm going to get involved anyhow as long as
4 it's education, but make sure that there's a way
5 that the parents, on a regular basis, can get to
6 the decision making. They are the stake holders
7 and by the way, if you keep them out, you're
8 breaking the law of this land. You're killing
9 the whole concept of democracy. They are not
10 participating and it's the most important product
11 that we have. It's our people. That's what I'm
12 urging.
13 I would like to add one thing. This
14 is a letter, and by the way, one of the things
15 that I have a number of initiatives that I've
16 instituted since I've become the Borough
17 President, you saw the cases in the hallway which
18 is one of them, there are many more that have a
19 lot more substance. And one of them is a parent
20 institute. I wanted parents to come to organize
21 so that they can be empowered with the knowledge
22 of how the system works and by appointing, I've
23 worked it out, you know, you've got to adapt.
24 Since we do have a parent appointee at the
25 central, on the central panel Department of
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2 Education and she is very, very active, Evita
3 Belmonte, and since she's very active with the
4 parents, we have a large -- She meets with them
5 on a monthly basis. We have a large group of
6 them giving input and she takes that input to the
7 board and we're going to even enhance that
8 because I want parents to know how this system
9 works. Empower them with the knowledge so that
10 they can be participants in this government. Not
11 just participants, but meaningful participants,
12 participants who understand and develop working
13 relationships with principals and school boards
14 and whatever. One of the concerns that that
15 group did have about this meeting, they urged,
16 maybe I'll just quickly, I'm going to read it
17 quickly. It's signed by a million of them so I
18 won't all their names.
19 "We the undersigned", and this is to
20 the Task Force on Community School District
21 Governance, "We the undersigned of the Queens
22 Borough President's Advisory Council and Evita
23 Belmonte, the Queens Member of the Panel of
24 Educational Policy of the Department of
25 Education, applaud your mission to find an
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2 equatable replacement for the soon to be
3 abolished local School boards. It is imperative
4 that parents and community members are able to
5 continue to enjoy local access and input into the
6 educational process. While we realize that each
7 school will continue -- I'm going to jump that.
8 However, all of us are concerned
9 about the ability of parents and other interested
10 members of the community to participate in this
11 process. The timing of the public hearing so
12 close to the due date for you recommendations to
13 the Legislature, makes it impossible that
14 valuable suggestions and alternatives may be
15 overlooked due to the time constraints involved
16 in finalizing your report. Inclement weather is
17 also a factor, and may force the cancellation of
18 meetings, as the Chancellor's public forum was
19 cancelled this evening, December 5, 2002.
20 We feel that the hearings concerning
21 the replacement of the local School Districts
22 should have been an ongoing process, rather then
23 waiting until the eleventh hour." And it's signed
24 by a number of them. Timing is everything.
25 Notification is everything and if the
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2 notification is not done properly and it's not in
3 a timely manner then it loses its most important
4 element and I think it loses too much and so they
5 were concerned about that time constraints.
6 Steve, I don't know if there's any way of either
7 expanding the input or expanding the time frame,
8 but I do think more is required. This is a wrap.
9 When we did our hearing here, we went, we didn't
10 leave a stone unturned. We went to everybody,
11 all the schools, parents, everybody,
12 organizations, and we had quite a turnout here.
13 Now, of course, my meeting was in
14 the evening because I know that the parents are
15 working during the day and so it was natural and
16 I thank you for having an evening session to. I
17 applaud you for that because it gives working
18 parents that opportunity.
19 I want to thank each and every
20 one of you who have been given a big
21 responsibility but remember how big that
22 responsibility is and whatever we do we must
23 guarantee that there is input from the stake
24 holders. Thank you. And I'm open to questions
25 if you have any.
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2 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
3 very much. I just want to say very briefly that
4 I've taken such great personal pride and just so
5 much enjoyed watching your progress through
6 government over the 20 years that I've known you.
7 MS. MARSHALL: You taught me
8 everything that I know.
9 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: I think you
10 could teach me a few things now Helen. So, first
11 of all, thank you so much. Thank you for being
12 the generous host for us today --
13 MS. MARSHALL: And that's open any
14 time.
15 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: And let me
16 just implore the members of the Task Force. I
17 know that some of you may have questions, but try
18 to keep the questions as brief as you can because
19 after this part is over we're going to take a
20 short lunch break and there are other witnesses
21 who actually have to pick up their children by
22 three o'clock, so we want to finish, come back
23 and allow people to say what they need to say and
24 still be able to pick up their youngsters by
25 three o'clock. So if you have questions, make
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2 the questions brief and to the point.
3 MS. MARSHALL: And I will be brief
4 too. I don't want to stand between you and food.
5 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assembly
6 member Rivera.
7 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: Helen, it's
8 nice to see you again.
9 MS. MARSHALL: Same here Peter.
10 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: One of my
11 colleagues, well I heard everything you had to
12 say about parental participation and how do we
13 get more parents to participate and the fact that
14 one of the problems that we do have is exactly
15 that, parental participation. One of my
16 colleagues came up with a suggestion. A
17 colleague not from the City of New York and he
18 suggested that we try to create a vehicle that
19 citizens get to have a chance to vote on a piece
20 of the school budget, be it on a borough basis or
21 in some other fashion, but that there be
22 participation of the parents and the citizenry by
23 being able to vote on the school budget and if
24 you're able to do that part which is get people
25 involved in the finances, and again, not the
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2 whole budget because of the fact how we do create
3 the school budgets, but if we were able to create
4 a common concern and a common interest on how
5 money is being spent and the way it's being
6 allocated and what we do with it, then that will
7 add and enhance participation of the public
8 input, particularly participation of the parents.
9 What do you think of that?
10 MS. MARSHALL: Well that's how it's
11 operated outside of the city. For New York City,
12 that might not be an easy process, but if you
13 have school boards or whatever you're going to
14 call them, and the budget is, and they feel --
15 First of all, you're not even letting school
16 boards vote on the budget, you cannot separate
17 budget and education. You can't separate them
18 and therefore, clearly if we have a
19 responsibility of voting on a budget with
20 whatever entity we identify, they will have to
21 hold hearings, which they and get input from the
22 parents from the parents in the district.
23 They'll get input from the teachers. They'll get
24 input from everyone and certainly we need to
25 sharpen up those school leadership teams. They
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2 need to be making recommendations. You will
3 allow for input. Voting on the school budget by
4 the pop --
5 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: By the school
6 budget in Queens would be different then the one
7 in the Bronx or at least that part of the public
8 would vote on would be --
9 MS. MARSHALL: Who is the public?
10 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: That will be
11 something to a definition, but the idea is to
12 create that kind of a participation by allowing
13 people to vote on a part of the school budget.
14 MS. MARSHALL: Alright, let me say
15 it's in a part of the school budget is difficult.
16 Queens has a need for schools and we need more
17 buildings which might not be the same in other
18 boroughs, so I can understand a borough concept,
19 but on the other hand, I still think that I would
20 not respond to that. I will say this, that I
21 think to have the public vote on the school
22 budget for Queens first of all, and to vote on
23 part of it, that get's shaky and I think it's too
24 difficult to do, but if you have a system set up
25 that works all year round, that works all year
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2 round and therefore the budget is built up, the
3 parents have the opportunity or anybody has an
4 opportunity to go before a school board and say
5 the things that they would like to see funded,
6 they could give you projects and things or a
7 certain way they see things. As long as that
8 opportunity is open, but if you don't have that
9 local opportunity then it would be wrong to even
10 let them have the vote on the budget. But I do
11 feel that the school boards do need to have a
12 bigger say and if not the vote on the budget in
13 their districts and that would give you, that
14 just triggers a whole situation where they have
15 to have public hearings, etc.
16 MS. THOMSON: It is an honor to
17 have you as our Borough President and thank you
18 for always, for many, many years putting the
19 children first and making education your
20 priority. We, your citizens, appreciate that.
21 There were two ideas that were floated today. I
22 don't know if you were here when they were talked
23 about, but I'd love your thoughts on it and I
24 don't know if you could thing about it now or if
25 you want to get back to us on it. But you in
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2 your testimony spoke about the importance of
3 having parents involved in whatever entity it is
4 that we create. The two ideas that were
5 suggested today was, one was that there be the
6 parents select the parents and the other was that
7 there be some prescreening of the parent members
8 so that parents who maybe had a lot of experience
9 in the schools or parents who have special
10 talents would serve on those boards or entities,
11 whatever they are. Do you have any thought on
12 that?
13 MS. MARSHALL: That's getting
14 pretty finite in detail. I like to see the
15 parents involved. I'm realistic to know that's
16 no panacea and so parents do need some help along
17 the way just as you would. Any person who comes
18 needs to know the system so that it's not really
19 a panacea but the one thing they know they have
20 their kid in that school and I would like to see
21 the parents not just involved because that's what
22 we went through with the school decentralization.
23 A place for them. If you don't have a specific
24 place for them, what happens is what has
25 happened. The parents are on the back burner.
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2 There's no meaningful reason for them to be a
3 participant and the school leadership teams which
4 we thought were going to do that is not working.
5 I would say that you would require that a certain
6 member of this, whatever you want to call it, the
7 majority are parents and they should be voted on
8 by other parents. I really don't have, and I
9 think maybe that will take some of the politics
10 out of it. It could take a whole lump of that
11 politics out of it and then you still have room
12 to put other people on that board, you know, you
13 could decide. But they should be people who can
14 make an impact on the education too.
15 MS. THOMSON: Thank you.
16 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assemblyman
17 Green.
18 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: How are you
19 doing?
20 MS. MARSHALL: Hi Roger.
21 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: It's always
22 good to see you and again, I too, would like to
23 commend the work that you've been doing here in
24 the borough and --
25 MS. MARSHALL: It's a privilege for
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2 me. You know that.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: But they
4 actually want you to speak louder. You're not
5 often asked to do that.
6 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: What is it that
7 we might be able to learn from the operations of
8 the community planning boards that are known, you
9 have some real connection to? What can we learn
10 from the structure, the processes, (inaudible)
11 participation that exists there that might be
12 applied to a new formulation of community school
13 boards?
14 MS. MARSHALL: We have at this
15 point because a system has been in place so long,
16 we have a body of members in every one of our
17 local community boards who are knowledgeable,
18 they have committees. The committees have to
19 report back. Certainly the Land Use Committee on
20 some major issue and other committees, they often
21 depend upon the leadership of the organization,
22 of the community board and we have some
23 committees that are extreme, all of our boards
24 actually work because they're dealing with the
25 development of the community so all of them work.
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2 What happens is that they are also an intrical
3 (intricate) part of the whole picture. They're
4 part of the ULERT process. Their involvements in
5 government is built in and that's now how it
6 started. It didn't start out that way. If you
7 have a land use issue, when it gets to the City
8 Council which is the last step, you have got to
9 have a letter on there with the vote of the
10 community board. Now I hold also, a hearing on
11 land use and before me is the vote of the board
12 and I've already been briefed on the discussion
13 of the board and how they came to that
14 conclusion. I bring in whoever is proposing it
15 and there's another opportunity for anyone from
16 the community to participate and testify. I have
17 found that that's one way they actually, they're
18 built into the process. Also, we have what we
19 call a Borough Board meeting once a month with
20 the Council members and the Chair persons of each
21 of our boards. We develop an agenda. They have
22 input into that agenda and I'm trying to make
23 even more input for them on suggesting -- And
24 it's always an issue that's important to the
25 borough or even important to one part of the
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2 borough and so that's another form of input. We
3 have district managers, we have staffs for all of
4 these boards which we didn't have before and the
5 district manager has a team of people working
6 with them making sure the committees are
7 functioning and doing the day to day work of
8 that, for that community. And all in all I don't
9 know how we can do without them. I don't know
10 how we've ever, you know, I was back there in the
11 days when you walked into an executive even in
12 the Board of Education looked like it had cobwebs
13 around him, you know. They didn't have a clue,
14 and when you say community boards and everybody
15 wants to know what is the opinion of the
16 community board. Everyone. Developers go there
17 with hat in hand and they're going to the
18 community. They're going to fifty members of
19 that community and saying I'm asking you, I would
20 like to put this project in. That is
21 participation and I think it's very meaningful.
22 So, I like the idea of that kind of mechanism in
23 the community for input. Also, it's linked up
24 with the Borough Presidents, it's linked up with
25 the City Council and it's State Assembly with all
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2 levels of government.
3 So I like what's happening there
4 because it's the best way. You know we've got to
5 figure out a way to get everybody, at least, you
6 can't get everybody in, but you get the majority
7 of opinion in. And that's a good system.
8 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: One of your
9 colleagues, I know Aldofo Corrian, Borough
10 President from the Bronx, has suggested that not
11 only do we look at that, but also look at that
12 system as relates to some other issues that I
13 know Queens has faced, Brooklyn has faced,
14 related to the relationship between the need for
15 schools, school buildings, how we do those
16 plannings for buildings for children, the
17 community mapping that's needed for children, the
18 zoning issues, that seems to be always from the
19 top down from the command bureaucracy as opposed
20 to how it could be designed quite differently
21 with some synergy that would include democratic
22 participation on the ground through some kind of
23 new board formulation.
24 MS. MARSHALL: Because that's not
25 done, everything is not done up on a high level,
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2 the community, when we want to place a school in
3 a district, you get the whole community out.
4 You're going to get people who say, "No, we do
5 not want that school here", you know, and then
6 you got parents saying, "Please, thank God, we
7 need this school", and so that everybody in the
8 community gets involved in this process. The
9 pros and the cons. We had a beautiful synagogue
10 in Jackson Heights. It was built while I was
11 here. I came here in '57, it was built after
12 '57. A modern, beautiful building. This
13 synagogue came up for sale and we looked for
14 everything that we can to build a school and it
15 was moved to put the school there. The people
16 were complaining. Today, and they came out, the
17 whole community came out. I mean, 200, 300
18 people to pro -- And we have that, some are for
19 and some are against. A lot of them were against
20 it. Today the architecture and that school, it's
21 the most beautiful addition to the block. It's a
22 landmark district. It all blends in.
23 Everybody's happy with the school and everybody
24 feels that they had a say. Even those who were
25 against it feel that they had a say. That's
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2 important.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
4 MR. CLAYTON: How are you doing
5 Helen?
6 MS. MARSHALL: I'm fine.
7 MR. CLAYTON: Alright. I just have
8 an observation for the sake of time and that is
9 that once again you're a prime example of showing
10 how parent involvement help through the
11 achievement. You have a son, an African-American
12 male who graduated (inaudible) engineering. With
13 all the odds against him graduated as an engineer
14 and a daughter in the business community and I'd
15 like to commend you on your years as a PTA
16 President and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention
17 that also in the 81 year history of the United
18 Parent Association that at some point you served
19 as it's Vice President and I can still hear the
20 parent advocacy in you. It is very strong and
21 I'm glad to see you brought it into the Borough
22 President's Office. Thank you.
23 MS. MARSHALL: Thank you very much.
24 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well, Helen,
25 we all are indebted to you for you public
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2 service, for your advocacy, for your passion, for
3 your leadership in education and so many other
4 issues. So we thank you so much for your advice.
5 We will undoubtedly have a need to have further
6 interaction with you, but for now thank you so
7 very much.
8 MS. MARSHALL: Thank you very much
9 and Roseanne Dorse is my Education person and of
10 course you have our new Department of Education
11 persons, you have them all over the city. Thank
12 you very much for your time and effort in this.
13 I know you're all busy people. Thank you.
14 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
15 Helen. For planning purposes, for everybody, we
16 are going to take a brief recess now. We are
17 going to reconvene at exactly, exactly 2:05 p.m.
18 (Recess taken at 1:38 p.m.)
19 (Reconvene at 2:10 p.m.)
20 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: All the
21 members within the sound of my voice can come
22 into the room. We are starting in sixty seconds.
23 We are going to resume and just for those people
24 who, just for a point of edification, it is
25 always the custom of hearings of this case to
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2 give additional latitude to elected public
3 officials and that's the reason why when Council
4 member Liu was speaking and when Borough
5 President Marshall was speaking, I did not try to
6 interrupt them and try to get them to confine
7 their remarks, but we will need to do that if we
8 are going to hear from as many people and do this
9 in an orderly process as we can, so I will ask
10 witness to try very hard to confine their remarks
11 to about five minutes. If it goes a little past
12 that, I will have to just ask gently for people
13 to conclude their remarks. So, we shall resume
14 now with Marge Kolb Corridan.
15 MS. CORRIDAN: Good afternoon. I'd
16 like to thank the Task force for holding this
17 hearing and I gave my written testimony in, so I
18 won't read it verbatim, but I'll just say that I
19 have three children. I went through public
20 school system myself. I went to Hunter High
21 School though, which is under CUNY, but it's
22 still a public school. I have a son in the eighth
23 grade, one in Kindergarten and I have a one and a
24 half year old. When my son was in fifth grade, I
25 was the PTA President at his elementary school
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2 and this year I'm the PTA President at his middle
3 school and I've been almost every month attending
4 the school board meetings in District 24 for
5 about five years. So I know a lot about how my
6 one school board operates and I've certainly read
7 about others.
8 I wouldn't want to judge all school
9 boards by my school board and there may be some
10 parents from my district that would advocate
11 doing away with the school boards because we have
12 a good relationship with our Superintendent, but
13 that doesn't mean that's the same in every
14 district and I think there's certainly a lot of
15 local issues that the school board addresses such
16 as zoning. Our school board has held meetings
17 where they've invited local elected officials
18 from our area so that we could address concerns
19 in our area. We've had police come in and talk
20 to us about precinct issues, traffic issues, all
21 those kinds of things. So, those are important
22 local issues that I wouldn't want to have to go
23 to the Central Board to have to deal with.
24 And funny enough, when my mother was
25 the PTA President 30 years ago, that was around
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2 the time that decentralization was taking place,
3 I found a book at her house written by a parent
4 and a PTA person who talked about before the
5 local school boards when the parents would go to
6 the Central Board and would have two minutes to
7 speak and would be put on at the end of a program
8 at the end of the night and I don't remember all
9 the specifics, but there was some kind of a sit
10 in or take over of the, Mrs. Pheffer is nodding
11 her head, and that's what was written up in the
12 book, but you know, I understand, I read about
13 the problems with school board corruption and
14 politics and things like that and of course, you
15 know, we'd like to see that eliminated.
16 So, what I'd like to see is that the
17 community school board, or whatever you call it,
18 would be an extension of the school's leadership
19 teams. So, if I'm not a parent, but I live in a
20 community, I can get on my local school's
21 leadership team as a community member. There's a
22 provision in the law for that and then maybe,
23 then you would require at least one year
24 experience. Then perhaps all the school
25 leadership team members from a district could
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2 vote for their own members to go to a central
3 board and obviously, you couldn't have one from
4 every school because that would be a big board,
5 but maybe you could split the district into three
6 geographic areas and then you could have the
7 schools in one area elect a certain number of
8 parents, you know. I mean our school board
9 meetings are held in the District Office in
10 Glendale and we have parents that live in Corona.
11 So every month if they wanted to go, they would
12 have to travel down there. I think if you had a
13 school board that was geographically
14 representative, they might hold the meeting in
15 the center of the district so that more parents
16 could attend.
17 I think Mrs. Marshall mentioned
18 about District 24 where there's a lot of
19 overcrowding in the north and the south didn't
20 feel it until lately, but, I mean, I've been
21 pushing for new schools to be built for a few
22 years now that I've been involved and the parents
23 turned out for a hearing at City Hall and -- So
24 that's what I feel about boards. I listened to
25 some of the other testimony. I came late because
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2 I actually had a school leadership team meeting
3 this morning and I have a PTA meeting tonight, so
4 this is my school day.
5 I'd like to comment on a couple of
6 things I heard. One is, I could see if there's a
7 vacancy for a Superintendent where you would want
8 to have this community school board do a search
9 similar to what a school does when there's a
10 vacancy for a Principal, like a C-30 or C-37 or
11 whatever it's called. But to have the school
12 board have the power every three years to renew
13 the Superintendent's contract, that's where we
14 had a problem in our district and I can envision
15 that again. I don't think the Superintendent can
16 serve two masters. Either the Commissioner is
17 responsible or the school board is responsible
18 and I would prefer to see the Commissioner
19 responsible. We opened a new school in our
20 district recently and there were parents on a
21 committee to interview teachers. That was
22 another point that came up and that worked well
23 and I don't know if that's the normal practice.
24 But for parents to have input in an ongoing basis
25 in hiring teachers, that I think is a bad idea as
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2 well. The Principal is supposed to be the boss
3 of the school which is his company. He's
4 responsible. Superintendent is going to hold him
5 responsible for the performance of his school.
6 He's got to be able to have the latitude in
7 hiring the teachers. I understand there's
8 parents that have problems with their principals,
9 then they should go up to the next step which is
10 talk to the Superintendent about the principals
11 they have problems with.
12 The problem is that most people
13 don't know what the steps are. Now, I know that
14 the Central, that they have a parent hot line and
15 I put that in my PTA notices so the parents know
16 that. I've been to school board meeting where
17 parents have come in with, what I thought was,
18 kind of petty complaints about a particular thing
19 and they were asked if they had talked to the PTA
20 or the Principal about it and they hadn't even
21 done that. So parents don't always know all the
22 channels that they have to go through. So,
23 that's, I really feel strongly that if the school
24 board has input in the hiring of a vacant
25 Superintendency, that's not a bad idea. They
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2 interview a pool of candidates. They give the
3 Commissioner a list of three or five people and
4 that narrows down the search for him. And if he
5 has a candidate that he likes, he can throw that
6 candidate into the pool to be interviewed on the
7 district level as well.
8 Just to get back to local issues,
9 like zoning. We opened a new school in Maspeth.
10 I wasn't zoned for it, but I went to the zoning
11 hearing and the District Office presented their
12 idea for the zoning. Well there were parents
13 there that said, "Oh no, no. I don't want my
14 child to have to cross this particular street,
15 it's a double yellow line, it's a big street".
16 So they went back and they tweaked the zoning
17 plan and they changed it and it was good for
18 those parents and those kids. Now, if you had a
19 Superintendent who had the authority to be
20 totally autocratic on zoning issues, then I don't
21 think that that would serve the community. My
22 Superintendent, we're very happy with, a lot of
23 the parents, as far as I know, but a lot of time
24 a District Office personnel do not live in the
25 community so they're not able to understand all
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2 the community issues the way that we do. If you
3 look at a map, you say okay, south of this street
4 looks like good zoning for that school, but then
5 you don't realize that a street, it goes through
6 that area, is a major traffic nightmare and the
7 children will be safer staying on the side of the
8 street where they live in coming down to the
9 school. So that's my issue with some local input.
10 And, as I said, if you come through
11 with the school leadership teams, you're going to
12 have mostly parents, but you still have an
13 opportunity for community participation. I
14 wouldn't even have them be elections under the
15 Board of Election because there is low turnout.
16 And when my son was first in school and I was
17 working full time, I never voted in a school
18 board election. I didn't get the information
19 from anywhere about even who was running or what
20 their platforms were. Then when I was President
21 one year when we had school board elections, we
22 held a candidates night at our school and about
23 20 parents came.
24 So, I mean, I tried to get the word
25 out on the school board elections, but if it's an
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2 issue that parents are really, really concerned
3 about, they come out. If you hold a zoning
4 meeting, 200 parents will come. If you have
5 health or safety issue with the school, the
6 parents will come. There was an issue with a
7 school in Middle Village where they did an art
8 project and they painted outside the school
9 little figures of children. Well I want to tell
10 you, I thought it looked nice. A lot of the
11 neighbors were upset that they thought it looked
12 like graffiti. These were not parents, they went
13 to the school board, they told them how upset
14 they were and the school board said please paint
15 over it. I don't even know if that was in their
16 purview, but the Principal and the Superintendent
17 responded to the neighbors complaints.
18 The last thing I want to comment on,
19 well two other things.
20 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: I will need
21 you to begin summing up.
22 MS. CORRIDAN: I am wrapping up.
23 The community planning boards, the community
24 boards that Mrs. Marshall talked about as being
25 representative. Well, I agree they're
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2 representative, but they're not elected. They're
3 appointed by the Borough President and if I have
4 an interest in community affairs and I send in a
5 resume that I've been in a civic or I've been in
6 the schools or whatever, then I might likely get
7 on it. I think it's representative, but it's not
8 directly elected representation. And then, the
9 PEP, I understand allows only three minutes to
10 talk. The school boards usually have a lot of
11 latitude unless they have a topic that everyone
12 wants to talk on. I can talk at a school board
13 meeting for more then two or three minutes, but I
14 understand time limits, obviously.
15 So, I just want to talk about the
16 budget. Please don't even thing about letting
17 people vote on the budget. Parents get out voted
18 by people that don't have children in the school
19 and you know anyone else in the country, they
20 cannot vote to build new schools because the
21 property owners that don't have kids are not
22 going to approve the funds for that kind of
23 thing. So please, that's my --
24 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
25 very much. You came very close to keeping it to
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2 within five minutes. We appreciate it. Do we
3 have any questions. Mr. Levin and then
4 Mr. Clayton.
5 MR. LEVIN: Thank you Marge, very
6 much for the practical aspects of your testimony.
7 I was just wondering in looking at the way you
8 must have prepared for your testimony, have you
9 used a computer or the internet in any of the
10 organizations to disseminate information or as a
11 form of communication?
12 MS. CORRIDAN: I established an
13 e-mail address for the PTA this year on Yahoo
14 because they have free e-mail and --
15 MR. LEVIN: Not AOL, Yahoo.
16 MS. CORRIDAN: And I haven't gotten
17 a single e-mail and I have 2,000 kids in my
18 school, but, and I know the kids have computers
19 and I put it on every notice, but in middle
20 school you do have the problem that just because
21 you give the kid the notice doesn't mean it gets
22 to the parent. So, I don't know. I wanted to
23 put together a web site so I could say we'll put
24 news up on a page every month and I just haven't
25 had the time. If somebody made it very easy for
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2 me and said if you e-mail us a wordperfect
3 document, we'll put it up on the web for you and
4 then I would give my parents a web address, that
5 would work. I think that would be great.
6 When I was at my primary, I made
7 sure we put out a newsletter every month and it
8 would summarize the PTA meetings and a lot of the
9 exec board were saying well then the people won't
10 come to the meetings and I'm like well some of
11 them can't come to the meetings, so we need to
12 get information to the parents. When I send a
13 meeting notice now, every month, on the bottom I
14 put whatever news that I can think of, but a web
15 page would be good too.
16 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
17 MR. CLAYTON: Yes. Thank you for
18 your testimony today. You mentioned something,
19 if there were a parent of every school in the
20 district on this new governance body, that would
21 be far too many, but possibly if you broke up the
22 existing school board into little mini bodies --
23 MS. CORRIDAN: Oh no, I didn't mean
24 mini bodies. I mean, in my district there's
25 maybe 28 schools. Said there's a northern tier
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2 of eight schools, a middle tier of eight schools
3 and a bottom tier of eight and then each of those
4 tiers could send three members, so you would
5 still have nine on your body, but it would be
6 geographically representational of the district
7 because each section of the district would get a
8 certain number of members on the Central, on the
9 community.
10 MR. CLAYTON: Okay, thanks for the
11 point of clarification, but now my question is,
12 what would you think of the idea if a set of one
13 governing body for a whole entire district the
14 same why now central's on this kick. They're
15 breaking up high schools. This year was the
16 Bronx, next year is Brooklyn, we'll have 16 to 18
17 new high schools and they seem to think smaller
18 is better. So do you think because the United
19 Parent Association at our last two membership
20 meetings have one of the the themes has been
21 ringing out to us is that there should be
22 representation from every school on any new
23 governance body and we thought like you did, that
24 would be too enormous, 32 people on a board, but
25 what about if you broke the governance bodies up
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2 into smaller regional, like you said, regional
3 governing bodies, do you think that could work?
4 MS. CORRIDAN: I just, I think that
5 makes a lot of extra work --
6 MR. CLAYTON: And having to report
7 to a Borough wide sort of thing.
8 MS. CORRIDAN: I'll tell you, it
9 doesn't escape me that Brooklyn has almost twice
10 as many numbers as school districts. Now I know
11 traditionally they had a lot more kids, but
12 Queens population has been growing, I think we
13 passed Brooklyn or we're close, but I don't know
14 about school kids, but I always thought our
15 district was awfully big, but I wouldn't have
16 multiple boards in one district because I think
17 you want the Superintendent at the meeting and I
18 think that you want to be able at one time at one
19 meeting talk about issues. It amazes me that
20 there's a lot of difference from one district to
21 another as far as what curriculums are being
22 taught and what initiatives are being used and
23 what partnerships are being used.
24 I mean in our district now, all the
25 middle schools have the America's Choice
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2 curriculum model, whatever, and so it's good to
3 be able to go to a meeting and say, oh this is
4 what it is and this is .." And I don't see the
5 point of fragmenting. I'd like -- I live in
6 kind of the middle of the district. I don't want
7 to just talk to people in the middle of the
8 district, I want to talk to people from the north
9 and people from the south and find out what
10 they're doing in their schools and what works or
11 doesn't work and so. If you wanted to make the
12 district smaller so that it was more manageable
13 for the District Office, but I don't know if
14 that's necessary.
15 MR. CLAYTON: No, I was just trying
16 to think outside of the lines, somewhat of the
17 districts because we don't know if they're even
18 going to be around, the district lines. You know
19 there's talk that they may be reconfigured.
20 MS. CORRIDAN: I'm worried of
21 finding people to even sit on the board. I know
22 in the last school board elections I think some
23 districts didn't even have nine candidates, so
24 that was four years ago.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assemblyman
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2 Rivera, but let me just make mention to the
3 members. Ms. Corridan will have to pick up her
4 child in about, less then 10 minutes, so, please
5 keep your questions short. Mr. Rivera.
6 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: Ms. Corridan,
7 in your opinion, is there a difference between
8 the kind of person that serves as PA President,
9 the kind of person that serves in their parent
10 leadership teams, the kind of individual who
11 serves on the community school board? One, is
12 there a difference in your observations and the
13 second part of my question is two, should there
14 be a difference particularly with the individuals
15 who serve on community school boards and the
16 other individuals that may be active either in
17 their school or in their community or whatever?
18 MS. CORRIDAN: Well, on our school
19 board, we had two former PTA Presidents so, you
20 know, people have said to me why didn't I run and
21 I said I'd rather sit in the audience and agitate
22 them for the issues -- But, I think to be a PTA
23 President is an all consuming job. There's so
24 many mandated meetings and just being -- In the
25 elementary schools, I mean, there's presidents
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2 that are in the building every day. I took the
3 middle school presidency this year because I knew
4 it wasn't going to be every single day up at the
5 school, but we still do things. We do dances, we
6 do shows, we do things. So, I think when you
7 say, you know maybe a former PTA President might
8 be interested in getting on to a school board. I
9 don't know if a current one, some of them might,
10 but there's, you know, how many hours are there
11 in a day?
12 The school leadership teams, I've
13 seen a number of parents sit on them that don't
14 have too much to do with the PTA and I think in
15 some schools there's a perception that the PTA is
16 clique- ish or, you know, whatever, and so they
17 think a more effective way to find out about
18 what's going on is the school leadership team.
19 But of course, the PTA President sits on the
20 school leadership team, a lot of PTA Presidents
21 attend the monthly school board meetings, so
22 there is a lot of overlap, yeah there's probably
23 a difference. There's people that say I just
24 want to help at my kids school, I just want to do
25 the fun stuff like the Santa Sale and the School
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2 Pictures and the Graduation and then there's lots
3 of PTA Presidents that are political, that get
4 out there and go to meetings and so you get
5 everything.
6 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Ms. Pheffer.
7 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: I forgot.
8 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: You forgot,
9 okay, I want to make -- Ms. Pheffer, quickly.
10 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Just on
11 your school leadership, you said that some of the
12 people that sit on the school leadership aren't
13 involved with the PA or the PTA, how are they put
14 there, we thought they had to be elected?
15 MS. CORRIDAN: Yeah, but they, I
16 mean with the exec board of the PTA.
17 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Okay, so
18 they are involved with the --
19 MS. CORRIDAN: Usually they often
20 come to PTA, I'd have to say they all come to the
21 PTA meetings pretty much.
22 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: The general
23 meeting.
24 MS. CORRIDAN: Yeah, but they're
25 not maybe on the exec board.
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2 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Oh, okay.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: I want to
4 acknowledge the arrival of Robin Brown, another
5 member of our task force. Welcome Robin. Thank
6 you very much for your testimony. We know that
7 you were juggling a lot of things today, a lot of
8 meetings and we don't want your child to fall
9 through the cracks either, so thank you so much.
10 MS. THOMSON: Lu Ming Li is next.
11 Virginia Kee to come and provide translation but
12 I just want to make sure everybody understands
13 that Ms. Kee is just providing the translation
14 that this is not here testimony nor her opinion
15 necessarily. Thank you.
16 MS. LI: Sorry, because my English
17 is not very well, so I need a translate.
18 TRANSLATOR FOR MS. LI: I am a new
19 immigrant parent. I'm from the District 26. I
20 think from my point of view, the school board,
21 there is a great deal lacking. I believe that
22 the school boards have inordinate power. Also,
23 they do influence the budget, they also influence
24 the Superintendent and they also influence the
25 Principals of schools and all issues of important
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2 matters in the school. But the real function of
3 a school board member they have not fulfilled
4 their responsibility. When a system fails in
5 education, they don't take responsibility. The
6 Principals and the Superintendents pay special
7 attention to the people who are on school boards
8 and because of this undo influence and also
9 listening to school board members are they
10 impartial in their handling of situations. In
11 fact, there is in some cases corruption. I
12 believe that most school board members have
13 integrity and are good. They also deserve the
14 parents and the community.
15 However the supervision of school
16 boards, there is some lacking. There is
17 individuals who misuse their power. In fact,
18 there are some school districts where the school
19 board members are promoting their own private
20 schools using their position on school boards
21 where they could publicize and do marketing for
22 their own schools. Promoting their own school
23 was more students to enroll in that particular
24 school. They create a lot of conflict and
25 problems in the school about achievements and
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2 whether or not the standards of the students are
3 received and they also, the Principals pay close
4 attention to these school board members because
5 they want to keep that relationship with the
6 school board member. Perhaps in an
7 unintentionally or intentionally because of the
8 attention and the influence which they give to
9 the particular school board member, it really
10 influenced whatever we as parents want to do in
11 the community.
12 The school board should be a bridge
13 in communication to the community and also the
14 parents. It depends on very much on the language
15 ability of the parents in that area because it
16 depends on the intention and commitment of the
17 particular school board members otherwise there
18 are a great deal of problems in that school board
19 district. Sometimes the conflict results in the
20 particular school board member and the parent's
21 association with a great deal of controversy and
22 conflict.
23 School leadership team is a good
24 organization. It involves more of the parents
25 and more communication with the parents. Of
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2 course, we're not saying that school board
3 members don't care about parents, yes, of course,
4 we understand that it is not 100% perfect, the
5 school leadership team, but in comparing a school
6 board and a school leadership team, I think, the
7 school leadership team is much better.
8 Especially because of the new immigrant parents,
9 through the school leadership team, they've
10 gotten a lot of information and support. Before
11 that we didn't have that. They would send back
12 many memos from the school and all kinds of
13 directives and things like that, but there was
14 never any translation of this written material
15 and so we couldn't understand what they were
16 disseminating. The school leadership team, they
17 translated everything for us and this
18 (inaudible). So we started to understand the
19 system and as parents we were able to help our
20 own children through the directives from the
21 school leadership team.
22 Her recommendation would be to
23 do away with the school boards as we have them
24 now because I have not prepared a written
25 statement, that is the end of my testimony.
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2 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
3 very much. We know that your testimony was
4 harder to give, but very well received by all the
5 members of the task force and I think we
6 appreciate the very special effort it took for
7 you to inform us of your views and I think it
8 certainly has resonated with all of the members.
9 Before I ask if there are any questions --
10 TRANSLATOR: (To Ms. Li) I said
11 because we understand how difficult with the
12 language ability, the fact that you have come
13 here today, have taken your own time to testify
14 before us, we do appreciate that.
15 TRANSLATOR FOR MS. LI: Most
16 parents are afraid to come but with great courage
17 I have appeared before you.
18 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you.
19 Let me just implore the members of the panel in
20 order for us to stay on schedule and allow people
21 to get on with the day, we've got to keep our own
22 questions as brief and to the point as we
23 possibly can, so. Any questions? Let me ask
24 Ms. He. Ms. Hahn, excuse me, Ms. Hahn.
25 MS. HAHN: School board 26 have
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2 very good academic record, right, and yet you are
3 saying that school board 26 is a less then
4 perfect to say the least, so in your opinion that
5 problem of school board 26 is that the system has
6 failed or the individual serving on the board to
7 be blamed?
8 TRANSLATOR: (To Ms. Li)
9 TRANSLATOR FOR MS. LI: She saying
10 that this is a general statement which she has.
11 She's not pointing out that this is the case, the
12 specific case. Her example before, she felt that
13 there is an individual on school board 26 that
14 has misused power.
15 MS. HAHN: One more question, could
16 I ask?
17 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Yes,
18 Ms. Hahn.
19 MS. HAHN: Okay, you also said that
20 there's literary communication problem between
21 the school board members and the parents. If,
22 also with that happened, if the board member
23 happened to be the person of the same ethnicity
24 speaking the same language, could that happen
25 even the parents, let's say the Korean or Chinese
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2 board member, they have parents who speak their
3 language, the same language, and yet there will
4 be because of their lack of interest or
5 dedication, there will be still communication
6 problems?
7 TRANSLATOR: (To Ms. Li)
8 TRANSLATOR FOR MS. LI: No, the
9 person that I am referring to is speaks our
10 language, in fact, there's the one individual
11 that is a school board member therefore as we go
12 up to the school board our feelings issues, our
13 concerns are never really directed because
14 someone is blocking that communication.
15 MS. THOMSON: I just wanted to say
16 that there are, I have knowledge, that there are
17 very tight reporting requirements for school
18 board members. There are documents that they
19 have to fill out which lists their personal
20 assets as well as their interests in companies
21 and there is a very strong conflict of interest
22 law as well and what I'd like to do is find the
23 right person for you to talk to so that you could
24 get to the right authorities just to pass this
25 information on just so that someone can look at
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2 it to make sure that there's no unethical
3 behavior.
4 TRANSLATOR: (To Ms. Li)
5 MS. THOMSON: Perhaps if you could
6 give us your phone number we'll make the match.
7 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Levin.
8 MR. LEVIN: We're honored that you
9 had testified today and I would just like to take
10 advantage of your broader perspective to ask you
11 whether there's anything in your own education
12 that you'd like to apply to our current issues?
13 TRANSLATOR: (To Ms. Li.)
14 TRANSLATOR FOR MS. LI: I believe
15 that the parents communication with education
16 system must be clear. The communication must have
17 clear and accessibly communication. Before we
18 were not able to do this. I hope that in
19 whatever body that you think of that the
20 communication with the parents must be available,
21 accessible to the parents.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well, once
23 again, we all thank you very much for your
24 special, very special efforts and your very
25 special testimony for us this morning, this
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2 afternoon. Thank you and we thank Virginia Kee
3 for being the necessary bridge.
4 MS. THOMSON: Reverend Charles
5 Norris, Sr., Executive Secretary of Southeast
6 Queens Clergy and then when Rev. Norris is
7 finished Basir Mchawi if I have that
8 pronunciation right will be next. Good afternoon
9 Reverend.
10 REV. NORRIS: Good afternoon Mr.
11 Sanders, Ms. Thomson, Assembly persons, members
12 of the task force. My name is Charles L. Norris,
13 Sr. I'm the Pastor of a very small congregation
14 (inaudible) in Baptist Church in Jamaica and I
15 also serve as the Executive Secretary for
16 Southeast Queens Clergy for Community Empowerment
17 and as the CEO for Southeast Queens Clergy for
18 Political Awareness. We have an economical
19 clergy organization of eighty persons. We claim
20 to speak to some 250,000 people every Sunday
21 morning, especially when it doesn't rain. We are
22 sort of active in community school board 27, 28
23 and 29 and we try to watch as many of those
24 situations that come up in the community school
25 problems that we can help. I do not have chick
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2 nor child in the system, but my congregants do
3 have and that's my concern.
4 I think that this problem of school
5 boards should have been considered even while you
6 were considering changing the governance of the
7 schools in that some of the ideas for solutions
8 might have come to you and should have come
9 before taking away the idea that we will not have
10 any school boards. It's similar to the solution
11 that was offered by Mayor Guilliani when he
12 decided to build a hospital in this borough of
13 200 beds that replaced a 302 bed hospital which I
14 think and Clair Shumann made a terrible mistake,
15 but then he called us together to find out how do
16 we solve that problem as members of the
17 community. That's what I think you're attempting
18 to do now, since you have the problem, you're
19 saying to the community, come tell us how to get
20 past it. Aside from the fact that Mr. Guilliani
21 left this city in five billion dollars of debt
22 and people have made him the Mayor of the Country
23 and yet we're afraid to mention the fact that
24 we're scuffling now trying to get out of it and
25 he left us in that.
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2 What does that have to do with
3 school governance? I don't know, I thought I had
4 to say it. Asking the neighborhood to replace,
5 find out what should replace school boards is
6 like saying to a parent, now that you've punished
7 your child and you've taken something away from
8 that child, go down the street and ask your
9 neighbor what should you give that child in place
10 of what you've taken away. That's what it seems
11 to me and I think that's a very poor way of
12 approaching the problem. And then if you take
13 away the school boards, you're going to take away
14 advocates for children.
15 These boards that were set up, what
16 25-30 years ago, and I think then programmed to
17 fail because of the manner in which they had the
18 elections and I still don't understand how people
19 get elected to the school board and if you are
20 one who has a number of first place votes, you
21 can cast some or some will slide down to the
22 person -- I don't understand that (inaudible).
23 It was never a one man one vote situation and
24 especially at the wrong time of the year never
25 doing the first Tuesday in November, but always
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2 sometime in May when people, families and
3 children, are concerned about am I going to pass
4 this course and get promoted in June. Now I have
5 to consider thinking about whose going to be the
6 members of the school board for the next two or
7 three years which was very bad.
8 That was one of my primary
9 concerns. The other thing that concerns us is
10 that we still don't get enough money from the
11 state depending on or from the amount of money
12 that we send to the Assembly from the city.
13 That's always been a problem but maybe one of
14 these days this State Senate will get some
15 religion and see that there should be equal
16 protection under the law and give it equally
17 around the state rather then how they have been
18 distributing it. But, if these school boards are
19 really taken away, can you imagine, can you
20 imagine from the 28 schools just in District 29
21 where there are ten parents who have problems in
22 that school, ten in each of the schools. Two
23 hundred and eighty parents going to Tweed Court
24 House to speak to the Superintendent or to the
25 Chancellor to say we have a problem. Can you
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2 imagine, how would it ever get to any conclusion?
3 I doubt if very seriously. So for that reason
4 it's very important that you really think
5 seriously of finding some way to solve the
6 problem of retaining the school boards and if
7 it's in conjunction with the, those other
8 portions or agencies or committees or groups that
9 you may have within the school itself, the school
10 governance group, that would be fine, but to
11 dismiss them as of June 30th and say that they're
12 finished, I think it's a great mistake.
13 Finally, the last few minutes, if I
14 have, it's very important that we stop, in this
15 borough, saying that we have provided 5,000 seats
16 for children in schools each year but haven't
17 solved the problem of lowering the number of
18 children in the schools because parents just have
19 children. Unfortunately, they have 5,000 more
20 children that year, so it doesn't solve anything.
21 So to say you've provided as Clair Shumann has
22 said, 5,000 seats every year, you've got to
23 provide more then 5,000 each year in order to
24 sort to come to grips with the problem and that
25 has not been done. So consequently, of course
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2 you know better then I, that our schools are over
3 crowded more so then any other borough in this
4 city.
5 Finally, keep the school boards. I
6 say that we should do that and when we do that,
7 change the law that the elections will be held in
8 November at the same time that will give the
9 persons who are concerned and interested will be
10 out there campaigning like all of other
11 campaigners will do and also make it a one man
12 one vote election and remove that, I don't even
13 know what you call it. The way their elected
14 now. What is it now? What ever it is. Take it
15 away, that's not the American way. The best
16 example of the American way is what we just
17 experienced by the person who just testified
18 before me and how she helped to get it over and
19 we should do that. Thank you very much, that's
20 my testimony if there's any questions.
21 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Reverend
22 Norris, first of all, thank you very much for you
23 testimony, your advice, your criticism, criticism
24 is important, and important part of the process
25 also. Just one historical note, I think. The
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2 system of proportional voting, when it was
3 instituted before I or anyone at this table was
4 in the State Legislature, was actually done
5 instead of direct voting because at the time it
6 was felt that proportional voting would actually
7 maximize the number of minority representatives
8 on school boards.
9 REV. NORRIS: Big mistake.
10 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Whether it
11 was right or wrong, whether it was right or
12 wrong. Now, here's the kicker, here's the
13 kicker. Three years ago, in 1998 or 1999, we
14 decided, we in the Assembly, the men and women
15 who are seated here, John LaVelle wasn't in the
16 Assembly at that time, but I know he agreed, we
17 decided that it was high time to make the process
18 of voting simpler and more direct so that people
19 voted -- So the people who got the most votes
20 were the one's who were elected to the school
21 boards without any calculation or formula
22 involved and -- We talked about that.
23 They said it didn't want to allow us
24 to do that, but we actually passed a law and it
25 was signed into law by the Governor and it
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2 created a more direct form of voting whereby
3 every person would be able to vote for four
4 individuals and of the nine who would be elected
5 and the people who got the most votes would win.
6 That had to be submitted to the Justice
7 Department like everything else we do when it
8 comes to elections, elected bodies or elections
9 and the Justice Department rejected it. And
10 their rejection for this more direct form of
11 voting, and by the way, the reason why we didn't
12 go to a totally absolute direct form of election
13 when you vote for all, you vote for nine people,
14 nine people get elected, is that we suspected
15 that there were problems in the Justice
16 Department, and in any event, after we passed the
17 law and we provided this more direct form of
18 voting, the Justice Department reviewed it and
19 they said no. And the reason why they said no is
20 that in their opinion, not one that I agreed
21 with, in their opinion, that would ultimately
22 diminish, they thought, the level of minority
23 representation.
24 REV. NORRIS: Whose Administration
25 was that?
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2 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Clinton.
3 REV. NORRIS: Clinton.
4 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: So, I just,
5 you know what? I knew you were going to ask that
6 question and you want to know something else? I
7 knew you would be surprised. In any event, --
8 REV. NORRIS: I'd have to call him
9 on that and tell him.
10 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: But that was
11 the Janet Reno Justice Department. In any event,
12 I just want to --
13 REV. NORRIS: She made some
14 mistakes too.
15 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: This is so.
16 I just want to make mention the fact that we
17 actually understood and as we were trying at one
18 time to reform the school boards and the school
19 board elections, we actually attempted to do a
20 direct form of voting and the Justice Department
21 said that proportional voting this complicated
22 means that was established thirty years ago
23 actually would promote and protect minority
24 representation more then direct voting.
25 REV. NORRIS: At this point you're
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2 not sure and I can speak to that.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Questions?
4 Questions?
5 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: I just
6 wanted to say unless Rev. Norris changed his
7 location of his Church or his congregates, it
8 certainly isn't a small little Church in Queens.
9 REV. NORRIS: The building may be
10 large and it has, the corner stone has 1900's, so
11 it's 100 years old, but we still have a small
12 congregation.
13 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assemblyman
14 Green.
15 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Yes thank you.
16 First, a personal one, it's always good to see
17 you and always good --
18 REV. NORRIS: Good to be seen at
19 anytime at this age.
20 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Amen to that.
21 There's been widespread critique about the
22 community boards, particularly related to the
23 problems of crony-ism, patronage, how it's
24 corrupted this system and has had a negative
25 impact on our children that we've not put our
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2 children first. Do you think that there,
3 obviously, that there's some room for improvement
4 and if so, what is it that we could do to protect
5 the system from being corrupted, if possible?
6 REV. NORRIS: How much time do I
7 have? No seriously. First it needs to start
8 from the level of elected persons in each branch
9 of the government. If they would set an example
10 that there would be no crony-ism in their branch
11 and get people who are really qualified rather
12 then their friends who supported them and how
13 much contributed to their election, it may set an
14 example for it to follow. We may get that Regan
15 trickle down theory by that time. So, that may
16 be a part of the answer. But of course, people
17 want to see their friends and be kind to their
18 friends who helped them, you supported them, but
19 when it goes overboard, it gets out of hand and
20 of course it becomes counterproductive instead of
21 being productive. But let the Mayor start. Let
22 the Governor start. Let the President start.
23 Let all of them start saying we're going to get
24 people who are qualified, not my friends or who
25 put me in here in this office, but qualified
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2 persons.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
4 MR. CLAYTON: Yes. Thank you for
5 your testimony Reverend. Since your
6 constituency, you reach a lot of parents and I'm
7 concerned and this panel is concerned with
8 parental involvement and I know from the pulpit
9 that preachers preach about the family unit, the
10 extended family, but is it explicit in the
11 message on education because like Dr. Martin
12 Luther King stated, education is a true path to
13 freedom and our empowerment. Is education and
14 parental involvement a strong message from the
15 pulpit because we rely on these faith- based
16 groups as well to carry that message and I just
17 want to hear from you is that --
18 REV. NORRIS: It's good to know you
19 rely on these faith-based groups to carry the
20 message more so then to get them elected. If you
21 understand clearly what I'm saying. But, the
22 message that comes from the pulpit is clear. The
23 problem is that the schools do not have all
24 that's needed to make and to help children to
25 learn. In 27, 28 and 29 you have some of the
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2 worst teachers in the system and the reason, you
3 probably know better then I. And I'm sure Audrey
4 know, excuse me, Mrs. Pheffer knows better then
5 I why they're there and once we can do that --
6 You see, the cycle has to begin with training
7 children who will become good parents and it's
8 taking quite a long time to get parents, children
9 to learn. If you don't teach them while they're
10 in school they won't be good parents when they
11 get out of school and that's the major part of
12 the problem. That the people who are parents
13 now, were not taught sufficiently when they were
14 students in school, so it makes it difficult for
15 them to understand why I must train my child to
16 go to school when they didn't learn themselves.
17 So, but we're trying to get the message out as
18 best we can.
19 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well Rev.
20 Norris, we've been honored by your presence here.
21 We appreciate your advice and the inspiration
22 you've also provide us with. We need all the
23 advice and all the inspiration we can get and we
24 got a dose (inaudible).
25 REV. NORRIS: Thank you.
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2 MS. THOMSON: Basir Mchawi, excuse
3 my pronunciation, you can correct me.
4 MR. MCHAWI: Good afternoon to the
5 panel and all the attenders of these hearing. My
6 name is Basir Mchawi. I'm not from Queens, but
7 about two years ago, three years ago actually, I
8 had the responsibility of being in charge an
9 adult education program that dealt with sending
10 welfare mothers back to work on Jamaica Avenue
11 and Merrick Boulevard, not too far from here and
12 used to drive past Queens Borough Hall going back
13 and forth to work. So, I know this building and
14 this area and know Queens as well.
15 The first thing I think is we have a
16 classic case of something that I say all the time
17 and have been saying for sometime now which is
18 what happens when the so called minority becomes
19 the majority? And I think this is something that
20 is talked about to an extent as far as Rev.
21 Norris and the Justice Department in regards to
22 looking at minority representation when that
23 minority has in fact become the majority in many
24 of the school districts that we speak of. But
25 the first thing, I think we need a little history
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2 lesson and have to go back and revisit some
3 things that happened even not too long ago. 1989
4 was the last time that any effort was really
5 devoted to making school board elections
6 successful and that was done when Dr. Richard
7 Green was the Chancellor. After that time, I
8 think that there was a conscience effort to
9 strangle the school boards and I think that this
10 was shown in regards to the fact that no
11 resources were given either by the Board of
12 Education or the Board of Elections to support
13 the school board elections after 1989. The last
14 school board election, as a matter of fact,
15 parent voters, because there is a dual system of
16 voting, one for citizens and one for parent
17 voters that the parent registration forms were
18 found in few if any schools and were not
19 distributed in few if any schools and when it
20 came time for the actual election no one came out
21 of course because no one even knew that the
22 election was taking place because no one, neither
23 the Board of Elections or the Board of Education
24 had spent any resources in regards to going ahead
25 and making sure that something would happen. So,
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2 we see lower turn out which was not the case in
3 1989.
4 In 1989 we had an increased turn
5 out. In 1989, we had for the first time in many
6 years, the increased election of parents and
7 community activists because up until that point
8 the issue of course was the crony-ism in those
9 people who wanted to go ahead and use this as a
10 political stepping stone. Then in 1996, of
11 course, powers were taken from the school boards
12 and given to the Chancellor. And then finally,
13 in 2002, the Legislature holds it's nose and in
14 an effect votes to give control of the schools to
15 the Mayor. Now, no other suggested reforms that
16 had been suggested have ever been implemented
17 including using voting machines for the school
18 board elections, replacing the proportional
19 voting system and having school board elections
20 as part of primaries or general elections. None
21 of these things were ever implemented and of
22 course we had a self fulfilling prophecy and the
23 school boards have in fact failed because we made
24 them fail. We let them fail.
25 And even beyond that we need to go
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2 back to 1968, 1971, 1969, '69 and '71 when the
3 original legislation creating the school boards
4 as they exist was actually passed and that as we
5 know was an attempt to try to deflect the
6 community outcry that had come regarding
7 community control and then when we speak about
8 community control, we talk about 1968 and we talk
9 about the three demonstration districts that were
10 formed, Oceanhill, Brownsville, Twobridges and
11 I.S. 201 in East Harlem. Now we need to
12 recognize that in 1968, out of this particular
13 struggle, we had for the first time, we had hired
14 black, latino and asian administrators in the
15 schools. Before this particular time, there were
16 very rarely any people of color who became
17 administrators in schools and this was in fact
18 because of the racist Board of Examiners which
19 went ahead and set out certain kinds of criteria
20 for people becoming part of the Administration
21 which in many cases they could not fulfill. So
22 Oceanhill, Brownsville, we need to look at in
23 regards to the advances that happened because of
24 what took place in 1968 as opposed to going ahead
25 and believing some of the revisionist historians
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2 who go ahead and talk about Oceanhill Brownsville
3 and the demonstrations were a failure. What
4 happened after 1968 in regards to coming up with
5 this so called compromise which did not really
6 involve the community, that is what has failed
7 and that's what we actually see now.
8 The other thing I think we have is
9 we have a problem now in that we have a confusion
10 about the relationship between governance and
11 failing schools. Governance is not failing
12 schools and we need to look at whether or not
13 governance has much if anything to do with
14 whether schools succeed or fail, but there are
15 certain things that we do know. We know that
16 centralized governance has historically led to
17 poor school performance. We can go back to the
18 days of Harvey Scribner, I think he was probably
19 about the last Superintendent of Schools when we
20 had a centralized system. We also know that
21 meaningful parental involvement has always led to
22 substantial improvements in student performance.
23 All research shows this, everyone recognizes it,
24 yet and still we do not see it. Parents have
25 come up here all day and have talked about how
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2 parents are not welcome in schools. We have new
3 Chancellors and new Chancellors who are their
4 parent involvement people. Where is parent
5 involvement in regards to the agenda of our new
6 school's Chancellor? We don't know. So if in
7 fact that is so, then parental involvement should
8 not be necessarily important to them and I think
9 obviously that's a contradiction.
10 Teachers are in classroom every day.
11 We need to recognize that. School board members
12 are not and if in fact we want to talk about what
13 is taking place in schools, we have to address
14 where the rubber meets the road and that is in
15 fact in the classroom. It is not in the board
16 room, it is in fact in the classroom. Governance
17 is an important issue, we have to go ahead and
18 deal with issues of governance but it does not
19 necessarily mean that changed governance or
20 improved governance will lead to improved student
21 achievement.
22 We need to look at the very real
23 issues at this particular time. High stakes
24 testing. We're going ahead now and going,
25 creating a system in regards to high schools with
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2 regards to Regents which is something that had
3 failed previously and that we had dis-mandated.
4 The Regents competency test were in fact created
5 because student were not passing Regents as they
6 had in the past. Now here it is, we're back
7 doing what had failed before and we're doing it
8 with no increase in resources, we're not doing
9 anything different. All we're doing is going
10 ahead and increasing the stakes in regards to the
11 test that students in fact must pass.
12 Also we've got the issues, clearly,
13 especially in a city like New York of low
14 performing schools where the majority of low
15 performing schools in the state, of course,
16 happen to be in New York City. Many of these low
17 performing schools remain low performing schools
18 for many years. The State Education Department
19 has no real plan or has proved no ability to get
20 low performing schools off of the sur list. They
21 just do not necessarily know how to do it and one
22 of the problems they have in regards to not doing
23 it is they do not involve community in regards to
24 the planning that takes place in making schools
25 better, making them improve.
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2 Finally, we need a system of
3 governance that involves parents and community
4 residents in the fabric of running the schools.
5 It's not just enough to go ahead and have parents
6 welcome and have them participate in cake sales
7 and run, you know, make money, go ahead and buy
8 some computers. They have to have a role in what
9 actually takes place and at this particular point
10 the only model that I have seen that addresses
11 these particular concerns is the model that has
12 been created by the center of law and so through
13 justice and (inaudible) and I at this particular
14 point support that model. It is the model that
15 has a four tier system which looks at first the
16 school council on the bottom, the borough school
17 congresses, a borough board of education and then
18 a citywide board of education coordinating
19 council.
20 And I support this particular model
21 because at this particular point, number one: It
22 is a bottom up model, it's not a top down model.
23 It talks about going ahead and involving people
24 on this school level and having that filter up,
25 okay, not creating something, some structure and
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2 some kind of diagram or whatever and going ahead,
3 moving from the top and moving down, but in the
4 opposite, it moves from the bottom to the top and
5 that if in fact we are going to create the kinds
6 of schools that we need to create, those that are
7 going to allow our children to participate in a
8 meaningful level in the 21st century, then it's
9 time for us to go ahead and begin to do some
10 things.
11 Governance, once again, is not
12 necessarily an instructional issue. We need to
13 recognize that and as opposed to going ahead and
14 always, when we find a problem in regards to
15 school achievement that we're going to blame a
16 school board that -- More correctly, we have to
17 go ahead and blame those administrators within
18 the school, those teachers within the classroom,
19 those people at the state level who have created
20 expectations that at this particular point people
21 cannot reach because we continue to go ahead and
22 change the ceiling, making it higher and higher
23 and less achievable when the floor stays the
24 same. It doesn't move at all and unless we go
25 ahead and deal with some resources and some
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2 people who really know about schools, we're going
3 to go ahead and deal with this problem
4 continually. Thank you.
5 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
6 very much Mr. Mchawi. Incidentally, just for
7 your edification we had a person from (inaudible)
8 representing the Law and Social Justice Committee
9 at our Tuesday hearing, right, and so we have the
10 full proposal before us and we're very
11 appreciative of that and of course very
12 appreciative of your testimony, your advice and
13 council as well. Let me once again implore the
14 members to keep their questions short and crisp
15 and to the point so we can hear from everybody.
16 I see Virginia Kee.
17 MS. KEE: Hi. Terri and Steve, may
18 I take the liberty of, before I ask my question,
19 of introducing my husband, Dr. Herbert Kee who
20 has just arrived. Thank you for your very
21 knowledgeable testimony. I was very interested
22 in the bottom up and the top down and I do
23 remember Dr. Richard Green and we all miss him
24 when he passed on. But, isn't there a very
25 important relationship between the Mayor and the
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2 Chancellor, whatever happens in our school
3 system, if the Chancellor has the support of the
4 Mayor things can happen and I've seen where Mayor
5 pulls back from that support and we all felt the
6 lack of support in the school system. Whatever
7 someone was trying to do, whether it be Rudy Crew
8 or Richard Green or anyone else like that.
9 MR. MCHAWI: Well, we need to
10 recognize that the last time we had a Chancellor
11 who was responsive to parents and community, that
12 was Ramon Cortinez and that he got no Mayoral
13 support that replacing him has been a series of
14 Chancellors who are insular, who want nothing to
15 do with parents and community on any kind of
16 meaningful level and fine, they're fine with the
17 Mayor, so once again, if in fact we say that
18 parents are important, that community is
19 important then we have to show it by what we do
20 and not by what we say.
21 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assemblyman
22 Green.
23 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: First of all I
24 want to thank you for your testimony and also
25 acknowledge the fact that you served as Special
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2 Assistant to Richard Green and also have been a
3 Principal and administrator in the school system
4 as well. I guess the question that I have is in
5 looking at, because I know you look at this even
6 when Cortinez was Chancellor and who first
7 advanced this whole concept of, well he talked
8 about school based management, but also involving
9 parents in the process, if you have a bottom up
10 approach and it's parent centered would, are
11 there central roles and concerns that parents
12 should have in that process and I say this also
13 because I know you worked with the COMA Project
14 as well, have some understanding about that.
15 What do you think is or would be the essential
16 roles of parents in essentially in that process?
17 MR. MCHAWI: Well, I think first of
18 all and it has been mentioned that parents, we
19 need to demistify the school system for parents.
20 I don't think it's a matter sometimes of a lot of
21 training, it's just that very often there's a lot
22 of jargon and there's a lot of things that
23 parents are not on a regularly introduced to and
24 therefore, in many cases it becomes a somewhat
25 daunting task and they sometimes feel misplaced
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2 when their in the same situation with teachers
3 and administrators who have been within the
4 system for many, many years. We have to create a
5 situation which parents are the majority whether
6 we talk about school leadership teams or school
7 councils, that they have to be the majority, that
8 the meetings have to be held at a time where
9 parents can actually come out.
10 If in fact teachers and
11 administrators are going to be paid, we've had
12 situations where there will be a meeting and
13 teachers or administrators will be paid at the
14 per session rate, $30.00 an hour, and parents are
15 paid a few dollars for transportation. I mean
16 it's not fair, and obviously, if that's done, it
17 sends the message that you're not worth as much
18 because we're not compensating you in a similar
19 fashion. Alright, so we have to create a
20 situation in which parents are the majority, that
21 we create a situation within the school where
22 parents have the say over budget, how money is
23 spent, curriculum, what is actually going to go
24 ahead and take place within the classroom
25 although we understand the tension between
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2 Central and the State and the school, but once
3 again, the rubber meets the road in the classroom
4 and as a former classroom teacher I used to say,
5 "When I close my door, what happens in my
6 classroom is in my classroom", and you know
7 that's in many cases where it needs to stay.
8 So, we need to be clear that schools
9 have to have some say in regards to what happens
10 in curriculum very clearly also. Also, hiring
11 and firing, evaluation, although, I mean
12 obviously we have to be quite cognizant of the
13 kinds of concerns that the Unions have and
14 rightfully in many cases they do have some kinds
15 of concerns. But, as an example, within the C-30
16 process as it currently exists, it's backwards
17 because what happens is while the community goes
18 a head and has a say at the first stage, then at
19 the later stage the Superintendent has a say and
20 he goes a head, has his particular person that he
21 has pre-selected or whatever, no matter what the
22 parents say, and that that person comes out at
23 the top once the Superintendent is finished, no
24 matter what the parents really see or want. If
25 in fact we had it the other way where the
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2 Superintendent was first in regards to doing the
3 initial screening and parents were last in
4 regards to going a head and being the final
5 arbiter or decision maker in regards to who was
6 hired, we would be in a better situation because
7 then we would be very, very clear in regards to
8 the impact and input that parents had in the
9 firing or hiring process.
10 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Robin Brown.
11 MS. BROWN: Well just in terms of
12 the C-30, parents -- Just in terms of the C-30
13 as of yesterday, parents are about to be cut out
14 of that process. The process will be that
15 Superintendents will interview the candidates,
16 bring them before the school leadership team and
17 ultimately and then go back to the
18 Superintendent. He will pick the principal and
19 the principal will now pick the AP. So that's
20 what's in the works, right now. But you made an
21 interesting point talking about bottom to top in
22 there being some sort of authority on the school
23 level. Whatever replaces the school board, would
24 you agree that they would need to have some sort
25 of budget authority and that parents be the
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2 majority of those, say case in point, where
3 you've looked at school leadership teams?
4 MR. MCHAWI: Yes, you know, people
5 have talked about the Chicago model in regards to
6 in Chicago where schools get budgets directly and
7 that the parents, the school leadership counselor
8 team in Chicago, they go a head and make certain
9 decisions in regards to what is going to take
10 place. Now we recognize that there is some
11 categorical dollars that are not going to be able
12 to be moved. I mean if you've got 40 teachers or
13 whatever, you're not going to go a head and be
14 able to move that money around, but there are
15 discretionary dollars that people can go a head
16 and determine what it is that needs to happen, so
17 as opposed to going a head and getting X amount
18 of computers, you say, "Well no, at this
19 particular point we need more text books, so we
20 want to go a head and take our money from here
21 this area and we want to go ahead and provide our
22 children with more text books".
23 So, there's got to be a very hands
24 on relationship that people have and this idea of
25 creating or cutting out the C-30 process, I mean,
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2 its very interesting because one of the things
3 that we've seen, and you know this is quite
4 interesting, over the last couple of years we've
5 had a succession of Chancellors who are not
6 qualified to be Chancellors, okay. They are not
7 certifiable, let us say, they cannot be certified
8 and we've had to have waivers for them, yet and
9 still, these Chancellors go ahead and now their
10 talking about the fact that all teachers need to
11 be certified. I mean this is interesting but at
12 the same time its also a little bit hypocritical,
13 I think, that we're saying that we need a manager
14 to go ahead and run the school system as opposed
15 to an educator and we need to see if in fact that
16 this can work because up until this particular
17 point, it has not worked, that we've seen school
18 achievement under our last Chancellor, it's
19 worse. Attendance was worse, you know.
20 If we look at most things that we
21 would look at in regards to looking at school
22 performance and achievement, things have gotten
23 worse and we had someone who supposedly is a good
24 manager, but in regards to their education
25 experience and their ability to go ahead and
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2 marshall people around some kind of educational
3 vision, they haven't been able to do that.
4 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Levin.
5 MR. LEVIN: Just to pick up on that
6 and taking advantage of your own history and
7 powers of observation, have you seen any examples
8 of where there's been effective cooperation
9 coming from business in the school system?
10 Because much has been tried and one of the
11 ironies is that most business people are parents
12 anyhow.
13 MR. MCHAWI: Well, I think there
14 have been some examples. I'm aware of several
15 examples where, well two things have happened.
16 Number one: Businesses have made personnel
17 available to schools to actually come in and
18 teach and go ahead and teach about business and
19 teach about several areas of expertise that they
20 have. Another thing that has happened in several
21 schools that I know about is that businesses have
22 been able to contribute, for instance, computers.
23 I know that in several schools there have been
24 computer labs that have been donated by
25 businesses and that this of course has been very
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2 good because you've been able to get state of the
3 art technology in a school that otherwise may
4 have had a problem with that. So I think that
5 these are two examples of ways in which
6 businesses can be directly involved and we need
7 very clearly all segments of our community
8 involved and businesses, I mean, as New York
9 being one of the business capitals of the world,
10 that if in fact you're going to have workers and
11 those workers are going to be skilled, where are
12 they going to be coming from? They're going to
13 be coming from the New York City public schools
14 so there's got to be some kind of (inaudible)
15 protocol when there's got to be some kind of
16 investment of business in schools.
17 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well,
18 Mr. Mchawi we all want to thank you very much.
19 You were much too modest. I'm appreciative of
20 Assembly member Green for letting us know the
21 very extensive experience you've had in the New
22 York City public school system and we so much
23 appreciate you sharing that experience and your
24 advice with us this afternoon.
25 MR. MCHAWI: Thank you.
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2 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
3 sir.
4 MS. THOMSON: Excellent. Meg
5 Baker, PTA President, P.S. 129 in College Point.
6 MS. BAKER: Hi. Good afternoon. I don't have
7 anything prepared so if I kind of go off the
8 beaten track, please forgive me. I've had a
9 child in the public school system since 1985 and
10 I take great hope that these changes that have
11 taken place already. The fact that gives me more
12 accountability, that the Board of Ed as we know
13 it is gone, I see great hope in that. Okay. But
14 reflecting on what people have said previous to
15 me really, Commissioner Klein has asked for
16 parent involvement, you guys are asking for
17 parent involvement, and as I said, I've been
18 involved for 17 years and really administrative
19 staff, public officials, whatever, you need to
20 treat parents with respect.
21 The gentleman before me kind of
22 looted to it when he spoke about -- I've been on
23 leadership teams where the teachers not only got
24 their $10.00 an hour stipend, they also got their
25 $30.00 an hour per diem. Okay, to even the
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2 thought of having a teacher come to a dinner
3 meeting at six o'clock is outrageous and we're
4 all told well they have families too and they
5 have to go home. But you know what, I'm going to
6 a meeting, I'm leaving my family to go to a
7 meeting, I put about 35 hours in a week as my PTA
8 President, okay, I don't get paid for that. I
9 don't want to get paid for that, but just because
10 I don't have a professional title as a teacher.
11 I have a college degree, but I chose to stay home
12 with my children and become a parent advocate in
13 different levels, okay, and I come from a
14 functioning school. I come from a functioning
15 district, District 25, but yet, even at that
16 level, and we don't have any (inaudible) and the
17 scandals and whatever going on, I still feel that
18 I am not treated as an equal and the bottom line
19 is, excuse me, it's kind of ironic, two of our
20 teachers left last year and had children for the
21 first time and they came back last week to show
22 their kids off and both of them in a heartbeat
23 said, "I'd rather be in the classroom".
24
25
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2 They're now finding out as new
3 parents how tough it is to be a parent. So I
4 kind of laugh, like we've been trying to tell you
5 that all along, but now you're finding out first
6 hand for yourself, how tough it is to be a
7 parent. So we are professionals. Okay, we are
8 professionals and I do resent, you know, we've
9 had meeting cancelled, leadership team meetings
10 cancelled because a teacher couldn't be there or
11 an administrator couldn't be there, but if I
12 can't make it as a PTA President, the meeting
13 still goes on. What's wrong with that picture?
14 That's not right. So that's also like the
15 gentleman before said, that's saying I'm not as
16 important as the teacher or the staff person, I
17 mean the administrator because I can't be there.
18 That's okay, we can still have a meeting without
19 me. Okay. So that really is a big issue.
20 In terms of school boards, to me,
21 they were too political. I remember going to
22 college 25 years ago and being, trying to get
23 women's political action going and we were told,
24 point blank, stepping stone for political office,
25 community school boards. You were told that wa
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2 step one. If you want to pursue a career in
3 politics, you were active in politics, go to your
4 school boards, okay. And as I said, 25, we're a
5 functioning district, but, I've heard all kinds
6 of ideas. I think the idea of Borough Boards is
7 good. If you want to have parent involvement,
8 perhaps, like the lady ahead of me spoke about,
9 maybe splitting the district into regions or
10 whatever. Maybe have one parent from each
11 region. That's kind of on the board, but to have
12 every parent go would be too much. But bottom
13 line is, whatever thing you do, as everyone has
14 spoke to before, don't just say parent
15 involvement and not give us a job. I've also sat
16 on committees, perfect example, report card
17 committee and we're a functioning district, okay.
18 Both the teachers and the parents both said,
19 "Let's have the Kindergarten report card the same
20 as one through six". We all said it. Hello? We
21 go back to the next meeting. Guess what? They're
22 different, so why waste my time. I wasted seven
23 or eight hours going to these meetings and
24 speaking and you do what you want to do, they do
25 what they want anyway. So that, the parent is
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2 very frustrated. It's very frustrating, okay.
3 I've been to several of these kinds of meetings
4 as Terri knows, and it's for parent involvement
5 and yet, no offense to elected officials,
6 Mrs. Marshall was here before and Mr. Liu, you
7 have other forums to speak. You get to have your
8 half hour, forty-five minutes in other forums
9 like this.
10 We parents don't get many
11 opportunities, so as you said, you want to
12 explain why they get to speak longer, you respect
13 them coming here. That's fine, but do you know
14 what, I should -- If I want to speak for five
15 hours here I should be able to speak for five
16 hours because this was billed as a parent
17 observation. You will hear from Mrs. Marshall
18 and Mr. Liu in other capacities. Like tonight, I
19 would get first crack at parents, but that's my
20 personal opinion. Let them speak first. You
21 asked for them to come, I'm here since eleven
22 o'clock. Okay? So my time is important too. I
23 arranged for someone to pick up my child after
24 school. Like I said, I really see hope with the
25 fact that all these changes going on, I really do
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2 see hope. And I don't know how to address the
3 idea of getting parents more respect. I don't
4 know how to deal with that and on a personal
5 note, you're talking before about Louie Armstrong
6 and what a well performing school it is and its
7 wonderful. That's because you have teachers
8 probably in that school who don't really worry
9 about the contract. They're not running out the
10 door at 3:01.
11 Okay, personal issue. This whole 20
12 minute thing. Okay, it was determined that now
13 we're going to put the 20 minutes back at the end
14 of the day until three o'clock. Okay, but guess
15 what? In my school, my son is dismissed at 2:45
16 because they have (inaudible) dismissals because
17 the teachers can't stay until 3:01 to dismiss the
18 kids. So where's my kid getting 20 minutes?
19 He's not getting it. Okay. The school day, by
20 their contract, runs from, I believe it's 8:20
21 now to 3:00, okay. A period for prep, a period
22 for lunch. Okay. I come from a union family on
23 both sides. Carpenters and electricians. They
24 go in, they put their seven hours in. They don't
25 get prep time. They get a half hour for lunch.
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2 They clock in and they clock out.
3 Teachers, I understand about unions,
4 but if they don't want to do it, they don't have
5 to do it. We had 14 new teachers in our school
6 last year. As Terri knows, we got a brand new
7 addition that we fought 10 years to get, 14 new
8 teachers. Now we heard last year there was going
9 to be budget cuts, no after school program.
10 Three of the new teachers, brand new teachers,
11 approached me, they wanted on their own time, for
12 free, to stay after school one day a week to help
13 the kids. They were told by the UFT Rep, that
14 was a no, no. And these new teachers, if they
15 want to get off on the right foot in a school,
16 they better not rock the boat. So guess what?
17 They didn't do it. So whoever can do something
18 about the teachers contract, that has to be
19 addressed because if they're on their own time or
20 they're willing to work on their own time, why
21 should they be intimidated by the UFT Rep that
22 they can't stay after time after school. And I
23 have a ton of other things to say, but I'm
24 getting nervous, so I better stop.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: You did fine.
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2 MS. BAKER: Thank you.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Do we have
4 any questions? Mr. Clayton.
5 MR. CLAYTON: Yes, thank you for
6 coming and as representing a parent organization
7 I agree with you of course that parents need more
8 respect from the system. I gave you a case in
9 point. There were two issues that the United
10 Parent Association brought up to the new
11 Administration earlier in the year. One was that
12 the end of last year, June, Terri Thomson here
13 and a parent committee along with Robin Brown was
14 a part of that committee, came up with a policy
15 for parents to actually go into an agreement that
16 they would be advocates for their children. They
17 will participate in the educational process and
18 things that the school system would do for them
19 and they in turn would do for their child and it
20 was a nice little compact that gave parents a
21 sense of that they were being included in the
22 schools.
23 I mean, just the whole sense of it
24 was a positive good thing. A lot of work was put
25 into it and I brought it up to the Chancellor
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2 that this is out there and it's been neglected.
3 So he told me that he would take a look at it and
4 get back to the United Parent Association on it.
5 This was two months ago. They haven't gotten
6 back to us yet. Another issue was dealing with
7 parents was about two months ago the federal
8 government said, "well, we'll give New York (I
9 think it was something like) 89 million dollars
10 because there's 15 hours that you need to make up
11 because of the 9/11 fiasco", so 15 more hours is
12 supposed to go into instruction back into the
13 school. Again, the United Parent Association
14 told the Chancellor, if you want to make parents
15 feel included, why don't you give the
16 responsibility of those 15 hours to the parents,
17 to the leadership teams. Let them decide how
18 their parents want to see this go into their
19 school because it's going to effect.
20 They'll have to come after school to
21 pick their kids up, etc., etc. He thought it was
22 a good idea, I'll get back to you. But then the
23 Union came out, the UFT came out saying that they
24 don't want to have no part to this 15 additional
25 hours if they don't have say so in the money and
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2 so now it's a dead issue. We're probably losing
3 money. I don't hear no talk about these 15
4 additional hours going into the classroom. So
5 this is just a little indignative (indignant) of
6 what you're talking about, the lack of respect
7 for parents, but I'm glad to see that you are
8 passionate about parent involvement.
9 MS. BAKER: Well, as I said, after
10 17 years, I do see hope, I really do see hope. I
11 never thought I would see this day that it would
12 be this open and I hope by the time my fourth
13 grader is getting to leave the system that it
14 will be working. Working better.
15 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Levin.
16 MR. LEVIN: Thank you again for
17 your spirited remarks and it is very helpful. I
18 wonder if there's a way to help parents who come
19 on to any of these organizations, including
20 whatever board we come up with to replace the
21 community school boards, to provide some sort of
22 training about just the functioning of a board
23 and actually do it not just for parents, but for
24 everyone including teachers and staff and
25 educators because there is a difference between
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2 having substantive knowledge or real interest
3 because we're a parent and just being able to
4 understand how it works because I'm taken by your
5 notion of getting respect. And one way to deal
6 with that, and esteem, is to just make sure we
7 have a program that gives everybody some
8 instruction on how to conduct themselves in a
9 board.
10 MS. BAKER: Yes, I definitely agree
11 in terms of something about jargon, definitely
12 parents need just like a dictionary because the
13 programs change from year to year. There's ELL,
14 I mean, and all these different, you know, lists
15 of the --
16 MR. LEVIN: The acronyms.
17 MS. BAKER: Exactly, that's the
18 word I'm looking for and then just in terms of,
19 you know, and I don't think, and I think if you
20 set up a borough board, whatever you come up
21 with, you can't expect say if you have a
22 training, don't ask parents to like, no offense,
23 come to your Borough Hall. Like for parents in
24 Rockaway, that's far from here, okay. Go to the
25 district or whatever organization you set up,
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2 once you set it up, have all the training done at
3 that level. Don't make people go to Tweed or --
4 I mean I've gong to trainings in Livingston
5 Street. Don't make us do that because you know,
6 once again, it's about lack of respect because
7 they're usually done during the day when we have
8 to rush to get home -- I know it's issues about
9 you have to timing and scheduling. I do
10 understand that, but your heading in the right
11 direction by even having these meetings, but
12 really think of all the issues, you know, like I
13 said, I'm really tired of going to things where
14 our time isn't as valuable as other people's
15 times.
16 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well, we want
17 to thank you very much and before we do, Terri.
18 MS. THOMSON: Thanks for being
19 here, for taking the time and for you honest
20 testimony. You mentioned borough boards as
21 something you thought you would support. What's
22 more important, a borough board or a local board?
23 Can you have just a borough board and no local
24 board?
25 MS. BAKER: Like I said, we come
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2 from a highly functioning district. Our board,
3 for the most part, has worked, but I've also gone
4 to community school board meetings where there's
5 the same four or five members that are there
6 every -- There are people that were elected last
7 time, I've never seen them and I don't go every
8 single month, but I should know these guys faces.
9 If I pass them on the street I would know them.
10 So, you know, it looks great on people's resume.
11 Oh, I was a member of the school board, but you
12 know, if you're not an active parent or, that
13 doesn't mean anything, that's just something on
14 their resume. So I think borough boards in
15 conjunction with community people, parents and
16 administrators too, I think they will be more
17 effective only because school board people, even
18 the members of the school board don't have a clue
19 what's going on in the schools.
20 With the exception of one or two
21 school board members in our district and we are a
22 functioning district, they do not come into the
23 schools. They do not come into the schools. So
24 I think that a borough board, it may be have
25 people, administrators or community people that
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2 will go into the schools and make that a
3 condition. If you want to be part of this, you
4 know, and if you don't you get kicked off, you
5 know. So, that's it.
6 MS. THOMSON: Thank you.
7 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS:
8 Ms. Reddington.
9 MS. REDDINGTON: Yes, thank you
10 very much for your testimony. Can I ask you how
11 you would, whether it be a borough board or a
12 local board, what is your preference, election or
13 appointment?
14 MS. BAKER: Oh, I would say
15 election. I would definitely say election.
16 MS. REDDINGTON: Okay, thank you.
17 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: We thank you
18 very much for your time, we know how valuable it
19 is and we thank you for spending it with us.
20 Thank you very much.
21 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Sandra Smith.
22 MS. SMITH: Oh. Good afternoon. I
23 really wasn't expecting to testify today. I just
24 wanted to come and hear what people had to say,
25 but I've been urged to say something. I have a
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2 child in middle school and as far as community
3 school boards are concerned, they weren't as
4 effective as they could have been and I think
5 that elections should be held in November when
6 it's the general elections that are going on. I
7 think you do need a screening process where as
8 people will divulge who they are and what their
9 intentions are. Candidates nights are very
10 important. I believe that like school leadership
11 teams, some seats should be set aside for
12 business and community people. Teachers should
13 also be on the community school board and
14 administrators because those are the people who
15 are working in the trenches who know and have the
16 pulse on what's going on in the schools. There's
17 a lot of problems going on in the schools that
18 community school board members don't know about,
19 but it's important for the community, some type
20 of vehicle for parents to be able to come to to
21 talk about what their problems are and what the
22 issues are. I know I usually go to community
23 school board meetings in the past and that's
24 where I can get some of my problems solved. I
25 know coming from elementary school, children do
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2 not learn script very well and by the time they
3 get to middle school they're expected to write
4 everything in script and if they hadn't had
5 enough practice, that's difficult for them. So I
6 went to the community school boards and I made
7 this note mentioned and within two weeks, my
8 son's class and all the other sixth grade classes
9 had script handbook writing books and that's
10 where parents can get things done. So when you
11 have these forums where you can go to a local
12 meeting and have your representatives that
13 represent you on the educational policies and
14 procedures where they can help you, that's the
15 vehicle that parents need and they have to have.
16 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Very good.
17 Very to the point, very concise. Are you
18 completed or just pausing? I'm sorry.
19 MS. SMITH: No, I'm just pausing.
20 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Oh, I'm so
21 sorry. Well let me just say this. So far it's
22 going very well.
23 MS. SMITH: Because at these local
24 community school boards you can, parent will be
25 able to voice their frustrations and let the
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2 policy makers see that certain things need to be
3 done. The high school application was a fiasco
4 this year. I mean, who do I talk to about that?
5 If I go the the community school board, they have
6 nothing to do with it. If I go to the District
7 Superintendent, they really have nothing to do
8 with it. It came out of Central. Okay. Same
9 thing with report cards procedure. My son got a
10 grade in error I've been trying to get changed
11 since last year and I've been to the school
12 level, the community school board level, the
13 District level, I had to go all the way to the
14 Chancellor's meeting. One of those meetings that
15 they have going throughout the city to make my
16 point and get that done. But they only did it
17 for me, but, how many other parents had the same
18 problem?
19 You see that's the situation where I
20 believe once you've, it's decided on what kind of
21 governing body will the local school boards be,
22 is they need authority and they need power and
23 resources to get things done. I shouldn't have
24 to travel from borough to borough, go to meeting
25 to meeting to get a problem to be solved that
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2 could have been done. Somebody give someone else
3 the access code to go into the ATS or the OSIS
4 system and change this grade. I had to track
5 down and track down the Chancellor and his
6 people. That shouldn't happen. That should be
7 able to happen on a local level and there's a lot
8 of other issues that parents have that they
9 really don't know where to turn to. So what ever
10 governing body that you put in place or that's
11 going to be put in place, needs to give parents
12 the opportunity to come and get some of their
13 problems solved that they can't get solved at the
14 local school level. Thank you I think.
15 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Okay, I
16 should have waited for the thank you. Thank you
17 though for your testimony and for your remarks,
18 for sharing with us your experiences. Do we have
19 any questions?
20 ASSEMBLYMAN RIVERA: Just a quick
21 question. You indicated in your testimony that
22 you would have teachers and administrators serve
23 on school boards. Have you given any thought to
24 either having them serve on school boards in
25 districts where they work or should they be
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2 limited to serve on school boards outside the
3 district where they work or outside of the
4 borough where they work? As you know, we have
5 experimented with this whole concept about the
6 make up of the school boards and including
7 teachers or including administrators and to what
8 extent they should work either in the district or
9 in the borough. Have you given any thought and
10 what -- Better yet, what are your thoughts on
11 this whole issue?
12 MS. SMITH: I really haven't
13 thought of that. I just thought that Principals,
14 teachers and administrators have a direct impact
15 on the children and they know some of the issues
16 and some of the problems that are going on in the
17 schools and if they were there down in the
18 trenches could bring this information forward to
19 the local community school boards, they could get
20 together and figure out ways to solve it because
21 if one Principal or teacher are having this
22 problem in their school, it can't be just
23 (inaudible) to that particular one school.
24 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
25 MR. CLAYTON: Yes, thank you for
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2 your testimony. And I just want for a point of
3 clarification, you were saying, because as we
4 know in the school districts, it's only the
5 elementary and middle schools, but you said you
6 had a high school problem, so it is my contention
7 that in this newly created governing body, you
8 feel that the high schools should fall in the
9 realm of that catchment? So, in other words, if
10 a high school is in District 5 geographically,
11 they should fall up under the governance of this
12 new body?
13 MS. SMITH: It could, it could, yes
14 because once you leave elementary and middle
15 schools your problems don't stop.
16 MR. CLAYTON: Right. They
17 increase.
18 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well, we
19 thank you very, very much for your testimony off
20 the cuff and it was extemporaneous and it was
21 very clear, very cogent and we very much
22 appreciate it.
23 MS. THOMSON: Dr. Delois Blakely,
24 Martin Luther King Jr. High School.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: And just for
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2 the benefit of the rate of arrivers, I just want
3 to again indicate that we ask people to try to
4 confine their testimony to about five minutes to
5 allow us some questions and answers and allow
6 everybody to speak that we can possibly
7 accommodate. Good afternoon.
8 DR. BLAKELY: Good afternoon. I'm
9 Dr. Delois Blakely and I guess I wear many hats,
10 but the hat that I come before you today is
11 dealing with Martin Luther King High School. I'm
12 a parent there and it's very appropriate to be
13 here in Queens because this is a multi-ethnic,
14 multi- cultured community. My son comes from
15 West Africa, the Gambia and he's been in this
16 country for four years. Martin Luther King is
17 basically an immigrant school. It is a citywide
18 school. Martin Luther King is a school that
19 carries a profound legacy of the late Martin
20 Luther King, Jr. Non-bodies and conflict
21 resolution. If you recall, there was a shoot out
22 at Martin Luther King school. As a parent before
23 the shoot out, I was able to sit at Martin Luther
24 King for six months, from 10 to 6 every day,
25 which became a part of my job to educate my own
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2 son and to be a part of the education of my
3 child. During that time, systemic problems, I
4 was appalled. I was outraged to have witnessed
5 what I witnessed in the public school system and
6 being appalled and outraged, as an educator
7 myself which extensive education I enjoy,
8 learning is an every phenomena for me, of going
9 to MIT, Harvard, Columbia University, a full
10 right scholar, and have worked with children in
11 youth across the city of New York for about 30
12 years.
13 Virginia Kee is an old time
14 colleague dealing with Chinatown Planning Council
15 in the 60's and other from one community to
16 another and being involved with the United Nation
17 for the last 30 years dealing with many of the
18 departments at the United Nations saying that the
19 children have a right to be educated and in
20 saying that, the governance body is a very
21 important body. The decision that you are making
22 around reform of a governance body for the Board
23 of Education and for the community is very, very
24 important. Whoever that will serve, whatever
25 instrument that you will use for the good of our
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2 children, remember they have a right to be
3 educated and in saying that, the quality of
4 education they have a right to. So we must look
5 at the resources of the community at large.
6 It is important to include the
7 school community? Yes. But I think we must go
8 beyond the school community, look into the
9 general environment, look into the neighborhood
10 community to help to educate our children. They
11 may not come to PTA meetings, they may not come
12 even into the school building to a community
13 planning board in the past or a community board
14 meeting, but they are there. We must tap the
15 resources of the community that our children, to
16 make good citizens of tomorrow, in a changing
17 society which is global, then we need the best
18 and the brightest from every level. From the
19 morality to the academe, to the culture as well
20 as from the recreation of the community and to
21 feed upon the greater resource of our community
22 is also the economics of our community. So I ask
23 that you include all segments of the society for
24 the development and I thank you.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: And we thank
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2 you very, very much. Virginia Kee.
3 MS. KEY: It's wonderful to see you
4 after so many years and see your involvement and
5 your commitment continues. Being at a high
6 school, what would you recommend about school
7 safety since this is a very important issue for
8 all of us who are in education and for our young
9 people? Do you have any recommendations on
10 procedures or anything like that regarding school
11 safety?
12 DR. BLAKELY: I think that I talked
13 to Mr. Bin Tucker the first day on the job
14 because he's working for us, the parents and in
15 talking to him and the parents as the greatest
16 stake holders of the Board of Education. In
17 talking to him and being at Martin Luther King
18 School, Martin Luther King is on the North corner
19 of the west side at 66th Street and on the South
20 corner is LaGuardia High School. If you look at
21 the environment that is set up culturally, it is
22 a prisoned environment so you are really
23 perpetuating that behavior to the children, what
24 you present there. If you look at LaGuardia,
25 there's music playing when you go in the lobby.
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2 Now don't tell me, children are children,
3 teenagers are teenagers, I don't care where they
4 come from, whether it's a rich family, the poor
5 family, the poor, the powerless, or the powerful.
6 Children are children.
7 At the same time, you don't have
8 that element or that environment that the
9 children are dealing, so I think we need to look
10 in the United States and outside of the United
11 States for a model that we can emulate or we can
12 adapt and look at Texas, look at some of the
13 reforms that are happening in the United States.
14 Kentucky. And I'm saying, look at some of the
15 models that do work around safety and security of
16 children in schools.
17 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Cassandra.
18 Cassandra Mullen and then Robin.
19 MS. MULLEN: Hi, how are you?
20 DR. BLAKELY: Fine, thank you.
21 MS. MULLEN: I have a question,
22 just for my own edification. You spoke a lot
23 about having morality and integrity and certainly
24 that's a big issue with the community schools
25 boards, the one's that are non-functioning,
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2 sometimes that issues with people who are corrupt
3 or so forth or so on. How would you feel about a
4 higher authority, meaning an ethics commission of
5 some kind with a code of ethics by which these
6 people are made to live and regulate them much
7 the way -- Not regulate, but view them and view
8 their activities much in the same way a doctor or
9 a lawyer is regulated? I mean, you can't license
10 them, I understand there would be licensure
11 issues, but certainly you could do that. How
12 would you feel about that?
13 DR. BLAKELY: I think that's very
14 important because our children must go beyond
15 just the social value of themselves, but to reach
16 into their inner strength which is beyond, which
17 is a part of the ethic responsibility. But if
18 you look at also values, values may be a softer
19 term that we could use so that we don't fall into
20 the trap of religion or spirituality. So values
21 is very important for our children.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Robin Brown.
23 MS. BROWN: I know the problems all
24 too well at Martin Luther King High School. We
25 talked about them. But if there was another
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2 entity between the school and Central Board to
3 act as a buffer, do you think that some of those
4 issues at the school would have been resoled
5 sooner or are some of the issues that are there
6 may not have happened if there had been something
7 like a school board in between Central Board and
8 the High School? To have those issues resolved
9 sooner?
10 DR. BLAKELY: I think it's
11 important to have like an embellishment concept.
12 Now making up that in terms of a committee of
13 those who are able to deal with many of the
14 issues, for instance the retaliation of a parent
15 like me and that's why we have sued the Board of
16 Education for $100 million dollars and we're in
17 the U.S. Federal Court. But what I'm saying is
18 that it is very important that yo deal with those
19 issues at that level and we've been in court for
20 eight months and is prosy as parents. We're
21 doing it ourselves and it's about six of us.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assemblyman
23 Green.
24 ASSEMBLYMAN GREEN: Yes, the
25 relationship between the High Schools and local
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2 districts, this disconnect from thirty years ago,
3 do you think that the High School should be
4 absorbed into the local districts?
5 DR. BLAKELY: I think so because we
6 had no community to support us. We went to
7 District 3 and District 3 threw up their hands at
8 me going to them with the problems of grievance
9 and they're saying Dr. Blakely we have no
10 jurisdiction over you, but we are in your
11 backyard. I said that my child spends more hours
12 out of Harlem in District 3 which is in the
13 backyard of Lincoln Center and I'm saying you
14 have no jurisdiction for my complaint of the
15 problem for my child in your backyard? So it's
16 very important that we have the districts itself
17 to be a part of the process of the education of
18 children of that district. Yes, even if it's a
19 high school.
20 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well we want
21 to thank you very, very much for your testimony.
22 I'm reminded of the fact that some people who are
23 the most softest spoken individuals speak with
24 the greatest eloquence and I don't think that
25 your soft spoken presentation in any way
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2 diminished the power of your testimony. If
3 anything, it probably enhanced it, so we thank
4 you very much. Thank you for all of your advice
5 and all of your wisdom.
6 DR. BLAKELY: And thank you for
7 having me to come and I do represent the poor and
8 the powerless parents that are not inclusive.
9 Thank you.
10 MS. THOMSON: Our next and last
11 speaker for the afternoon is Debra Jackson,
12 District 29 School Leadership Team. At six
13 o'clock for additional testimony.
14 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Just for the
15 edification of the members, there was a request
16 that we, that the task force members have a brief
17 meeting at the conclusion of this part of the
18 testimony and then we will resume with the public
19 hearing at six o'clock, but there will be at the
20 conclusion of this witness about a fifteen minute
21 meeting so we can help coordinate, better
22 coordinate our own activities.
23 MS. JACKSON: Good afternoon. My
24 name is Debra Jackson and I'm from District 29.
25 I've lived in Queens Village all of my life. I
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2 was born and raised here in Jamaica and I went
3 through the public school system.
4 When I put my children in public
5 school I decided that I would step in and be a
6 part of their education to find very confusing.
7 I didn't understand the way the system was being
8 operated or performed. Then I met the district
9 office after meeting the Principal of the school
10 and after meeting the school leadership team and
11 after going to several meetings and getting
12 literature that I've read a lot of. Our
13 community in Queens, in District 29, has
14 drastically changed over the years, especially
15 when I was a little girl, because we knew
16 everybody on our block. There wasn't a house
17 that or a person in my neighborhood that I
18 couldn't call there name out and they knew who I
19 was and they knew who my family was. But now
20 since that's changed, the community has changed.
21 The school has changed.
22 The, I would say like the Haitian
23 population in Queens and the Jamaican and all
24 these different cultural different backgrounds,
25 all of these things has changed and how in the
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2 community when we look at this how to reach out
3 to these people, how to communicate with these
4 people. These people are coming from different
5 countries. They live differently, their
6 religions are different, everything about them
7 are different and when you look at all the
8 changes that have been taken place and you see
9 where the No Child Left Behind Act has came into
10 play and the doctor who spoke before me, I got an
11 answer because I always wondered about the Board
12 of Education.
13 I've always wondered, I sit in the
14 school and I can see if first hand because now
15 I'm in the school, see. We sit out here, we
16 don't have children that go to the school system
17 anymore. There's people who sit on the community
18 school board that doesn't have children in
19 school. They're doctors, lawyers and they're,
20 you know, they're going on with their lives and
21 these people speak for us who have children that
22 go to school that are not getting decent lunches,
23 who there's things running around in the school.
24 I mean little rodents and things like that where
25 the school could be much cleaner. The atmosphere
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 of the public school system is horrendous. As a
3 parent not knowing anything about the Board of
4 Education, walking in there trying to find out
5 information, I don't have to speak to you, I'm
6 the teacher, I'm the UFT, I'm the representative,
7 I know what's going on when you ask them a
8 question, they don't respond to you because they
9 feel why should they.
10 They have the power, they have the
11 education. You just sign on the dotted line, per
12 say, but I always say, you have to read before
13 you sign because I was in a situation where I
14 signed something and it wasn't feasible for me.
15 So we have to be careful as people coming in as
16 young people having children who have never been
17 through this system before, going in and they're
18 telling parent involvement, parent involvement.
19 Because that's all I hear is parent involvement
20 but when you go to try to be a parent and try to
21 be involved you're just turned away. You're just
22 turned away and you're told that well go to this
23 meeting, go to that meeting, you get information.
24 In Queens there are three schools that had been
25 built.
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2 From what I understand, those three
3 schools are supposed to be active on 2003. What
4 kind of procedure or policy has been put in place
5 to involve the community? Now the school is
6 going to be open in September. We have failing
7 students, level ones. Things that I have never
8 even though the No Child Left Behind brought out
9 something. I've always felt that the Board of
10 Education had a responsibility to provide fair
11 education for our children, but when you look and
12 see children in the eighth grade dropping out of
13 school and nobody calls you on the phone to say,
14 hey what happened to your kid? Okay,
15 fortunately, now, he's a bus driver. He took the
16 city test and he's able to drive the bus, but
17 unfortunately, they're going on strike next week.
18 He probably won't even have that.
19 But what I'm trying to say is that
20 when you want to include parents, don't look at
21 them because I'm not wearing diamond rings on my
22 ears, I'm not wearing the finest clothes, I'm not
23 wearing the finest shoes, I'm not driving a
24 Mercedes Benz, so therefore, I don't want to have
25 anything to do with you. What kind of system is
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2 going to be put in place so that people will
3 start being responsible for their actions,
4 especially the community school board, because if
5 somebody is going to speak on the behalf of me I
6 want that person to speak on the behalf of me
7 because they are concerned and they care, not
8 because it's going to put ten dollars in their
9 pocket, you know, or because they're going to get
10 in a position or they're going to be in a
11 position to wear a suit and a tie and speak for
12 me. No. I want somebody whose interested in our
13 children, who love our children and whose going
14 to be responsible. The Board of Education is
15 responsible and was responsible for two or three
16 or more generations of failing the system. Our
17 children failed. Our children can't take tests.
18 They graduate from high school and never been,
19 were never able to take a civil service test and
20 pass it because they didn't know the concepts of
21 how to take a test and pass it.
22 So who is responsible? Who's
23 responsible if you -- We got a Board of
24 Education for the last 40 years, 50 years or
25 whatever. Wasn't it their responsibility to see
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2 that these children, that these high school
3 student were prepared, (inaudible). We have a
4 lot of children in District 29 that are now level
5 ones and now their parents are not going to have
6 anywhere -- Now I'm fortunate because I'm able
7 to be here from eleven o'clock until now, but
8 there is a whole community out there of people
9 who cannot be, have more concerns then I do and
10 they can't voice their opinion because they're
11 not able to be here because of working
12 situations. My mother told me, she said why are
13 you going to all of these meetings? What for?
14 What's the purpose of them? They're getting
15 paid. These people are getting paid. Let the
16 teachers do their job. But when the teachers
17 evidently are not doing their job when you got a
18 half of a community with kids that are level
19 ones, the children are level ones. If they were
20 doing such a fantastic job and doing their job,
21 they're getting paid a certain amount of money to
22 provide a certain service. Why do we have so
23 many children that now require a No Child Left
24 Behind Act that has now going to fire 50
25 principals in the school system because they
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2 didn't or are not able to prove or had a history,
3 they've had a history of failing students. So
4 that history goes back for 40 something years
5 with the Board of Education. Just because a No
6 Child Left Behind Act just started or just
7 existed, who was responsible 40 years ago? These
8 children, these children, my children are just in
9 the first, second, third and fourth grade.
10 They're going to be taking tests this year. I'm
11 constantly, what are you doing? What are -- Show
12 me the procedure, how do you do this? Show me
13 that you know how to do this because if you don't
14 know how to do it you're not going to take the
15 test because I don't want them in a category with
16 children, they're going to have a certain amount
17 of category where they're going to test these
18 children to determine whether or not these
19 schools will excel or decline.
20 So if you have a population of
21 general ed children who don't even read in
22 Kindergarten, c'mon, there are fifth graders that
23 can't even read a Kindergarten book, there is
24 something wrong in this system. Thank you.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well we thank
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2 you very much. We thank you for your testimony
3 and for deciding to testify. I know that you
4 were here for a number of hours observing the
5 proceedings. Do we have any questions? Robin
6 Brown.
7 MS. BROWN: I have one question.
8 In all of the, were you able to reach out to your
9 school board at all or were they able to offer
10 any sense of direction for you?
11 MS. JACKSON: Okay, I'm a type of
12 person that seeks information. I look for
13 information, but there's a lot of people who,
14 there's a lot of parents in the community that
15 they just take the advice of somebody else. Say,
16 we have a community school board, you can go to
17 them and talk to them, but is that community
18 school board going to be responsible for -- We
19 can sit here and we can testify and we can say
20 all of these things all day long. But is anybody
21 really taking it into consideration on what we're
22 saying? Is anybody going to do anything about
23 the half a million children that are level ones
24 in just in 29. I don't know how many other areas
25 children are failing in, but in District 29 alone
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2 there's a lot of children that have been deprived
3 of fair education because they have took lunch
4 forms for example and said that if you make a
5 certain amount of money you're considered low
6 poverty-stricken. Well, let me tell you
7 something.
8 My parents bought their home for
9 $25,000.00. My mother's home is now worth
10 $250,000.00. Okay, so when we take our lunch
11 forms into the school and they tell you, you know
12 just put down this amount because we can get more
13 money, a lot of that deprives the community of
14 resources when we do things like that because it
15 says if you're poverty-stricken, you're able to
16 get Federal funds from the Government if you're
17 poverty stricken. So how many people are
18 actually going in there, filling out those lunch
19 forms and putting their actual amount. I have
20 one -- I'll give you an example. I have one
21 parent come to me, Oh Ms. Jackson, me and my
22 wife, we put down our income, well why do we
23 still have to pay $1.25? I said you're making
24 $75,000.00 a year, what do you think and what is
25 $1.25? When you have a disabled person over here
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2 that is making less then $11,000.00 a year can't
3 afford to pay the rent and buy food for four
4 children and you're talking about you and your
5 wife put down -- Granted now, that's federal --
6 you're supposed to put down your actual amount of
7 what you make because this is the problem.
8 People are using the system and causing more pain
9 and suffering for the ones who really can't
10 afford to do the things that they're supposed to
11 do and that's where our children.
12 And when you go to these community
13 people, nobody want's to talk to you because
14 you're disabled, you make $11,000.00 a year. Who
15 want's to talk to you? I don't have to tell you,
16 but people have a way of being very discrimitive
17 to other people only because they are not in the
18 same, in other words, favoritism. I like you
19 because you dress the way you dress. I like you
20 because you go to this Church, you go to Allen
21 AME or whatever. Okay, you put $100.00 in the
22 pot -- They look at that too. That's where I'm
23 coming from and we got to get real. There's too
24 many children out here who are failing and
25 they're failing because the system, you, like I
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2 said, we have to reach out to those people who
3 are born less then fortunate then we are. Hey
4 you might be making a hundred thousand dollars a
5 year. You deserve everything you get. That's
6 fine. I don't have a problem with that, but
7 let's not forget those people down there that
8 these kids are not even reaching, they're in the
9 fifth grade and they can't even do simple
10 multiplication and they're in the fifth grade.
11 They're going into middle school and
12 then by the time they get to middle school, in
13 the seventh and the eighth grade, they're telling
14 their parents, I'm not going back to school
15 anymore. I can't do it. I can't make it. Why?
16 Because you have teachers in this system that,
17 I'm sorry to say, that just don't care. They're
18 in there for the money, they live out there in
19 Long Island somewhere, they come over here and
20 make this little bit of money and they're not
21 worried about whether our children learn or not,
22 but I don't want my children, I want my children
23 to get a fair -- I tell my children everyday. I
24 love you and do the best you can. You don't have
25 to be perfect, but just do the best that you can
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2 and move on in this life because that's what it's
3 about. And it's about training. I want to say
4 that to you too. We can't just -- I'm a parent,
5 don't just elect me because you see me. Ask me
6 if I have any experience or any knowledge in what
7 I'm doing.
8 The budget is a very serious
9 financial situation. I'm not an accountant.
10 Let's look in these system and see if we can find
11 somebody who deals in accounting, maybe that will
12 help the system.
13 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: I think you
14 have very well answered the question and I think
15 that the views that you shared with us were very
16 complete and very compelling and we thank you
17 very, very much.
18 MS. JACKSON: Your welcome.
19 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you.
20 MS. BROWN: Thank you.
21 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Now just for
22 the edification of everybody in the room, there's
23 been a request that the task force were going to
24 have a short meeting now. It's now 4:15 p.m.
25 That meeting will probably last about 15 minutes
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2 or so and then we will reconvene the hearing at
3 just about six o'clock. So let me just suggest
4 so we can have a good exchange. Starting with me
5 and moving to the right, we're going to move
6 over, grab a chair from over there and we'll --
7 (Recess taken at 4:15 p.m.)
8 (Reconvened at 6:10 p.m.)
9 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Again and as
10 we have done in our other sessions we're sort of
11 going to begin a new, so I am going to introduce
12 myself, the Co-Chair. I'm going to give you a
13 brief description of what this task force is all
14 about, how it came into existence and what our
15 responsibilities are and then the members who are
16 here from the task force will introduce
17 themselves and then we'll get to the main event
18 which is your testimony.
19 My name is Steve Sanders. I am
20 Co-Chair of this Task Force on Community School
21 District Governance Reform. I'm also Chairman of
22 the Assembly Education Committee. To my left,
23 who you'll hear from in just a few moments,is
24 Terri Thomson, who is also the Co-Chair of this
25 task force and one of the favorite daughters of
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2 this borough of Queens.
3 This task force was actually
4 constituted on October the 31st. Just a little
5 over a month ago. The task force is origins
6 comes from the school governance law that was
7 passed by the State Legislature back in June. As
8 many of you know, that law gave substantial new
9 authority and accountability to the Mayor of the
10 City of New York, to the Mayor's Chancellor and
11 to the Superintendents. That law also abolishes
12 local community school boards, not districts,
13 local community school boards as of June 30th of
14 this coming year, the last day of the school
15 year. However, the intention of the Legislature
16 was not to abolish community representation or
17 parental input. It was to replace the school
18 boards with something that hopefully will be more
19 effective and provide even greater representation
20 and parental input. Hence, the task force has
21 been constituted. We are responsible for holding
22 at least 5 public hearings, one in every
23 borough, this is the second. We were in
24 Manhattan on Tuesday, we will be in the Bronx
25 next Thursday and then early in January we will
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2 be on Staten Island and we will conclude in
3 Brooklyn.
4 The task force is required to
5 formulate a proposal with a set of
6 recommendations for replacing local community
7 school boards. We are required to submit that
8 report to the State Legislature and the Governor
9 no later then February the 15th. So over the
10 next two months this task force has a great deal
11 of work to do, but the most important part of our
12 task is to listen to the public and we have
13 scheduled these hearings, at least we have tried
14 to schedule these hearings in such a way that as
15 many people from all of the boroughs will have an
16 opportunity to testify. Consequently we have a
17 day session and we have an evening session and of
18 course, we know that many parents and working men
19 and women really, their only opportunity to come
20 out is after the work day. So a lot of our
21 hearings, a lot of testimony occurs in the
22 evening as it will tonight. I'm going to now
23 introduce again, my Co-Chair, we will then
24 introduce the other members of the task force who
25 are here right now. They'll introduce themselves
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2 and then I will just give you a very, very brief
3 outline as to how we will proceed with the
4 testimony. Terri Thomson.
5 MS. THOMSON: Thank you. I just
6 wanted to add that this task force has a very
7 important responsibility ahead and that we are
8 taking this responsibility very seriously and as
9 Assemblyman Sanders said, a very important piece
10 of this is the voice of the public. For those of
11 you who are testifying tonight, if you would
12 spread the word as well, that there are three
13 more public hearings. One in Brooklyn, one in
14 the Bronx, and one in Staten Island. The
15 information is out on the desk. People can also
16 submit written testimony. We'll be gathering
17 that, but anyone can go to any of the hearings
18 down the road. You don't have to live in the
19 borough where the hearing is. So I would
20 encourage you to spread the word. Again, we are
21 serious about this. We feel this is a very
22 important responsibility we have. We're
23 committed to doing a very good job and working
24 very hard in the next few months to meet the
25 February 15th deadline, but to come up with a
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2 solution or a recommendation that will absolutely
3 improve and provide meaningful input for parents
4 in the community and to our education system. So
5 maybe we can start at the right. Robin are you
6 the first person? Yes.
7 MS. BROWN: Yes. Robin Brown,
8 Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council.
9 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Audrey
10 Pheffer, Assemblywoman representing Queens and
11 the Queens representative on this task force.
12 MR. CLAYTON: Earnest Clayton,
13 United Parents Association of New York City.
14 MR. LEVIN: Gerry Levin, retired
15 CEO, AOL/TimeWarner and my family and I are
16 personally committed to New York City public
17 education.
18 ASSEMBLYMAN LAVELLE: John LaVelle,
19 member of the Assembly representing the North
20 Shore of Staten Island.
21 MS. HAHN: Yanghe Hahn, Executive
22 Vice President of Korean/American Association of
23 Flushing.
24 MS. MULLEN: Cassandra Mullen, I
25 live in Howard Beach and my daughter attends New
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2 York City public school.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Now during
4 the course of the evening as possible, the one or
5 several other task force members may arrive and
6 as they do, I will introduce them to you and just
7 one other note. The testimony that we're asking
8 you to give, we are hoping that you will confine
9 your remarks to about five minutes. I know it's
10 not a lot of time and I know that people have a
11 lot to say, but in order for us to hear as many
12 people as possible and also allow for an
13 appropriate amount of questions and answers, I
14 must ask you to try to confine your remarks to
15 five minutes. One of the members of the task
16 force gave me this timer. Those of you who do
17 some cooking may be familiar with this. I am
18 not, but I resist using it, so I will, if you
19 have gone past your five minute time allocation I
20 will probably a little signal and try not to be
21 too rude about it, but as I say, we have to try
22 to confine the remarks to close to five minutes.
23 And one final note.
24 The responsibilities of this task
25 force are very important, but they are also very
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2 confined. I know that a lot of people have a lot
3 of concerns about different aspects of the public
4 school system. Our mandate and our
5 responsibility is limited to dealing with the
6 issue of governance as it relates to how we may
7 replace the local community school boards and
8 other governance issues that may effect the
9 school building itself, such as school leadership
10 teams. So, the people who may have concerns
11 about a lot of different parts of the education
12 system, I would just suggest that you resist the
13 temptation to talk about that because you will be
14 using up your own time and it will be things that
15 this task force is not able to deal with in terms
16 of our recommendations. So with that, Terri.
17 MS. THOMSON: Before we begin, I'd
18 like to acknowledge that Assemblyman Mark Whepren
19 is here in the audience. Thank you for joining
20 us. Our first speaker is Maria
21 Dapontes-Dougherty, Co-P, the Parent Teacher's
22 Association at P.S. 2.
23 MS. DAPONTES-DOUGHERTY: Good
24 evening. My name is Maria Dapontes-Dougherty. I
25 am a working parent of a seven year old son and a
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2 twelve year old daughter in the public school
3 system. I am the PTA Co-President of P.S. 2 in
4 District 30 in Queens and Vice President of
5 District 30's Presidents' Council. I have worked
6 with the Class Size Matters Organization and the
7 Alliance for Quality Education.
8 I want to start out by saying that
9 it is very unfortunate that not enough notice was
10 given about these hearings. Few parents know
11 about these hearings and even fewer were able to
12 attend, since they were scheduled so hurriedly. I
13 am a PTA President and did not receive official
14 notification of the State Task Force hearings
15 until Tuesday. Should the Department of
16 Education not be responsible to disseminate such
17 vital information to PTA Presidents in a timely
18 manner? It is vital that our voice be heard. We
19 are the consumer.
20 As parents, we are always asked to
21 give more time and participate more in our
22 children's education. We spend hours,
23 volunteering with the PTA, raising money, helping
24 our children with homework, trying to fill in all
25 the gaps of their under-funded schools and
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2 overcrowded classrooms. And then when our
3 schools aren't succeeding, all too often the
4 excuse is that the problem is a lack of parental
5 involvement.
6 Instead, the few opportunities we
7 have had to participate in a substantive way,
8 already fare more limited than parents int he
9 rest of the state, continue to be whittled away.
10 Many parents are critical and assume that the
11 hearings of the State Task Force are just
12 window-dressing, and that the decision to simply
13 eliminate on of the last vestiges of parental
14 input into the school system has already been
15 made. I strongly believe that our voice is the
16 key to success. For as long as districts are
17 given the power to set educational policy,
18 curriculum and have the use of discretionary
19 funds, it is important that some district level
20 body continue to exist that can benefit from our
21 input. A system this enormous must have the
22 ability to target areas and cannot be run by
23 several leaders, behind closed doors, in an
24 office in the Department of Education.
25 First of all, the new community
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2 school boards, or councils, as some have
3 suggested they be called, should be composed of
4 members that must be parents of school age
5 children in the public education system. We are
6 the ones with a vested interest in the system.
7 We are the consumer. I strongly believe that the
8 majority of those on these councils should be
9 chosen by parent leaders. These parent leaders
10 could be Presidents' Councils or committees
11 formed from the parent members of School
12 Leadership Teams in the District. These are the
13 people in the trenches, who have the deepest
14 understanding of school needs and more
15 importantly student's needs. We are the
16 consumer.
17 If political appointments are deemed
18 necessary, they should be a minority in the
19 composition. They should be parents, advocates,
20 or simply others who are involved and active in
21 educational affairs. If elections are deemed
22 necessary they should be scheduled at the same
23 time as regular citywide elections, so as to
24 ensure greater turnout and participation then
25 presently occurs.
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2 School leadership teams were formed
3 with wonderful theories in mind and yet most are
4 ineffective or powerless to make the changes they
5 deem necessary. I know parents and staff that
6 have resigned from school leadership teams as a
7 result of the frustration they experienced, not
8 being able to really make a difference. A pass
9 review is a waste of time, if the principal
10 cannot accept anything less then a five. CEP's
11 in many schools are just documents created for
12 approval instead of guides for the improvement
13 and success of the school.
14 Most important is the need for
15 communication and accessibility of vital
16 information related to our children's education.
17 This new form of governance must have the power
18 to require accountability from principals,
19 superintendents and the Chancellor. Information
20 must be distributed. The internet is a powerful
21 tool that should be used to disseminate
22 information and access parental opinion. If
23 parents are given the tools they will use them
24 with enthusiasm, in as we have a deep commitment
25 to our children and their futures.
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2 We all need to work together to
3 change the system for the better. Our children
4 are our future. The decisions make today will
5 result in their successes. Their achievements
6 will continue to make our city, state and nation
7 great. Thank you for your time.
8 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well we thank
9 you very much for your testimony. You obviously
10 have a great deal of experience and we very much
11 appreciate you sharing that with us. Let me just
12 see if we have any questions for you. Mr. Levin.
13 MR. LEVIN: Thank you for a very
14 passionate presentation and I just want to assure
15 you that we consider this undertaking probably
16 the most important thing that we can do as a task
17 force but for the education governance in the
18 city. I can just assure you it's not a
19 window-dressing.
20 MS. DAPONTES-DOUGHERTY: I didn't
21 think it was.
22 MR. LEVIN: Let me just ask you
23 because you mention and I'm interested.
24 Communication is really critical for parents.
25 The use of the internet, we've heard some
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2 testimony and discussed it. Obviously, the real
3 issue is the accessibility. What has your
4 experience been and how can we profit from that?
5 MS. DAPONTES-DOUGHERTY: Personally
6 I do have a home computer and people that do have
7 more accessibility. I know my children's schools
8 and I think most schools have internet access and
9 the possibility to consider is having more open
10 access, libraries that are in schools that are
11 open to families and parents maybe after school
12 so they would have that accessibility also.
13 Sending the word out that you can go to the
14 public library and access the internet is also
15 another option that you have and it's just
16 another way to increase communication which is
17 really important.
18 MS. THOMSON: Is it used as a tool
19 at all today in your school? Does the principal
20 communicate with parents that way?
21 MS. DAPONTES-DOUGHERTY: There are
22 very few schools, there are very few schools
23 which actually, they've created the home page, I
24 think if you go on New York City . Gov, it's
25 there but there are very few schools that have
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2 gotten to that point. I think the biggest
3 problem which isn't what school governance is
4 about, is budgetary problems and not having
5 someone able to update the computer systems and
6 really use the means of communication that is
7 there. It's the biggest flaw. It's like every
8 school now has the sight and you can go to
9 certain schools and see PTA Presidents that were
10 there two years ago because basically it was, if
11 there's anything that's window-dressing that
12 would be in it. It's created but it's never kept
13 up to date and that's the flaw in that really.
14 Certain PTA's are starting, I know my PTA, I
15 reached a point in time that I asked people that
16 do have access, because it just makes it easier
17 for a PTA President or President's Council
18 President to send an e-mail to 30 people then it
19 is to come home from work, feed your kids, do
20 homework and then have to call 30 people on the
21 phone, so.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Robin Brown.
23 MS. BROWN: I just have a question.
24 In terms of receiving information, do you receive
25 information from your community school board
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2 about your school, about your district or do you
3 have to go and do the research yourself to find
4 out information about the school and the
5 district?
6 MS. DAPONTES-DOUGHERTY: I usually
7 get more information in a more timely manner if I
8 access myself to be honest with you. I mean, we
9 were doing, we were getting ready for pass review
10 and I already had the current school report card
11 off the internet and they were still waiting for
12 the print out to come to the school. So, it was
13 helpful for me to do it because if you're doing
14 the pass review you should have the most current
15 statistics. Community school board, I can only
16 speak from mine. I just think it's reached a
17 point in time now where it's become a lame duck
18 kind of situation where at least in my community
19 school, but I don't see the enthusiasm or, you
20 know. The last meeting, I think, was a
21 Superintendent's report, there was no public
22 speaking time, no resolution and that was it. It
23 was about a six minute meeting, so.
24 MS. BROWN: If you, just thinking
25 about the structure now, if you can do one or two
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2 things to improve it, what would those one or two
3 things be?
4 MS. DAPONTES-DOUGHERTY: Get
5 information out to parents because parents that
6 are involved will participate. I think the
7 greatest thing that occurred was the GROW Report
8 and parents were out there seeking it and we
9 reached a point in time in schools where they
10 were given of making that one particular tool
11 even a more powerful tool. I was told that
12 eventually parents will be able to go online and
13 access information on their own for the GROW
14 report, but giving parents the tools, I mean you
15 get a report card and it tells you your child did
16 well or didn't do well on a standardize test or
17 doesn't do well in reading, you need to target
18 the different areas that educators look at,
19 whether its knowing the theme of a story, being
20 able to identify characters. If a parent has
21 more tools to help their child at home, they will
22 and also for parents that aren't involved,
23 finding ways to teach them that if they spend
24 that little bit of extra time at home and you're
25 giving them the tools to help their child in
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2 whatever it is they need help in, I think the
3 home school relationship is very important and
4 you have to strengthen it.
5 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
6 MR. CLAYTON: Yes, thank you for
7 your testimony here today. You mentioned the
8 school leadership teams. Do you feel if
9 leadership teams were given more clout, now when
10 I say more clout, in other words, right now the
11 comprehensive education plan and the budget, all
12 their responsibilities are kind of outlined in a
13 green book, the Chancellors plan, they're not
14 really backed by any law or any regulation, so if
15 they were given clout like a regulation,
16 mandating their responsibilities or put into
17 State law that these were their responsibilities,
18 do you think they would be more productive, if
19 they were given more clout?
20 MS. DAPONTES-DOUGHERTY: I think
21 they could be more productive. I think the
22 biggest problem in leadership teams from talking
23 to other parents and experiencing it myself is
24 even though the theory is for you all to be one
25 team together, it still come to a point where its
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2 them and us no matter how hard you try and I have
3 to say my team, there have come times now where
4 we've come together but you also have the fact
5 that people can make a decision and a principal
6 could say so because if consensus can't be
7 reached, a principal makes the ultimate decision,
8 so you reach a point in time when people that are
9 involved just feel defeated by that and that's
10 where they lose interest and walk away. You
11 know, and then there are others that will stick
12 it out and keep and will just keep trying, so.
13 MS. BROWN: Do you think that that
14 would be helped if the majority of the seats were
15 given to parents?
16 MS. DAPONTES-DOUGHERTY: I think it
17 makes a big difference. I mean, I did say that
18 for whatever governance is replaced. I think
19 there should be more parents. Having people come
20 together and have them agree on something and two
21 people don't and then the principal makes the
22 decision anyway, I mean I don't even like hearing
23 about the Core 3 in a leadership team. I don't,
24 I've had teachers like sued at me like well why
25 should I come when you, my chapter chair and the
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2 principal will make a decision. I'm more of the
3 type that always go back to my parent members and
4 ask them questions, unless I'm stuck and have a
5 two minute limit, I like to reach out because I'm
6 representing everyone. Everyone should have the
7 same balance of power and interest.
8 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well, we
9 thank you very much for your testimony. You
10 obviously have a lot of hands on experience over
11 the years and we appreciate you sharing that with
12 us. By the way, during the course of the
13 evening, because some people do arrive late, so
14 for those of you who were here from the beginning
15 forgive me, I will be repeating periodically the
16 people ought to keep their remarks to about five
17 minutes and to keep their remarks focused on the
18 issue of school boards and governance that deals
19 with school districts and schools. So --
20 MS. THOMSON: Councilman Bur Leroy
21 Comry.
22 COUNCILMAN COMRY: I'm not used to
23 sitting to testify, but. Good evening
24 distinguished panel. I'm glad that you're here
25 in Queens and that you've brought this long
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2 needed opportunity to the borough and to the city
3 to change and really look at what I think is a
4 real opportunity to redevelop the structure for
5 the Board of Education.
6 My belief and just to give some of
7 you my background, I know most of you know, I
8 worked for Council member R.T. Spigner since
9 1982. I was a member of community school board
10 29 from 1996 to 2001 and I am now Council member
11 for the 27th Council District in Queens. I'm a
12 product of the public school system, attending
13 P.S. 116, I.S. 8 in Jamaica High School. I am a
14 life time New Yorker. I love this city and I
15 want this city to be a place where every child
16 just as my parents who were immigrants to this
17 country could have, depend on their local school
18 to deliver the highest quality level of education
19 for them where every immigrant parent cannot, who
20 is not aware of the system, not aware of the
21 nuances, not available to understand language,
22 not available to understand rules and rituals,
23 can come in and feel that the school system that
24 they brought their child for so that their child
25 can get a better education then they had, better
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2 opportunities then they had. That their local
3 school can be the strongest place in the world
4 for them to be. I truly believe that the New
5 York City public school system, if it's working
6 with doors open and opportunities open and with
7 full participation from all segments of the
8 community is better then any private school,
9 better then any other entity if we're all working
10 together.
11 What I think has happened over the
12 past twenty years is that there has been an
13 effort on behalf of different people to make sure
14 that every entity in education was not given a
15 full opportunity to express itself and I'm not
16 going to go into all of those difficulties
17 tonight, we're trying to look forward and I think
18 that we need to take this opportunity to look
19 forward in governance to create an opportunity
20 where we can resolve problems without having to
21 have parades at 110, oops, sorry, Tweed Building,
22 or City Hall, or any other entity other then
23 within the area that this problem occurred which
24 is the local school. If there's a problem in the
25 local school with parents, if there's a problem
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2 in the local school with discipline, curriculum,
3 teachers or anything else, there should be a
4 system in governance that can create an
5 opportunity for the parents who are the primary
6 investors in the system and the community who
7 want their local schools to be a focal place, an
8 opportunity for them to celebrate their community
9 instead of going out of their community to
10 educate their children, to be a place of
11 resolution.
12 I would propose two ways to do that.
13 Number one: You need to change the parent
14 leadership teams from what they are now which is
15 actually principal driven, even in the best of
16 circumstances where parent leadership teams are
17 given the opportunity, they are still driven by
18 the needs of the principal and the principal can
19 control it by their overriding vote as was
20 mentioned by the earlier speaker. We have to
21 give people the real opportunity for training
22 within parent leadership teams to do real
23 assessments of the entire school and train those
24 so that they can do proper assessment of
25 curriculum, proper assessment of their teachers
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2 and personnel and proper assessment of the
3 principal. We need to make sure that the schools
4 are actually parent friendly. It's been proven
5 in a citywide basis and a national basis. The
6 schools that open up their doors to parents to
7 make sure that parents are an intrical part of
8 the school, not just helping out in the lunch
9 room or those basic things as some schools need,
10 but actually being a real part and a real partner
11 in everything in the school environment. Those
12 schools do better.
13 We have examples all around this
14 city and even in the (inaudible) impoverished
15 areas where we have real parent participation
16 that makes the school work. We have too many
17 schools in this city, as you well know better
18 then I, that are failing and yet they still don't
19 let parents come in the door, they don't let
20 parents have an opportunity to visit classrooms
21 without going through checks and balances, they
22 don't let parents get involved in the PTA's on a
23 real basis because they send the notices out the
24 day or two before the meeting, they limit parent
25 participation by going through unnecessary three
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2 levels of screening before you get to the
3 principal's office before you get to do anything
4 else. We must change that atmosphere in order
5 for schools to work. This system is too diverse,
6 there are too many schools, there are too many
7 cultures around the city that are changing on a
8 regular basis for there to be a cookie cut
9 approach and to say that there's one system that
10 can work for this entire school system.
11 We must, the only way to really
12 address that on an individual basis is to force
13 the principals to create parent friendly
14 environments, to empower those parents in the
15 local schools, do real training bringing real
16 money into that so that they can learn what the
17 needs are for the school. What the basic needs
18 are, what the city standard is, what the state
19 standard is, and what the goal is for each grade
20 and the parents have to be trained as a
21 collective, it has to be a collective effort done
22 by everyone on the building. It has to be a
23 collective effort also outreach to the community.
24 We have a lot of community groups that would love
25 to participate in school environments. We have,
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2 in my district, a lot of seniors that have time
3 and would love to be able to participate. Even
4 businesses that would like to link up to the
5 schools on a local level. They don't have an
6 opportunity to do that now in most of the schools
7 and we only have a few that are really
8 enlightened that we need to do that.
9 Just governance is an opportunity to
10 create and break those walls and make sure that
11 that happens by creating instead of the parent
12 leadership team that we have now, a real
13 opportunity to empower parents by giving them
14 real leadership and real investment in the
15 building by allowing them to make assessments.
16 If you make assessments on a local school level,
17 it forces the principal to meet certain standards
18 that I know that this Chancellor wants them to
19 meet that I know that this Mayor wants them to
20 meet and that I know every parent in this city
21 would like them to meet.
22 I think that on a district wide
23 level you would instead, personally I was in
24 favor of community school boards, we won't go
25 into that discussion tonight, we're looking to
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2 change them. We need to do on a district level a
3 sum compilation. Some school districts have 40
4 schools, so any board with forty people on it as
5 you well know is not going to work on a real
6 level, so we have to have some type of assessment
7 on a district level to try and come together as a
8 group where we bring the nucleus of these parent
9 leadership teams where they can share their
10 issues, their ideas, their problems in a district
11 wide level to resolve those issues. And also,
12 that board or that group or that organization, I
13 don't want to title it because I don't want to
14 give an prejudices to the word school board
15 anymore or to the word district organization, but
16 there has to be some middle management level
17 where all of these leadership teams can come
18 together independent of the school district, or
19 even if they eliminate school districts as I fear
20 they may do in one hand to save money, but we
21 need to make sure that there's a middle
22 management level where these parent leadership
23 teams can come together, share their experiences,
24 share what they do well, share what they don't do
25 well so that they can make sure that they can go
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2 back to their local schools that work.
3 I have schools in my district that
4 are primarily Indian and Bangladesh. I have
5 schools in my district that are primarily
6 hispanic. I have schools in my district that are
7 primarily black and hispanic. We have a
8 multitude and across this city we have schools
9 that have different populations that need to be
10 addressed, so if you could empower the parent
11 leadership team and create it with not just a
12 parent majority, but parent authority to make
13 sure that they can come in and work with those
14 necessary linkages.
15 You talked about utilizing the
16 internet. It's a wonderful tool if people have
17 internet access. Unfortunately, a lot of the
18 PA's an the parent leadership teams don't have
19 internet access within their schools. If they
20 can have within in each parent leadership office
21 which would be the, not a PA, and I'm talking
22 about combining the parent leadership to be
23 emanated from the PTA to create on parent
24 leadership body. Instead, we right now, we have
25 as you know some PTA's that fight with the parent
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2 leadership team. It's an election. There's
3 money attached. We need to also take the money
4 out of the equation. People need to do this
5 because they really want to do this. If there's
6 some compensation for time and service or travel
7 and expense, yes, but if we can't get into a
8 competition between parents as to what their real
9 needs and what their educational philosophy means
10 because I found that within our district and
11 other districts around the city it turns into a
12 competition between the PA's, PTA's and the
13 parent leadership team.
14 So, I would hope that as you do your
15 deliberations around the city and talk to people
16 you focus on trying to work from the bottom up.
17 With the middle management system it really gives
18 the parents the authority to resolve problems. I
19 know that as a Legislator, Legislator, I'm not
20 used to saying that, it's been almost a year,
21 but, as an elected official, even if there's a
22 problem on a school level, by the time it comes
23 to us we can't resolve it on a realness issue the
24 way the system is now. Even if you have a good
25 relationship with your local principal and they'd
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2 like to resolve it, they're constricted by the
3 rules of the borough office or the local office
4 or whatever they have to do and there are so many
5 opportunities that we can stop this and keep it
6 on a local level and resolve problems by opening
7 doors, allowing people to talk with each other
8 and to allow problems to be resolved at a local
9 level.
10 If we don't do that, if we don't
11 create parent friendly school and do those
12 necessary steps to push all entities in the
13 schools -- I know that the UFT would like to
14 keep things where there's some separation, the
15 CSA would like to keep things where there's some
16 separation, but we can no longer afford to let
17 those walls remain. We have too many children
18 that have already been lost because of these
19 walls and we need to break them down.
20 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well
21 Councilman, before I see if there are any
22 questions, there may be one or two, I just wanted
23 to observe that in the almost one year that
24 you've been in office, I've had an opportunity to
25 visit your district, your constituents there a
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2 couple of times. I've had an opportunity to talk
3 with you and watch you talk with your
4 constituents and I think they consider themselves
5 very lucky to have you and I concur in that
6 assessment.
7 COUNCILMAN COMRY: Everyday is a
8 new day.
9 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: That's for
10 sure and I think Queens is also very lucky to
11 have Mr. Whepren and Ms. (Inaudible). I think
12 this is a borough that's very, very well
13 represented and we very much appreciate you being
14 here and your remarks. Do we have any questions?
15 Ms. Pheffer.
16 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: I just
17 wanted to ask one. Yes, Councilman. When you
18 talked about your middle management, did you see
19 the leadership team appointing, therefore no
20 election, I mean are you taking away the
21 electoral?
22 COUNCILMAN COMRY: I am very and I
23 know I'm going to get beat up by some school
24 boards, the election process doesn't work. It
25 should work, but we can't make it work. I think
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2 the parent leadership teams within themselves
3 should elect those persons to represent on a
4 middle management level. And I'm torn behind
5 this because there should be some elected
6 representation, but I really looked at all of the
7 writings that I've seen from different levels.
8 As you know, our Education Committee and the
9 Council which I sit on just had a meeting
10 yesterday to talk about governance and most
11 people felt that the election were not -- While
12 important to have an elected representative to go
13 out and do the petitioning and everything else,
14 we don't get the parent participation that we
15 need. We don't get the full community
16 involvement. They don't get the opportunity to
17 have the airing out that they need to have within
18 the community so that everybody knows, so if you
19 focus on the people that are really involved and
20 the people that are really active and the people
21 that have shown, that have opened up their heart
22 and soul to the system, I think that they already
23 have shown you that they care and they're
24 concerned and those people could elect
25 representation from within themselves to be that
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2 middle management (inaudible).
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Ms. Brown.
4 COUNCILMAN COMRY: And I'm going to
5 have to run out of here because Nat Washington is
6 in the room.
7 MS. BROWN: In terms, what do you
8 think the functions of this management body
9 should be?
10 COUNCILMAN COMRY: Primarily to
11 review the curriculum on a district wide level to
12 make sure that it's meeting all of the necessary
13 standards. Primarily to share how to do the
14 assessments of the personnel within the building.
15 Primarily to share how they are dealing with
16 whatever fiscal matters that they deal with on a
17 school wide level to show how it could be dealt
18 with on a district level. But I still think that
19 it needs to come back to local schools. We can --
20 I don't think -- They need to share information,
21 share resources and share problems and come up
22 with a focus way on how they can deal with
23 whatever nuances they have to deal with within
24 their local areal of concern.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Levin.
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2 MR. LEVIN: Councilman, I just want
3 to refer to something you said in your testimony.
4 Have you had any constructive experience where we
5 can involve business more in all these processes
6 because as we noted this afternoon, I mean most
7 business people are parents and should have that
8 same commitment.
9 COUNCILMAN COMRY: Right. There
10 are three different ways that we can involve
11 businesses. One through the local school level
12 that will reach out to even the local bodega's in
13 their area and ask them to participate in
14 different things. On the second level, do the
15 parents themselves that are involved in local
16 businesses or working for city or maybe a major
17 corporations. You never know what your parent
18 resources are until you really ask. A third way
19 is to, which I started, is create not-for-profit
20 opportunities where people can write proposals
21 targeted for specific needs that could go to
22 business that would be identified and that could
23 be something that the district offices could help
24 those groups do. It's an amazing -- I had a
25 not-for-profit workshop earlier this year where
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2 we brought in the institute for not-for-profit
3 management and other people to target where we
4 could find proposals, where we could find money
5 to target for specific projects.
6 It could be that we have a parent
7 that works for a business and that, which I've
8 seen, and someone that is in that business in a
9 major corporation used to attend either a public
10 school or a school that actually that parent's
11 child may be in and would be pre, very
12 sympathetic to helping out a school, or we have
13 other businesses such as large corporations, they
14 give anywhere from Annenberg to you pick a
15 corporation everybody has some corporate charity.
16 Hopefully they can still have it within this
17 economy to help out local schools. So it could
18 be on the middle management level that this
19 combined parent leadership team can identify
20 dollars to go after or the local school level
21 where they can identify dollars throughout --
22 Even if local participation from the local
23 stores. I find out some schools are very good at
24 keeping the local stores from giving their kids
25 junk food even or helping out at health fairs or
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2 participating. There's a lot of different way
3 when people are working together to focus their
4 needs and if they had an opportunity, certain
5 school districts you know hire people to write
6 proposals full time and that's been very
7 effective in their local schools or in their
8 school districts.
9 If we could have that within the
10 entire system that people could rely on, a group
11 of proposal writers, or at least of network that
12 they could refer to two or three times a year on
13 where to find these proposals or get people that
14 will be sympathetic to writing those a good
15 proposal it would help the system or the
16 individuals.
17 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well Council
18 member, once again we so much appreciate you
19 being here to night. It's hard to believe you've
20 been in the Council only for 11 months to speak
21 with such great command and such great intellect.
22 We appreciate your views.
23 COUNCILMAN COMRY: Like I said, I
24 have a eight year old and a five year old and I
25 want New York's, I don't want to send them to
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2 private school and while I may have the resources
3 to do it or the resources to do that, I think
4 it's important that we keep our kids in the
5 public schools and unlike, well, I won't touch
6 that subject, but unlike, you know, some other
7 people in the city that are not willing to take
8 the fight on. I want everyone to buy into this.
9 If we don't save our children, we're doomed in
10 this city and then, I'm wearing a 2012 pin. This
11 won't be a functionless city in 2012 unless we
12 save our children.
13 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
14 very much.
15 MS. THOMSON: I would like to
16 acknowledge that Evita Belmonte is here, the
17 Queens representative to the panel for Education
18 Policy. Wave, Evita. Evita was here with us
19 this afternoon too. Lisa Booth is next, PA
20 Co-President of M.S. 202 in Howard Beach.
21 MS. BOOTH: Hi. Okay. I feel it
22 is necessary to speak out on the pending
23 elimination of the community school board. When
24 words came out that the Mayor would take control
25 of the school, I felt this was not a good thing
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2 for the students. The thought of one person
3 making the decisions to me smacks a form of
4 dictatorship. The Mayor making all these
5 decisions. Now he want's to eliminate the local
6 school boards because he considers them an
7 unnecessary evil where people are empowered just
8 for their own good.
9 There are problems in some community
10 school boards, but not all of them. Some like
11 District 27 have worked hard with the best
12 interests of the students in mind. I know for a
13 fact as past PTA President of P.S. 146 and now PA
14 Co-President of 202 that Mac Burman and his board
15 have done their best for the children of District
16 27. Eliminating the school boards will silence
17 the voices of parents at District 27 as well as
18 all the other school boards citywide. It is
19 imperative that parents have a voice in their
20 children's future. If there is a problem with
21 some school boards, fix them don't eliminate
22 them. Parents need their voices to be heard, not
23 someone turning a deaf ear. Please consider my
24 plea to keep our community school board in tact.
25 As a voter and a taxpayer, I feel that the Mayor
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2 should have allowed the people to decide the
3 future of the Board of Education as well at the
4 community school boards by allowing the voters to
5 have a voice in this matter. Thank you.
6 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: And we thank
7 you very much. Let me see. Do we have any
8 questions?
9 MS. THOMSON: I have one question.
10 What are your thoughts on parents being members
11 of school boards that was suggested by some of
12 the parents?
13 MS. BOOTH: Most of the school
14 board members are parents. They do have children
15 there. They should, they are the one's who
16 acknowledge themselves to help the parents in the
17 school.
18 MS. THOMSON: Right, so you think
19 that's important.
20 MS. BOOTH: I think it's very
21 important.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well thank
23 you very much for your testimony and thank you
24 very much for the obvious hard work that you've
25 done over the years in your own school. Thank
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2 you.
3 MS. THOMSON: Norma Paupaw,
4 District 27.
5 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Let me also
6 explain, even though there's a list, there is a
7 list of speakers, there's always a certain amount
8 of jumping around that is inevitable. We'll keep
9 as close to the list as we can, but if you find
10 that someone is speaking before you, there's
11 usually a reason. This lady was supposed to
12 speak during the day and couldn't make it so
13 we're happy that you're here tonight.
14 MS. PAUPAW: Thank you. I'm sick.
15 I didn't have a voice this morning, but good
16 evening. I am Norma Paupaw representing the
17 position of the District Advisory Council of
18 District 27 with a membership of 39 schools.
19 The parent members of the District
20 Advisory Council demand that the State
21 Legislature refuse to eliminate the elected
22 representation, accountability and local access
23 that we currently enjoy from the representatives
24 elected from within our community to the local
25 community school board.
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2 Our parents want the same right to
3 participate that you provide to the rest of New
4 York State where local elected school boards are
5 in place and are not under threat of elimination.
6 We do not want to be forced to travel to Brooklyn
7 or City Hall to have our voice heard and we do
8 not want local decisions made by people that are
9 far removed from our community. We don't want
10 people who do not know our needs making decisions
11 for us. We are active parents in the 39 schools
12 in our district. We should not be denied the
13 right to an elected local school boards, a right
14 that is the model for local school governance
15 throughout the United States.
16 We want elected local representation
17 that has the power to set and approve educational
18 policy for the local school district including
19 the DCEP which is the District Comprehensive
20 Education Plan. I'm very nervous. I don't like
21 speaking before people.
22 MS. THOMSON: You're doing fine.
23 MS. PAUPAW: Participate in the
24 process for approving the Capital Plan that
25 builds new schools and repairs existing schools.
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2 Establish zoning policy and attendance zones for
3 schools. Provide oversight into the
4 administration of the District, its schools and
5 the implementation of the District Comprehensive
6 Education Plan.
7 In addition, we want the law to
8 state that the Superintendent of our District
9 must be located within the District so that he or
10 she is accessible to the schools and the
11 community. We demand a voice in the public
12 educational system in New York City and the
13 opportunity to testimony, participate at local
14 school board meeting located in our district
15 schools. Our participation should not be limited
16 only to the narrow issues decided within our
17 school building by school leadership teams.
18 District decisions must be made with community
19 representation and participation.
20 Mayoral control is an experiment
21 that we hope succeeds. However, Mayoral control
22 must not preclude or diminish our participation
23 in local school governance, a right provided
24 throughout New York State and the nation. A
25 local elected community school board provides the
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2 only check and balance in a system where nearly
3 all of the control vested in one person is the
4 Mayor. The voters and taxpayers of the community
5 must have a voice in the system funded with their
6 tax dollars.
7 At a recent meeting of the Panel for
8 Education Policy, when I attempted to speak
9 during the public speaking portion of the
10 meeting, Chancellor Klein closed the microphone
11 and ended the meeting just before I could speak.
12 This is not a sign that this administration is
13 interested in what parents have to say. The
14 community school board in our district never does
15 this to parents. We fear that without local
16 school boards information will be restricted and
17 the opportunity to participate will be so
18 controlled as to be non- existent. Changes are
19 occurring too fast in this system. Our only
20 protection comes from you, our State Legislators.
21 Our parents must be able to attend
22 local school board meetings located in our
23 district's schools with the Community
24 Superintendent present to enable them to bring
25 forward ideas and concerns about the district,
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2 it's programs and it's schools. We must be able
3 to participate in the District decision-making
4 process.
5 Do not rob the citizens of New York
6 City of their right to effective and powerful
7 representation. It is our right and we expect
8 you, our elected representatives, to protect that
9 right. Thank you. Norma Paupaw, Co-Chair,
10 District 27.
11 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well, we
12 thank yo very much. That was a well delivered,
13 very well delivered speech. You did just fine
14 and I know that you're work on the District
15 Council of Presidents has given you a great deal
16 of experience and insight and of course we very
17 much appreciate you sharing that with us. Are
18 there any questions? Ms. Pheffer.
19 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Oh yes.
20 Thank you. When you talk about the
21 representation and you say the school board, are
22 you comfortable with the school board, the
23 elected process of nine people or would you be
24 comfortable with a District Council of Presidents
25 in that level with their responsibility?
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2 MS. PAUPAW: No, I'm comfortable,
3 we are the parents, we are comfortable with the
4 community school board and the nine people
5 elected.
6 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: And the
7 election process as it is?
8 MS. PAUPAW: Yes and the election
9 process.
10 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Robin Brown.
11 MS. BROWN: You talked about your
12 school board in such glowing terms. What exactly
13 is within your district, how does the school
14 board help your district meet the needs of the
15 students in terms of is it done through creating
16 educational policy or is it done through
17 resolving concerns of the parents?
18 MS. PAUPAW: Whenever there's a
19 problem there's a procedure that we must follow
20 and we take time and we go to the community
21 school board within all the schools when they
22 have problems and they're right there to settle
23 those problems for us or direct us in a path in
24 which the problems will be settled in a timely
25 and fashionable manner.
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2 MS. BROWN: And does this school
3 board set education -- Does the school board set
4 educational policies to meet the needs of
5 students?
6 MS. PAUPAW: The school board sets
7 rules and regulations. I'm not clear on the
8 educational process, but if it is, I'm sure they
9 do. This is all new to me.
10 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Assemblyman
11 LaVelle.
12 ASSEMBLYMAN LAVELLE: You indicated
13 that the recent Panel for Education Policy
14 meeting that you were cut off when you went to
15 the microphone and the meeting ended, I'm sorry.
16 At that meeting for Panel for Education Policy
17 where Chancellor Klein cut off the microphone,
18 were other parents given the opportunity to speak
19 before you approach the microphone?
20 MS. PAUPAW: When he called, he
21 called three of us. I don't remember actually
22 the other two peoples names, but he said in the
23 order in which they were called we would speak
24 after he gave his congratulatory remarks to a
25 Burt Saxon.
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2 ASSEMBLYMAN LAVELLE: So,
3 basically, this meeting was to --
4 MS. PAUPAW: And right after he
5 said that, he closed the meeting and he left.
6 ASSEMBLYMAN LAVELLE: And this
7 meeting was basically to communicate with the
8 community.
9 MS. PAUPAW: Yes, it was a --
10 ASSEMBLYMAN LAVELLE: Thank you.
11 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well once
12 again we thank you so much for being here
13 tonight. I'm glad your voice is better, you used
14 it very well. Lew Simon, Democratic District
15 Leader, 23rd Assembly District.
16 MR. SIMON: Good evening. First
17 I'd like to start off by thanking Terri, she's
18 been a great friend to the Borough of Queens, to
19 my great Assembly woman Audrey Pheffer, we love
20 you and thank you for what you're doing. To the
21 panel, I thank you for giving me the opportunity
22 to speak tonight. Hi. I'm Democratic District
23 Leader, Lew M. Simon. I represent the 23rd
24 Assembly District, Part B. It covers the
25 Rockaways, Broad Channel, Howard Beach and Ozone
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2 Park. Unfortunately, hundreds of those I
3 represent cannot speak. They could not attend
4 due to the lack of timely notice and the unusual
5 requirements for registering to speak.
6 I hope we are (inaudible), but as
7 the school board received the instructions only
8 one week ago tonight, effectively making getting
9 information all parties concerned impossible,
10 requirements to tax to Albany, etc., many of us
11 feel this was done deliberately to silence us and
12 effectively to disenfranchise us in the end.
13 For years, I've heard community
14 school district, school board 27 listen to the
15 parents, resolve or make all possible effort to
16 remove educational problems. I have seen them
17 address urgent problems in our schools, from day
18 educational issues to safety, site selection,
19 zoning, grievances and more. Recently they held
20 a meeting at PS 223 which concerned parents about
21 a sexual predator. I watched the Board deal with
22 the parents, the police, CBO's and school
23 administrators on behalf of the children that
24 night and countless others on occasions.
25 Now, with their powers vastly
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2 curtailed, I have seen the Board struggle with
3 zoning in a huge, overcrowded district, first and
4 successfully on the mainland and now in the
5 Rockaways, as you know we are the city's
6 stepchild.
7 I have seen firsthand the board's
8 ceaseless efforts to work with the Boro
9 President's Office, the School Construction
10 Authority and all the powers that be to get the
11 schools we need and educate the ignorant about
12 where the school be. They never let up. And
13 thank you Terri because you gave us schools in
14 Rockaway. We bless you for that and thank you.
15 Now, in the face of a huge housing
16 boom, this Board has physically counted units,
17 has held and will hold more public meetings, well
18 publicized meetings, to get parent and community
19 input on zoning in an effort to cut bus time and
20 use the schools we do have to the best advantage.
21 All this is why school boards must
22 be kept as they are and made stronger. School
23 boards bring the issues into the school
24 communities, answer questions, listen to the
25 concerns of parents and communities. What they
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2 can't do, they refer to those who can and keep
3 the parents informed about the progress or the
4 lack of thereof. Where will parents go after
5 June? Who will be right there in the schools, on
6 the phones and e-mail, knowledgeable and
7 representable local problems because the local
8 people elected are elected by local people. Can
9 a distant power in the Tweed Building really
10 replace the Boards? Clearly not. Are borough
11 reps politically appointed by politicians, are
12 they going to be accessible and reasonable?
13 Clearly not. Where will we go to be heard and
14 answered?
15 Our Mayor has already muzzled some
16 of his appointees where they can't speak to the
17 press. Others can be muzzled and controlled as
18 well. Is this how the educational system is to
19 be de-politicized as per our new Mayor? If so,
20 it's a joke and a disgrace.
21 If our school boards leave us,
22 New york will be the only city in New York State
23 which has no elected school board. Our parents
24 will be disenfranchised and less equal then any
25 other New York parent in the state. The phrase,
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2 "No taxation without representation" sparked a
3 revolution. Have Albany and our mayor decided to
4 ignore history? Are school boards perfect? No.
5 Neither is the State Legislature, City council or
6 any other elected body. But our school boards
7 did the job and were always accessible to our
8 people in the community. We resent being
9 disenfranchised. We want local boards kept and
10 enhanced. We want them elected in November on
11 voting machines so we know that people were
12 really elected.
13 Your complaints about power, excuse
14 me, about poor voter turnout for board elections
15 and that proves that it's isolated election date
16 in May is incomprehensible rollover in counting
17 system are ludicrous. They are completely
18 ridiculous. People have to worry will the
19 ballots disappear? You know, people do worry
20 about that. I worked on some of these school
21 board elections. We worry of boxes were going to
22 disappear and if paper ballots were going to be
23 changed.
24 I speak for hundreds and hundreds of
25 voters. We want our voting rights. We want our
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2 civil rights. We want our November elections.
3 We want equality with our sister cities and town
4 in the State. We want our local school boards
5 and we ask you to please restore them now. Thank
6 you.
7 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you Mr.
8 Simon. Before I just ask if there are any
9 questions I need to observe to the task force
10 members that we have a ever increasing growing
11 list of witnesses for tonight. I think at least
12 20 or 22 right now and it's growing, so as you
13 contemplate asking questions, be mindful of that
14 because we want to allow everyone to speak
15 tonight and get home before midnight I hope. So,
16 any questions?
17 MR. SIMON: No questions?
18 I just --
19 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Your
20 statement was quite complete.
21 MR. SIMON: Thank you. I just want
22 to make one other statement that's very
23 important. We have one of the best school
24 Superintendents in New York City, Matt Brum.
25 It's very, and a lot of District 27 is here.
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2 It's very difficultly to take a school
3 Superintendent and ask him to be at the Tweed
4 Building. If God forbid we ever had another
5 horrendous incident like 9/11, whose going to be
6 there running the show? No cell phones, no
7 access. How does one get from Manhattan to his
8 District? Okay, we don't live in Manhattan, we
9 live in Queens. We're the furthest district,
10 we're closer to Long Island then Manhattan and I
11 would ask please that it go back and be told that
12 we want our school Superintendent in our district
13 and not in City Hall, not in the Tweed Building.
14 Thank you very much.
15 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
16 very much.
17 MS. THOMSON: Thank you.
18 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: And by the
19 way, that comment was not intended for the panel
20 members to muzzle anyone just be very judicious
21 and let's balance our needs with the needs of the
22 folks to talk to us.
23 MS. THOMSON: Robert Cermeli,
24 member of Community School Board 24.
25 MR. CERMELI: Thank you for having
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2 me today. I wasn't really going to testify
3 because I read the agenda and the agenda said
4 talk about alternate school boards and alternate
5 systems instead of school boards and I really
6 don't have any alternate system. I believe in
7 the school board system and I want to talk a
8 little bit something about that.
9 When I first ran, I was not a parent
10 of children in the public school system. I did
11 not belong to any special interest group, but yet
12 I still wanted to run because I wanted to use my
13 work experience in trying to help the school
14 community. Now when I first got into, I ran in
15 an election not having any support, not going on
16 any particular ticket, not going on any slate,
17 not knowing too much about it and luckily enough
18 I sold my experience and I came in ninth, so I
19 did and I was a school board member.
20 My experience is in building
21 construction. I immediately got into the
22 Committee of Maintenance and Building and nobody
23 wanted that committee. I did some research and I
24 found out then that Queens was the most
25 overcrowded district in all of the city. And
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2 then when I did further research, I found out
3 that my school board district, school board 24,
4 was the most overcrowded district in Queens. So
5 I got into looking into getting schools built and
6 I did the research and I went to the Division of
7 School Facilities, that time we didn't have
8 school construction, alright, it's going back
9 about 13 years, and I said this is a piece of
10 cake. We have the design finished, we have the
11 money in the budget and this is going to go.
12 First school, 1,300 children is going to be
13 built. And it was not going to be built because
14 there was opposition. There was community
15 opposition.
16 People were fighting the school
17 board tooth and nail and I found out there were
18 things like economic development. So I started
19 to advocate and joined and got appointed to the
20 Planning Board and I started to say, you know
21 something, you're neighborhood is dependent on
22 the quality of your schools. And we fought and
23 we fought and we fought, we fought and in this
24 building we got all the parties together that
25 kept pointing fingers at why these schools
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2 couldn't get built and finally we got P.S. 7
3 built. And then another one, another hard time,
4 we got I.S. 5 built.
5 As I went on as a school board
6 member, I got involved with special ed. I
7 brought special ed to the parents. I wrote
8 resolutions that had to do with children not
9 reading up to par. I wrote resolutions on school
10 safety. What is my point? My point is not to
11 say I'm a good school board member. My point is
12 to say to be a school board member the important
13 thing is you have to be caring, you have to be
14 receptive to the parents, you have to understand
15 the needs of the community. This is what makes a
16 good board member. Whether you are a minority,
17 whether you're a parent, you must have those
18 qualities.
19 Now the point is, how do you get
20 those qualities? How do you get people to come
21 into this process and how to you try to get?
22 Partly by luck. You could get people coming in
23 that are just caring and want to do this, but
24 more importantly, I think you have to increase
25 voter turnout by popularizing the election. This
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2 needs the help of the government, the community
3 because you can't fight it. Right now the
4 government is fighting community school boards
5 and they're belittling it and the papers are
6 picking it up and say why do you need it? People
7 believe what they read. But you do need school
8 boards because they are the catalyst for parents.
9 Now, popularizing the election.
10 What does it do? And I'm going to explain that.
11 And I want to explain that in conjunction to what
12 we have now. We have a proportional
13 representation and I read Rob's Richie, if you
14 ever read this 14 page (inaudible) why we should
15 have proportional representation. But I disagree
16 with it. I disagree with it because I think it
17 could be manipulated. People come in with
18 proportional representation and they have strong
19 candidates and they have weak candidates and when
20 the weak candidates drop out, they give their
21 votes to the candidates up and they come in as a
22 block, a voting block and you have one or two
23 people that are very politically suave and you
24 have other people indebted to them and you have a
25 voting block and you have members that are
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2 receptive to that voting block and sometimes not
3 to the parents.
4 I think you do away with that and
5 you have elections on a one on one. You let
6 people sell themselves to the public and let them
7 get elected and then in the future elections, if
8 they don't produce, vote them out. But sometimes
9 you can't vote them out on proportional because
10 they come in in that block and you get weak
11 candidates supporting strong candidates and it's
12 okay for a weak candidate, but if a weak
13 candidate is weak because they don't represent
14 the parents in the community, they should not be
15 on the school board.
16 There should be school board
17 accountability. Resolutions are written month
18 after month after month and copies do go to
19 Central Board. Now it's part of the Mayor's
20 Office. But did I ever get comments back and
21 saying what do you intend to do with this
22 resolution? How is this working? I think you
23 need communication with an oversight body saying
24 you're coming, you, the school board are coming.
25 You're writing these resolutions. I have read
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2 your resolutions, justify them to me. Let's talk
3 about them. I think that's a step forward.
4 These are some of the things that I
5 could think of that could help the existing
6 school boards. But don't do away with school
7 boards because you're doing away with a right
8 that parents should have. Thank you.
9 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Before you
10 leave, sir. Before you leave I want to see if
11 there are any questions. Just one very brief
12 note to you and to the audience. I have
13 mentioned this earlier today when the same
14 subject came up. 1998 the State Legislature
15 actually passed a law to actually do away with
16 proportional voting and went to a more direct
17 form of voting, one that would be on the
18 machines, one in which you voted for the people
19 running. Whoever got the most votes, the nine
20 people who got the most votes won. The Justice
21 Department refused to approve that. They said it
22 was a violation of the Voting Rights Act and
23 actually wrote a decision saying that
24 proportional voting provides the greatest
25 opportunity for minority representation. So,
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2 actually we agreed with that certainly that part
3 of your testimony much as the rest of your
4 testimony as well, I suspect, but having passed
5 that direct voting, it was turned away by the
6 Justice Department. So I just wanted to add that
7 historical note.
8 MR. CERMELI: I just want to say if
9 I read Robs Richie's report on proportional
10 voting whose uncle, by the way, was the spearhead
11 back, I think, in 1939 that actually developed
12 proportional voting and if you read this and
13 without understanding what goes on in the real
14 world out there, in theory, proportional voting
15 is very good, in theory. But in practicality,
16 it's being manipulated and it doesn't work and I
17 think that's what the Justice Department doesn't
18 know. They see this kind of report, and I'll
19 tell you, I was almost convinced and I lived
20 through it. And I lived through it 13 years, but
21 I'm not convinced because I see what happens. I
22 see blocks of people getting in and you only need
23 five to control what goes on in the board and I
24 say this is not representative of the parents.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: I only raise
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2 that point because I wanted you to know that
3 Barbara Clarke and Audrey Pheffer and myself and
4 even though John LaVelle wasn't in the Assembly
5 at the time, this was something the Legislature
6 had tried to do.
7 MR. CERMELI: Thank you very much.
8 MS. THOMSON: Thank you Rob.
9 Sharon Maurer, President, Community School Board
10 26.
11 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Excuse me.
12 Before you speak, I just want for the record,
13 because that's why I was called away, Councilman
14 Joe Adabo was going to be here and will turn in
15 written testimony, but he's sick with the flu, so
16 that was really it, that he'll --
17 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: We hope he
18 gets better, but we're glad he's not here. Okay.
19 MS. MAURER: Good evening. Thank
20 you for being here. I should be used to this but
21 I'm an extemporaneous speaker. I hate writing
22 testimony so you will probably resort that I
23 probably won't say and other things that I'll add
24 in. First for those of you who I'm not familiar
25 with. My name is Sharon Maurer. By profession,
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2 I am a legal assistant. I work across the
3 street. And avocation, I'm a parent, a person
4 who is always been active and an advocate for
5 public education. Four or five years, I've
6 worked for school district 25 in the Junior High
7 School. I have a diversity of experience that
8 has enabled me to take a really multifaceted
9 approach to the different issues that come up
10 about education and that formulate my educational
11 philosophy. Besides working in schools, I was
12 the PTA person who had every job from beginning
13 with the meeter, greeter, put the cake out on the
14 table, to the President of the PTA. I also ran
15 an after school program for the 111th Precinct
16 Community Council. So I was very familiar with
17 after school programs and the necessities there.
18 Fourteen years ago I was elected to the school
19 board in District 26 and for the past four years
20 I've been the President. I'm also the Chair of
21 the Queens Council Community School Boards. My
22 Vice Chair is sitting right there.
23 I thought I'd take this opportunity
24 since community school board governance, even
25 though there are people who support it, I believe
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1 12/12/02 School Board Governance
2 will end as of June 30th, to be a little franker
3 then is usually my wise and say some things that
4 I think need to be said. Just a few months ago
5 school board governance and school governance of
6 New York City has been changed thanks to New York
7 State Legislators. I believe from the date it
8 happened that given a year or two you are going
9 to find this city and it's parents and it's
10 communities that were very sorry that this change
11 took place, but I was very surprised. It only
12 took a few months, a lot less then I thought. In
13 a few short months we have watched the priorities
14 that have been set.
15 Cross-cutting is the priority
16 because it is the priority of the City. Of the
17 Mayor and I can certainly understand that I live
18 here. It has become the priority of the
19 Department of Education which it never should
20 have been. Children come first. They have been
21 rumors out there and let me tell you, I have
22 worked in 14 years with people all over this city
23 from employees of the Central Board of Education,
24 Department of Education, excuse me, to
25 Legislators, parents, school board members, Union
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2 leaders, Union members, all over this city and I
3 hear a lot of things. Some of those things are
4 really frightening. They're talking about, as if
5 it were a done deal, consolidating school
6 districts. Well that I thought was up to the New
7 York State Legislature. They're talking about
8 decimating the number of Superintendents. This
9 is all for the purpose of cost effectiveness and
10 not for seeing their children get educated.
11 They're talking about eliminating Deputy
12 Superintendents. To tell you the truth, to
13 Tweed, Deputy Superintendents don't exist. They
14 haven't met once with the Deputy Superintendents.
15 They don't speak to them and we know how hard a
16 job they do in running a district. They're
17 talking about replacing Deputy Superintendents
18 with Managing Principals. Sounds very lovely.
19 It's a very good way of getting someone to do the
20 job of a Deputy Superintendent without giving
21 them a Deputy Superintendent's salary.
22 You also get them out of the schools
23 so they don't have all this pressure to succeed
24 on them also. They're also talking about seeking
25 new supervisors, not just from among master
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2 teachers, educational leaders, but business
3 people. I have never been against the
4 Chancellors being chosen from the business
5 community, but principals being chosen from the
6 business community? Is it a secret here that
7 this is already, it was called privatization.
8 Edison has been doing it. It's a failure. It's
9 not working. It's not helping children, but
10 you're going to take someone who knows nothing
11 about the nuts and bolts of education and put
12 them in charge of a school. Actually, I'd like
13 to go over, let's talk about the Chancellor.
14 I've always believed the Office of Chancellor
15 should be by (inaudible). You should have a,
16 maybe a Commissioner, a Chancellor, someone in
17 charge of administration, someone in charge of
18 education, and they should be forced to have to
19 sit down and come to terms with each other doing
20 things that make monetary sense while at the same
21 time doing things that make sense for the
22 education of children. That is certainly not
23 happening now.
24 And one thing I have written that I
25 didn't say that I would like to that is
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2 considering what's happening in the corporate
3 world today, the last thing I would try to do to
4 use as a model for running anything would be the
5 corporate world's way of running education.
6 All of these notions are being considered but
7 the most important piece from which all else
8 blows is still being researched. The aims, the
9 goals and strategies to improve our childrens'
10 education and help them meet the standards that
11 this state has set. Professional development has
12 gone out the door. Funds for mentoring are gone.
13 Funds for maintaining staff in district offices
14 to support teachers, to support principals,
15 that's gone. Cost cutting has taken precedence
16 over the future of our children. There's been no
17 attempt to integrate the districts and the
18 Department of Education. Superintendents input
19 is token at best.
20 They have encouraged Superintendents
21 not to speak with their boards, not to offer too
22 much information to their parents, not to speak
23 with their Legislators and certainly, heaven
24 forbid, not to speak with the press. How is a
25 Superintendent supposed to represent their
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2 district and not represent the Chairs.
3 They're talking about dispersing
4 citywide (inaudible) education. Mandating that
5 overcrowded schools have to accept children from
6 failing schools without meaningful input from
7 parents, from communities, all of these thing are
8 being thrown into the pot. That, at a time when
9 there is a vacuum in governance on a community
10 level. If those in authority continue as they
11 begun we're in serious trouble and anyone with
12 school age children who can move out of this city
13 will. The newly constituted Central Board, I
14 miss you Terri, except for those members who have
15 been appointed by the Borough representatives,
16 are more then, they're not a board. They're a
17 panel of hear no evil, see no evil, speak no
18 evil, like the Superintendents, they have their
19 marching orders.
20 I ask that whatever form of council
21 or board you ultimately recommend, whether it be
22 the retention of community school boards,
23 district councils, borough boards, or district
24 borough advancement, that was an idea that Jill
25 Levy mentioned when we had a meeting with
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2 Councilman Mark Whepren, and I thought if you do
3 choose to get rid of school boards it would be
4 most helpful, but would have to be on a district
5 and borough level. That whatever that form is it
6 have the power to select Superintendents, set
7 priorities for budgets, be part of an appeals
8 process and provide real checks and balances to a
9 centralized authority. Without these powers, it
10 can only be ineffective. It's also vital that
11 the new governance structure accurately reflect
12 the ethnic make up of the schools and
13 communities. As an example, leadership teams, as
14 in the case of most PTA executive boards, don't
15 come close to being representative of their
16 student body, nor do they include community
17 representatives, and I'm speaking for my own
18 district. They have been largely impotent and
19 parent empowerment, a word that is figurative
20 only. There is really a problem of continuity,
21 especially on a middle school level when you have
22 parents in a school. They come in one year.
23 They first learn about the school. The next year
24 they might get on the leadership team and in
25 another year they're gone.
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2 School, elected school board members
3 through proportional voting, I know that word is
4 an enema, is reflective of their constituencies
5 and provides a bridge between the educational
6 community and the community at large. I wanted
7 to tell you, adding one thing --
8 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: I hate to
9 interrupt you. We'll have to ask you to conclude
10 because the time is --
11 MS. MAURER: I will. I thank you
12 for your time, your efforts, wish you well in
13 your quest to seek an answer to the governance
14 issue and hope that you will put the educational
15 needs of our children first. Thank you.
16 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
17 very much.
18 MS. THOMSON: Thank you. Assembly
19 member Barbara Clarke.
20 ASSEMBLYWOMAN CLARK: Good evening.
21 As far as Assemblyman Sanders and Assemblywoman
22 Pheffer is concerned, I wouldn't have had, and
23 John, I wouldn't have had to come here because
24 they know exactly what I'm going to say. But I
25 just thought I should come and put it on the
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2 record that I voted for and am in support of
3 replacing Community School Boards. The question
4 is what do we replace them with? My feeling
5 about replacing community school boards is that
6 we have to do something to change what's
7 happening in our school system and we've done
8 what we could in Albany. And a lot of people
9 don't agree with what we've done so far, but I
10 think that we made a conscious effort to try to
11 change something because our children are failing
12 in this city and if we keep doing the same thing
13 we always did we'll keep getting the same thing
14 we always got. That's, you know, it took a
15 little hammering on my head to realize that
16 because I was thinking we could just keep
17 improving, trying to improve what we had.
18 I never ran for community school
19 board. I always helped people get elected but
20 the reason I didn't run for school board is I
21 felt I would be co-acted, believe it or not. As
22 a young, silly parent with four children, I felt
23 I would be co-acted based on what I saw and that
24 was a long time ago. All four of my children
25 when to public school in the neighborhood.
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2 Andrew Jackson, I need to say more. Everybody
3 says, four of your children went to Andrew
4 Jackson, yes and they're all professionals doing
5 very, very well and I'm very proud of that, but I
6 never wanted to be on the community school board.
7 I helped people get elected, I've tried to make
8 them do what I thought they should do, I didn't
9 always see that. There were diligent people,
10 committed people and I think they wanted to do a
11 good job. I think school boards may not have
12 always known what their mission was and so I
13 think there has to be something happens at a
14 lower level.
15 School leadership teams, I believe,
16 with proper training, can serve the same purpose
17 and that is everybody's concerned about parents
18 having a voice. I've sat at community school
19 board meetings where the room was packed with
20 parents, a room this size. When the after school
21 program was closing down and the school board
22 went on for hours and never recognized a single
23 parent is sitting there because this was an exec
24 board meeting, there's no way I would have been
25 sitting where your sitting and have that many
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2 people in the room and not say, well what are you
3 all here for? You know, what's the problem?
4 And, but that did not happen. This is not under
5 the present school board. This is a few years
6 ago, not long ago, but a few years ago.
7 So, in many instances, the parent
8 don't have a voice anyway. At the local school
9 level, I believe that this is where we stand the
10 best chance of getting a core group of interested
11 people that's interested in that building and
12 then from that building everyone for every school
13 building will have it's own personal interests.
14 And people operate very, very well when they have
15 a personal interest. Their building and then out
16 of those school buildings people can come
17 together and create coalitions, you might want to
18 call them borough boards or school leadership
19 team coalitions, whatever, I'm not sure exactly
20 what things should be called, but certainly you
21 would have an interested group of people that
22 goes on a best school system and their school
23 building and I believe that those group of people
24 will make a better group of people to represent
25 the interest of the children because they're
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2 their kids.
3 You know, these are people that have
4 a vested interest. The teachers should have a
5 vested interest. Those teachers in that
6 building. The principal certainly should and the
7 parent we know have a vested interest. They may
8 not know what to do exactly, but they have a
9 vested interest. These are their children. And
10 so, and I don't think that they believe that they
11 have a voice now. Most parent -- I mean you
12 hear from a few when you come out and hold these
13 hearings, but most parents don't feel like they
14 have a voice now, that's why you don't see many
15 of them because they don't think they make a
16 difference one way or the other.
17 So, I support the school leadership
18 teams as the alternative to community school
19 boards, but I support working very hard and
20 providing the resources necessary to make them
21 effective. I support the Department of
22 Education, the Mayor and everybody concerned,
23 Borough Presidents, giving them the venue for
24 airing their concerns because parents just
25 believe they don't have a way of talking to
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2 people and getting their message across. That
3 has to happen. Presently, Superintendents are
4 ignoring leadership team people and ignoring --
5 I'm not saying 100%, I can't do that, but the
6 experience that I have is they ignore them. You
7 know, they don't mean squat. Now, I'm serious,
8 that's my experience, so that has to change. If
9 you're going to have school leadership -- And
10 everybody and school board members and a lot of
11 people have not accepted school leadership teams.
12 If they become legitimate in law, then everybody
13 will have to accept them because right now they
14 get a, oh school leadership teams. I don't care
15 where you go, school leadership teams.
16 They're not replacing the PTA and
17 they shouldn't, but they serve a different
18 function, the makeup is different. You can have
19 community people, you can have school
20 administrators, parents and all of those people
21 on the school leadership team but they have to
22 have their voices heard in order to make any kind
23 of change in the school system.
24 So my statement is very, very brief.
25 I think we need to get on with it. Our children
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2 can't wait. I'll tell you one more thing. I was
3 at a school this morning, Andrew Jackson High
4 School which is now four small schools, we call
5 it the campus now. And we had a report from our
6 Reading Emergent Teacher because the kids come in
7 not being able to read. We decided not to create
8 four magnet schools where children had to be
9 tested to get in because we knew we would be
10 excluding too many kids from the neighborhood and
11 so children have to go to school, that's it. If
12 you've graduated junior high school and you have
13 a decent attendance rate, you can get into the
14 building. But guess what? They graduate junior
15 high school and they can't read! The list they
16 showed us of the assessment that they did on
17 students going into the reading emergent program,
18 there wasn't 10 who was reading on a sixth grade
19 level. Some reading is low as the first grade
20 level and when I asked, is this a student who
21 speak another language, no. Most reading at the
22 second, third, fourth grade level. And I'm
23 serious.
24 I can share that information with
25 you anytime you want. The reading teacher came
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2 last year and told us that what you're going to
3 find out is how did these kids get in to high
4 school, you know, because they can't read, write
5 or do math. But the major thing we focused on is
6 reading because they'll never do math, technology
7 or any of those things, but they can't read. So
8 our focus has been to teach them how to read so
9 we created this reading emergent program. I'm
10 going to finish right at this minute.
11 And so the reality is that
12 children are not being educated at the school
13 board level. High schools are, you know, they
14 have an impossible job because they're trying to
15 do the whole thing to get the kids through and
16 now with new standards, it's impossible for them
17 to do. So now everybody's going to blame the new
18 standards which we should have. But the kids
19 have failed down at the lower school level, so
20 something has to happen to change that. So I'm
21 here to support the notion of changing it so that
22 we can try to do a better job at educating the
23 children from the first through eight. And this
24 is a good time for me to put in a plug for K
25 through 8's because then that would eliminate one
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2 of the areas of concern that people have about
3 how many levels of school we have to go through.
4 Parent will be there longer, hopefully teachers
5 will stay there longer and I think it will be a
6 win- win situation, so I thank you for your time,
7 thank you for all the good work that you do.
8 Chairman Sanders I look forward to going back to
9 Albany and working very closely with you.
10 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: I think
11 there may be a question or two. We'll try to
12 keep them brief, but I just have to offer a very
13 brief comment. Barbara Clark and I have had
14 hundreds, thousands of discussions about
15 education over the years. As a member of the
16 Education Committee, one of the Senior members of
17 the Education Committee, occasionally we've
18 yelled at one another, no, let me change that.
19 Occasional you've yelled at me. But all the
20 while I have always known, and I need for your
21 constituents in Queens to hear this as well, that
22 there's nobody in the State Legislature who cares
23 more about public education or more about the
24 students or more about the communities then
25 Barbara Clark. So happy you were here tonight.
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2 Robin Brown.
3 MS. BROWN: I just have one
4 question. In terms of school leadership teams,
5 would you support parents being the majority on
6 school leadership teams or would you leave the
7 composition as it is?
8 ASSEMBLYWOMAN CLARK: Well I've
9 tried to get that, didn't I Steve? I tried to
10 get majority parents because I felt that in some
11 instance parents may not be as knowledgeable as
12 the other people on the team and there was some
13 sources, I think probably the UFT, and did not
14 want to see that happen. I don't know exactly
15 who didn't want to see it happen, but certainly I
16 think that would probably be a good mix to have
17 more parents then school administration.
18 MS. THOMSON: I want to echo
19 Assemblyman Sanders comments about your long
20 standing passionate support --
21 ASSEMBLYWOMAN CLARK: You all do a
22 pretty good job struggling on this education.
23 Hail yourselves. So thank you.
24 MS. THOMSON: Thank you. Your
25 proposal then is to strengthen the school
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2 leadership teams, expand the role of parents.
3 What do you see at the district level replacing
4 school boards or do you, are you suggesting that
5 there not be any?
6 ASSEMBLYWOMAN CLARK: I don't think
7 there needs to be anything to replace the school
8 boards particularity other then a coalition of a
9 sort, maybe for one of a better name, of all of
10 the school leadership teams. I mean we have what
11 we call President's Council now which is a
12 coalition of parents and I think they work very
13 effectively. They will share ideas and build
14 lobbying forces within the group and I believe
15 that something like that would happen. What has
16 to happen is there has to be some clear
17 definition of what they're allowed to do, whose
18 supposed to listen to them, how long there should
19 be between the time that they complain and the
20 time somebody takes action. I mean there has to
21 be some specifics in place as to who will respond
22 to an organization down at the local level, in my
23 opinion. I think that's where the major group is
24 going to be is how do you make people move? But
25 I think parents technically are the most powerful
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2 group of people there are in the system if they
3 use that power but they don't believe it so our
4 goal has to be is to make them believe that they
5 have the power.
6 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
7 MR. CLAYTON: How are you doing
8 Honorable Barbara Clark? How are you feeling?
9 ASSEMBLYWOMAN CLARK: Fine.
10 MR. CLAYTON: I just have a quick
11 question going back to the makeup of a leadership
12 team body. As we know, the school leadership
13 teams are supposed to resemble the stake holders
14 and if by chance this new governance body were to
15 try to comprise itself of resembling the
16 education body, how do you feel, because this
17 morning we had testimony, and how do you feel
18 about, as far as teachers, we're trying to get
19 away from that Union thing, you mentioned the
20 UFT, about retired educators on such a new
21 governance body because we feel that it is
22 important to bring aboard educators because they
23 do have the expertise in a lot of the curriculum
24 and a lot of those areas, but we don't want to
25 get caught up in the Union when it comes to
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2 voting, if you have to vote on these elections,
3 this new body that's set up, so how do you feel
4 bringing on retired people who have been through
5 this, who has the expertise and bringing them
6 back in the fold?
7 ASSEMBLYWOMAN CLARK: Well I don't
8 have a problem with retirees. If they're
9 interested enough to give up their time and want
10 to get involved to help because maybe some of the
11 constraints have been taken off when they're
12 retirees as long as there not there as some
13 special interest person, unless that special
14 interest is to kids, then they shouldn't be
15 there, but otherwise I don't see why it should be
16 a problem with them being there. And I'll tell
17 you something else about teachers. My daddy was
18 a coal miner. Very, very, very union oriented.
19 I'm not anti-union. I'm very anti many of the
20 things that the UFT does, you know, but the
21 reality is there are unions like everybody else,
22 they do good things and then they do bad things,
23 you know. I've always wondered why UFT spent $2
24 million dollars to create a curriculum instead of
25 spending $2 million dollars training teachers on
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2 how to handle kids in the classroom. They do
3 some of that, but they need to do more, so there
4 are teachers who pull rabbits out of a hat to do
5 her job, some. My son, my two sons just got a
6 Christmas card from a teacher that they had in
7 the third and fourth grade.
8 Ms. Obarsky and Ms. Obarsky tells
9 them if you don't write to me I'm going to break
10 your arm when I see you. There are special
11 teachers. There are very special teachers. So,
12 to the extent that a teacher wants to serve on
13 the school board and have the best interest of
14 the children at heart instead of their Union
15 duties, I think that's fine. I think it takes
16 all three, teachers, administrators and parents,
17 oh four, and community to make education work for
18 kids.
19 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: We thank you
20 very much. I'll see you Monday night.
21 ASSEMBLYWOMAN CLARK: Thank you.
22 See you Monday.
23 MS. THOMSON: We'll now call up
24 Patricia Cruz, President of President's Council
25 in District 75 and Michelle Dudley, PTA
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2 President, District 75, P.S. 177. As a duo.
3 MS. CRUZ: My name is Patricia
4 Cruz. I'm President of President's Council for
5 District 75. For those of you who have never
6 heard of District 75, we have 22,000 children
7 receiving special ed services citywide. I am no
8 big fan of community school boards and the reason
9 I am is we don't have one. We've never had one.
10 I live in District 27. My son attends a District
11 26 school in a District 75 program. I have a son
12 that attends a school in District 30 in a
13 District 77 program and I have a son in District
14 27 in my local school. We, who do we go to? No
15 community school board gets out there and fights
16 for the 2% of our kids. Never have I heard a
17 community school board fight for special
18 education.
19 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: No, we're not
20 going to have cross --
21 MS. CRUZ: I'm here tonight to
22 speak on behalf of the special education
23 children. Our children are treated a second
24 class citizens. Our children are self contained
25 classes located in general ed buildings. We're
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2 usually on the third floor or we are in the
3 basement. During citywide testing, we are not
4 allowed out of our classrooms because we make too
5 much noise and we interrupt the general ed while
6 they are taking their tests. Our kids are bussed
7 for miles, for hours out of districts to
8 districts that do not want our kids. They have
9 made it known. We don't have anybody there
10 fighting for our kids rights. Nobody. We're
11 just starting to get vocal, our district, and now
12 with everything going on with the new Chancellor
13 and the Mayor overseeing, we are definitely
14 afraid of what's going to happen and become of
15 our children.
16 Whatever you decide, please have a
17 separate component for special ed in District 75.
18 Some of our kids are non-verbal, some of our kids
19 are in wheelchairs, they need feeding tubes, they
20 need ambulances, they need a voice, they need to
21 be heard, so whatever you decide, please, please,
22 please remember our special ed kids. Thank you.
23 MS. DUDLEY: Hi, again, I'm the
24 President of PTA for 177. We're an all inclusive
25 special ed school that has autistic children,
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2 emotionally disturbed children and multiply
3 handicapped such as speech impaired. There were
4 petitions going around District 26 from parents
5 trying to get our kids so they could have our
6 school building because we do not have any
7 general ed in our building. So this is the kind
8 of discrimination our children face on a daily
9 basis and when we came last year to the City
10 Council to testify on the budget cuts coming
11 down, after waiting three hours when it was the
12 parents turn to speak, half the City Council
13 members left and didn't stay to hear us. Today
14 we had a President's Council meeting where a
15 month ago we started e-mailing all our city
16 council members. I e-mailed everyone three
17 times. We sent faxes, we tried to call whoever
18 we could and seven people responded and only two
19 showed up who weren't even our city council
20 members, but they sent representatives and Ava
21 Moscowitz did send someone so we were grateful
22 for that.
23 That's just the kind of thing that
24 happens with District 75. We're not learning
25 disabled children. We are our own special needs
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2 district and there are rumors flying around that
3 the Mayor and the Chancellor want to dissolve our
4 district and these general ed teachers not only
5 don't want us, they can't handle us and whenever
6 parents come, we speak and we advocate and we
7 finally found Terri and a year later the board
8 was gone. The Chancellor put together this new
9 board and the parents on the board can't even
10 vote because they're always outnumbered by the
11 Mayor's electees and I've come to meetings here
12 at this office when they were looking for a
13 Queens parent member and Helen Marshall sat there
14 and told all the parents, it's not too late if
15 you still want to nominate somebody, no problem,
16 send it in, and with no disrespect to Evita,
17 because I like her very much, the next day it was
18 announced that the Queens person had been
19 elected.
20 So parents feel that they are being
21 lied to I feel and we're not given enough notice
22 to come and testify so I just want to ask you,
23 when you go about doing what you're decision
24 making is going to be, please have either parents
25 outweigh the other members on the team, give our
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2 school leaderships more power because no matter
3 what the principal can still out vote us and
4 luckily we're all special ed, so obviously our
5 interests are different then when we share a
6 building. But like Pat said, don't forget about
7 us because we won't forget about you guys. And I
8 just ask, you know, we have so many ideas and so
9 much to offer and Terri's been there with us all
10 along and she's still helping us and we're not
11 going to go down quietly, so don't think you are
12 going to get rid of us. Thank you.
13 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well, let me
14 just say that this is generally true of
15 everything we're doing. None of us know how this
16 is all going to turn out. We're listening very
17 carefully to all of the testimony. We literally
18 have 25, 30 hours ahead of us before we complete
19 that, but you can be assured whatever the outcome
20 is, you will not be forgotten.
21 MS. DUDLEY: And we thank you for
22 not leaving. Thank you.
23 MS. THOMSON: Earnest Brown, School
24 Board Member, District 27. A few school board
25 members from District 27, I just want to make
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2 mention, make note that your President, Steve
3 Greenberg spoke to us at our Manhattan meeting.
4 He did you proud. He was quite eloquent. He
5 gave some very, very thoughtful testimony and we
6 had a great dialogue with him for quite some
7 time.
8 MR. BROWN: My name is Earnest
9 Brown. I'm a member of the Community School
10 Board 27. I've been involved in District 27 for
11 over the past 33 years, six children and numerous
12 grandchildren. There's the 33 years. Before I
13 begin my statement, I'd like to say that
14 centralized education is nothing new. In fact,
15 when I was going to school, the system was
16 centralized and there was a great fight, I think,
17 probably none of the members here were involved
18 in the fight for de- centralization and there was
19 a reason. We felt that it was important that
20 parents be involved in the decision making,
21 really involved.
22 Now, I'm sitting before you to talk
23 about, it's a conversation that I feel
24 uncomfortable with, namely asking you to give me,
25 a parent and other parents, a voice in how we're
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2 going to do things. You have, many Legislators,
3 maybe some sitting here, you more or less,
4 establish the game when you change the law. You
5 created a very centralized, very strong Mayor,
6 that was your wish. This Mayor can assign a
7 panel, he was allowed to have a panes, he can
8 appoint a panel, eight members, a panel that's
9 supposed to be 13, he appoints eight of the
10 thirteen, so I can imagine how a discussion goes
11 in something like that. He appoints the
12 Chancellor. He don't have to consult with
13 anybody. This is my man. And the Chancellor
14 serves as President, not elected, but he is
15 President of this education panel. He appoints
16 the Superintendents and now you say after
17 developing something like that, you say, well
18 gee, what are we going to do with the parents? I
19 hope that you don't believe that you are going to
20 create a parent group that is not going to say,
21 it's going to continually say yes because
22 basically that's where the parents are going to
23 find themselves. Yes, that's going to become the
24 big word over the next few years until the next
25 generation comes up and begins to fight.
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2 Yes is any appointed group. You
3 appoint somebody, you're loyal to the person who
4 appoints you and that's what you're some how not
5 to do. Incidently, there was a thing called
6 local school boards, before there were school
7 boards, there was local school boards, just like
8 there was a Superintendent of Schools, believe it
9 or not. The local school board was appointed by
10 the Borough Presidents and basically the function
11 of that local school board was to say yes. They
12 did it very well. Now back to my statement. We
13 are here today to discuss the future of local
14 elected community school boards or what should
15 replace them as the district level school
16 governance body.
17 I submit that in the New York City
18 school system of over 1,200 schools, over one
19 million students, five boroughs and 32 school
20 districts with nearly total control vested in the
21 Mayor, it is critical that the State Legislature
22 maintain a local district level school governance
23 body.
24 With control of New york City school
25 system given to the Mayor, it is more important
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2 then ever to maintain a system of checks and
3 balances in public school governance. Without a
4 system of checks and balances at the local level,
5 parents and community stakeholder in public
6 school education will be denied a meaningful
7 voice in the City's public schools. Community
8 school boards have provided the opportunity for
9 local public access and participation for over 33
10 years in New York City. Whether you maintain
11 community school boards or set up another
12 district level school governance structure, you
13 must not deny the parents and voters in New York
14 City the meaningful elected representation that
15 you maintain in place in the rest of the state.
16 What should district school
17 governance be like? It must be elected to
18 command the respect and authority necessary for
19 meaningful independent accountable
20 representation. It must preserve the right to
21 vote for New York City residents as it is
22 preserved in Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester
23 Counties and in the rest of the State and most of
24 the nation. It must empower the representatives
25 with real responsibilities for educational policy
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2 and planning such as approval of the District
3 Comprehensive Education Plan, review the district
4 budget and contribute tot he evaluation of the
5 district Superintendent in consultation with
6 parents and the public. It must be accountable
7 to parents and the public by providing local
8 public access and opportunities for parents and
9 the community to discuss concerns in public
10 settings. Governance without real responsibility
11 and accountability is no governance at all.
12 School level decision making is a
13 positive thing but it does not replace an elected
14 and accountable district level governance body.
15 District decisions effect the resources at the
16 school, it's leadership and the policies and
17 procedures staff and students must follow.
18 School level decisions are limited in scope and
19 are often made without any meaningful input from
20 parents.
21 The system, now nearly fully
22 centralized, must hold the Chancellor accountable
23 for effective school governance. The Legislature
24 must make the Chancellor consult regularly with
25 district governance bodies on matters of
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2 educational policy, major district appointments
3 and on other matters of concern to district
4 parents and the public. This is not now the case
5 and has not been the case for some time. The
6 ability of the Chancellor to bypass and ignore
7 local school boards became a fatal flaw in the
8 current system. It is a flaw that this task
9 force and the Legislature should correct by
10 ensuring that the Chancellor is responsive to
11 school district communities through regular
12 consultation with their elected district level
13 governance bodies.
14 The right to vote should not be
15 legislated away. The public supports public
16 education through taxation. All members of the
17 community share in its costs and benefits. All
18 members of the community must be able to vote for
19 their elected district governance body. Elected
20 representation has been the model for public
21 school governance throughout the United States
22 for over a century. This task force must ensure
23 that the citizens of New York City retain the
24 same right to vote for local school district
25 representation enjoyed by voters elsewhere in
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2 this state and nation.
3 Finally, districts as they currently
4 exist should continue to exist and a
5 Superintendent, empowered by the Legislature with
6 sufficient powers for district administration,
7 must be assigned to, and present in, each local
8 district in order to be accessible to the schools
9 and parents under their jurisdiction. It appears
10 that the city is moving in the opposite direction
11 and that it will require the State Legislators to
12 insert language in the law that makes sure that
13 parents and the community have local access to
14 the district's decision-maker. Local parent,
15 school, neighborhood and community alliances
16 forged in local school districts during the past
17 thirty-three years must be protected by the State
18 Legislature.
19 I live in Rockaway, about as far
20 away for the Tweed Courthouse as you can get.
21 Parents in my community should not have to go to
22 the Tweed Courthouse or to City Hall to raise a
23 concern. It is difficult enough for parents in
24 this day and age to participate without the State
25 standing by and permitting Mayoral control and
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2 difficult budget times to wipe out community
3 input, access and representation. I'd like to
4 thank you for the opportunity.
5 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
6 very much Mr. Brown. Any questions?
7 Ms. Pheffer.
8 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Sorry,
9 Earnest, you heard Assemblywoman Clark talk about
10 leadership teams and setting up something that
11 way, elected by the local schools, the leadership
12 teams, to a district. What's your feeling about
13 the leadership teams and using them as a vehicle?
14 MR. BROWN: The leadership team, I
15 feel, is a very good idea. It created another
16 level in which parents could participate within
17 their schools, within their schools. But I don't
18 think that that replaces a district wide
19 situation. One of the problems, no matter what
20 type of governance you create, you can call it
21 what you want, you can create anything you want,
22 you can put in as many numbers as you want, but
23 it goes back to if that body cannot say no and it
24 means anything then the body is nothing and
25 unfortunately, as you talk about if you followed
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2 the history of community school boards, how much
3 authority and power they had when they began and
4 over the years how that power was slowly eroded,
5 and then you say to me -- Think about this. You
6 had a board that at one time had a public, last
7 public discussion about who was to be
8 Superintendent of the district. The school was
9 packed. The auditorium was packed. If it came
10 to a question of principal appointments, we
11 could, when we could do that type of thing,
12 packed, lots of energy and that energy existed
13 because this body was able to exert it's
14 influence.
15 As people, people aren't that
16 committed like you'd like to think. As people
17 began to see, well I'm coming out every night,
18 I'm coming to this body and I'm talking my heart
19 out and actually this body can't do a darn thing
20 for me except move me on to the Superintendent or
21 move me on to someone else. So after a while,
22 well you can't, as an example, you can't make a
23 decision whether or not we should have a
24 Kindergarten graduation with caps and gowns. You
25 can't make that decision? You can't, you know,
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2 little simple things which are important to the
3 people and as you begin to see that a body has no
4 power, a very lofty name, a lot of other stuff
5 but no real influence to make a decision and to
6 change the direction of something, then people
7 will not support it and I hope that you don't
8 create a body, or a group, a panel that has no
9 influence. And if you look at what the
10 Legislature created within the Mayor's Office, I
11 don't see where actually a parent has much
12 influence anywhere.
13 But at any rate, whatever you
14 create, if it's a necessity, whatever you say
15 they're going to do, you're going to have to make
16 sure that they have the clout to do it and that
17 everybody respects the fact that they can do this
18 and they have to be real things that the people
19 are concerned about, not what you or someone else
20 in the Legislature or even at Federal levels and
21 what not, not what you're interested in but what
22 are the things that parents feel they must have
23 the power to effect the education of their
24 children. Even if you say just at the school
25 level. Who gives them that power? Do they take
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2 it, which incidentally, that has always been the
3 way, but do they take this power or do you give
4 them the power? Now, as I talk, I guess you can
5 say I more or less sort of feathering my own
6 nest.
7 This is my last year on the school
8 board. I will not, no matter what the office is,
9 I'm not going to be seeking one, but I think that
10 the generations to come are going to need a very
11 strong, if you call it middle management, they're
12 going to need a very strong body and they can't
13 be one of these jokes where the people go certain
14 places and people laugh at them because it don't
15 take long for you to realize that you're being
16 laughed at and once you get to that point, you'll
17 have no respect and people will take it into
18 their own hands to do what they feel is
19 important.
20 MS. THOMSON: Mr. Brown.
21 Mr. Brown, I just want to thank you for your many
22 years of service to our children. Delores
23 Bevilacqua, Community School Board 27, Second
24 Vice President.
25 MS. BEVILACQUA: Good evening and
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2 we miss you. I don't know if I just want to
3 throw my testimony that I have written and
4 prepared and given to you out the window because
5 it seems like you've heard it time and time again
6 and I don't know if I want to cry or vomit
7 because I still have a third grader in the system
8 and I have four children, my oldest being 23 and
9 the minute he walked into Kindergarten I think I
10 took that step with him and I never left the
11 school. And as I come around to this point in my
12 life, I've been a mom, a wife, a school board
13 member, a PA president, you name it, I've done it
14 at the schools, bake sales and whatever. I've
15 come to see that you want to give parents more
16 power and you just don't know how to do that.
17 Parents do have a lot of power they just don't
18 understand how to use it and it's so frightening
19 because this is not a secret. This shouldn't be
20 a secret. I'm the Chairperson of the Parent
21 Involvement Committee in my school board and it
22 seems that the other school board members said
23 you've always been a leader. You've been on the
24 school leadership teams, you've been on District
25 Council of Presidents, you've always been active
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2 and you can probably be one of the better people
3 on our school board to help them lead their, get
4 them a mission and help them go on and I helped
5 create a book in my first year of being on the
6 school board, I helped create a binded book and I
7 put a lot of things that I thought were very
8 useful for other PA Presidents and I distributed
9 them. I held meetings and I tried to get parents
10 to see that they had an important role and
11 sitting on school leadership and just watching
12 it, not being a participant anymore, because
13 being a school board member I can't be on a
14 school leadership team anymore, it's manipulated
15 by the UFT and the principal and ultimately the
16 principal will get his way. Especially if he's
17 good friends with the parents that are sitting on
18 the leadership team and if or if the UFT is good
19 friends with the principal. It just winds up
20 that it's a secret party, what's going on.
21 Sometimes the parents don't bring back to their
22 membership what's going on during leadership and
23 that's a shame. It really should be something
24 that is made to be told to other parents. It
25 isn't secret. Ultimately, the principal should
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2 have the final decision, it's his building, he's
3 responsible. He's responsible to the
4 Superintendent. He's, and the Superintendent is
5 responsible now to the Chancellor and the Mayor
6 and I have found within the last year with our
7 new Mayor being there that our Superintendent is
8 not as responsive to parents as he used to be. I
9 found that if the school board is not there and
10 the parents don't have the school board to go to
11 and kind of be the buffer between them, the
12 Superintendent usually gets to do what he wants
13 and not ultimately what the parents need in their
14 buildings and it's really sad because if there
15 isn't a school board there, a responsible body
16 other then school leadership or even District
17 Council of Presidents, for which I might add, our
18 Superintendent hasn't attended one of their
19 meetings yet for the last year and I do attend
20 them every month so this way I can help the
21 parents in my district.
22 Ultimately, the parents are not
23 going to have anyone to go to. Not even their
24 school leadership team. It's really sad. We as
25 a board, we have, we give the opportunity to ever
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2 PA to tell them if they have problems, we will
3 sit with them as a board, with the Superintendent
4 and discuss their problems. We have done so many
5 things that I think a lot of our parents have
6 left, that were good things. We actually were
7 there for the parents and our communities and
8 every Sunday, if I shop with my nine year old,
9 he's like mom, we never get out of Waldbaums, we
10 see teachers from our community, we see other
11 parents from our community and they stop and they
12 tell me little things that are going on and I
13 always bring it back. I always feel responsible
14 enough to bring it back and to make sure I get an
15 answer and if I don't get to see them the
16 following week in the supermarket, I make sure
17 that their school gets a call or I call them or
18 someone calls them and gives them that
19 information.
20 There needs to be an in between
21 group. And in between group that can really,
22 really make a difference. Give them some power
23 to make a difference because the parents don't
24 know the secret or at least don't have the keys
25 to unlock the secret. So you have my testimony,
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2 if you care to read it, but its not exactly what
3 I said. I'd like to thank you for the
4 opportunity and we miss you Terri. Thank you.
5 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Let me just
6 observe, we do have your testimony, the testimony
7 will become part of the record just as anyone
8 else who perhaps has to leave or perhaps has a
9 testimony they want to submit and depart from it
10 in their remarks and I can only tell you that,
11 I'll just repeat what we've all been saying all
12 day long, for your edification and for everyone
13 else's, the purpose here is not to eliminate
14 district representation or eliminate community
15 representation, certainly to change it, hopefully
16 to make it better and that's what we're going to
17 try and do.
18 MS. BEVILACQUA: I hope so because
19 I can't afford to move to Westchester or Long
20 Island.
21 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: We don't want
22 you to do that. Thank you very much.
23 MS. BEVILACQUA: Your welcome.
24 MS. THOMSON: Thank you Delores.
25 Frances Bryant, Community Activist.
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2 MS. BRYANT: Good evening. I've
3 seen you before. I had to use that phrase
4 because at the present time I don't have a title.
5 MS. THOMSON: It's a good title,
6 Community Activist.
7 MS. BRYANT: Well, when it comes to
8 education, you just can't keep me home. My
9 background is I was President of the John Adams
10 High School Parent's Association and during that
11 time I organized the Southwest Queens educational
12 alliance which as an alliance of 22 schools on
13 the mainland in District 27 and they said it will
14 never happen. We had two different communities,
15 one was mostly black, one was mostly white,
16 you'll never do it. I called up and they came
17 and it lasted 30 years and unfortunately, there's
18 a big difference right now in the way things are
19 happening because we have two working parents or
20 parents that come from another country and speak
21 different languages at home and maybe are shyer,
22 you know, there are many groups that are very shy
23 to come out like that and to have something to
24 say. But then I put together the SQADD 27 which
25 was the drug program, Southwest Queens Against
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2 Dangerous Drugs. We opened storefronts in the
3 mainland, got State money and the kids could go
4 to those places and they had (inaudible) there --
5 I'm an organizer, it's basically what I do. I
6 don't look for a job or a title. I had principal
7 on the board in John Adams and from an elementary
8 school and there was one VP from Westinghouse.
9 They got on each side of me and demanded with no
10 uncertain terms, I had to become the next
11 president. But, unfortunately pushing me into
12 it, these other things happened and as all of you
13 are givers in the work that you do, you just get
14 into it and I worked for UPA as a high school
15 representative for them and they went to the
16 board and really got involved in the board. It
17 was a very good thing because we had a school,
18 210, that fell apart and because I knew so many
19 people at the Board of Education, I got a lot of
20 help that we were able to change the principal
21 who was promoted beyond her capacity and the
22 whole thing fell apart. No program, no anything.
23 I'm saying this because there are
24 people here that I met, thinking about getting
25 back involved because of things, that I have
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2 great respect for and the presentations that
3 they've given you, they're still in my community
4 and it's still working. The other school thing
5 was Queens High School Group. I was on the panel
6 that put it together and one of the first Vice
7 Presidents in there. So, you know, you get into
8 all of this and then if something comes up as
9 school boards, then I can't stay home and I have
10 something.
11 One of the things, Barbara Clark
12 mentioned, business of kids not reading. When we
13 went to school on a semi-annual basis. I spoke
14 to Howard Levy about this one time and he was
15 saying how we're thinking about it and we're
16 trying to figure out what we can do because that
17 kind of a spread with kids that, I have a kid
18 that was born on the 28th of November and he's in
19 the same class with a kid that was born in
20 January. This is not the way we went to school.
21 The second problem with it was when my children
22 went to school, it was look say, no phonics. Of
23 course they couldn't read. That is the decoder.
24 You were, the letters, what they sound like, how
25 you learn to read, you can't look at a word when
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2 you're in the first grade, second grade, third
3 grade and just, Oh!, that's that word, I know
4 what that is. And that happened. We got away
5 from it for a while and then whole language came
6 along and my daughter is sitting over there, I
7 think, she went somewhere, the blonde one, she
8 went to, she was working as a para in P.S. 100 in
9 Kindergarten and quite a long time, she's there
10 10 years. She now is a teacher. She has a
11 bachelors in two more, Masters, but she went to
12 the third grade teacher when this whole language
13 thing came along and she said, you know, when you
14 get these kids, they're not going to be able to
15 read. Oh, Gale, you know that'll be alright.
16 They will learn. It'll be fine. She came back
17 three years later and said, son of a gun, you
18 were absolutely right, they can't read.
19 MS. THOMSON: I'm sorry, can I ask
20 you to just keep your comments to the issue of
21 the hearing which is school governance, okay?
22 MS. BRYANT: I'll do that, you
23 know, I'd like you --
24 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Because time
25 is running out.
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2 MS. THOMSON: There are a lot of
3 people who want to speak on the issue.
4 MS. BRYANT: Okay, but look, think
5 about this. You're asking about what parents can
6 do, you're asking about how do kids learn. If
7 you take it away because somebody thinks they
8 have a good program and it's going to make money
9 on it, that's bad. Now, I'll get back to this.
10 This is fix the school board, don't do away with
11 it. Keep it as an elected entity, but change the
12 voting procedures. Times have changed and we
13 need to revamp a convoluted voting procedure into
14 a sensible, understanding method for parents and
15 voters. I was there went it came out. Confused
16 everybody. Now, there was, District 27 is the
17 largest New York City district except for Staten
18 Island. Local access is extremely necessary.
19 Most families today have both parents in the work
20 force. We have a plan that will allow them to
21 stay involved in closer proximity to the help
22 they need. Please do not hastily do away with a
23 very necessary access to parental help.
24 Parents and community members need
25 an independent elected district school governance
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2 body that is accountable only to the parents and
3 voters of the district. It should have the power
4 to set district policy, establish and/or change
5 school zones and the ability to authoritatively
6 advocate for the district's needs.
7 Mayoral control is already fostering
8 hasty systemic changes that will compromise
9 public access to information, jeopardize
10 districts as we know them and set new working
11 conditions for superintendents that take them out
12 of the district they are empowered to serve. It
13 is entirely possible that the city will eliminate
14 the links forged between parents and their
15 community superintendents because there are no
16 longer any restraints on the Mayors's ability to
17 make changes in how superintendents are assigned
18 and where they work.
19 The State Legislature is our only
20 protection against hasty and poorly thought out
21 systemic change. We ask that you maintain your
22 authority over the size and composition of
23 districts. We ask that you place language into
24 the law that puts a superintendent in each
25 district. We ask that you continue local school
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2 boards with a changed and improved election
3 process.
4 The original method of voting was
5 predicated on the opportunity for minorities to
6 serve. In the interim, Queens has become the
7 most diversified Borough in New York City. This
8 creates opportunities for all who care to serve.
9 A successful school board is one which works in
10 conjunction with the district Superintendent to
11 bring about a successful cohesive result.
12 Each community could select their
13 own area representative who has knowledge of
14 their community school's needs. Parents could
15 receive notices to attend local meetings to hear
16 2 or 3 or more candidates who would be more
17 familiar to them when they came to the school to
18 vote.
19 A meeting with their representatives
20 one a month to listen to their constituents after
21 the elections could be valuable and accessible
22 for local parents. Their representatives could
23 then take their concerns to the full school
24 board. Parents who have the time and
25 transportation to attend full school board
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2 meetings can still attend and share information.
3 MS. THOMSON: Thank you.
4 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: We thank you
5 very much. Thank you.
6 MS. THOMSON: I'd like to call
7 David Hooks and Rowena Schwab, both members, we
8 have two chair, it may save some time. Both
9 member of Community School Board 27.
10 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: I'm going to
11 try to remind everyone to please confine their
12 remarks to five minutes.
13 MS. SCHWAB: I'm Ronnie Schwab.
14 I'm a member of community school board 27. I've
15 been involved with the schools for well over
16 thirty years. My three children attended
17 District 27 schools. There was a little hiatus
18 there and now I have a number of grandchildren
19 who also attend.
20 I have to tell you that I wrote
21 these remarks and I'd like to deep 6 them right
22 now. I couldn't agree more with my colleague
23 Earnest Brown. He said it, practically all, but
24 I have some other things to say. I find this
25 kind of an Alice in Wonderland atmosphere. I
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2 understand that the mind set is to get rid of
3 local school, community school boards as they
4 exist, but what I'm really hearing is that nobody
5 has the vaguest idea of what to put in their
6 place that will be effective and I don't believe
7 in throwing out what is functioning and serving
8 the parents until there is a plan for another
9 body that will serve the parents as effectively
10 or more effectively then we have done.
11 I know that, I was not a fan of
12 community school boards until I became a member
13 and I became a member because I didn't like what
14 I saw in some of the schools. I wanted better
15 for my grandchildren and for all the children.
16 I've been an educator. I am educated and I don't
17 like a lot of things, well, I guess a lot of us
18 don't. But there's been an awful lot of
19 sarcastry here, for example, one of the reasons
20 given for getting rid of us, it sounds like a
21 hit, is that we have no powers, we can't do
22 anything, what use do we serve? Well of course
23 we don't, Albany took them away from us, so we
24 have not that much power, but the power we do
25 have we bring to the local schools, we bring into
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2 the community, we bring to rezoning, it's not
3 someone in the Tweed Building, it's not someone
4 at 110, it's not someone in Albany who looks at
5 our district, the mainland and Rockaway. We
6 rezone the mainland, we're working on Rockaway.
7 It is not an easy job because no one even know
8 where we are and if we're not here no one ever
9 will know where we are and you know that, Terri.
10 Now, I just like to get to
11 leadership teams. I don't like them. The one's
12 that function, and there aren't a lot that
13 function really well, fine, but most school
14 leadership do not function really well. Why?
15 Well, they're closed corporations number one.
16 Your going to find that as far as the parents go,
17 it's the "in group" that runs them as well as
18 maybe the UFT rep, I don't know, but the majority
19 of parents don't have a voice at what goes on at
20 those leadership meetings. We have had
21 grievances from parents who complained that they
22 never shared, the teams never shared information
23 with the parent body and to even consider
24 enhancing the powers of these teams seems to me
25 ridiculous.
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2 A lot of schools in a lot of
3 schools, these teams can't even function. You do
4 have working parents who can't come to meetings.
5 You do have logistic problems and they just don't
6 and therefore they are taken over by the few who
7 can come. They are not representative bodies in
8 the majority of cases. They can't replace us,
9 when I say us I mean community school boards in
10 general. I'll be happy to be replaced, it's
11 okay, but they can't. You need a community
12 school board or an enhanced community school
13 board and if you leave it to school leadership
14 teams you're going to create, it's a lesson in
15 history, petty (inaudible) and we all know what
16 happened in the Middle Ages, the warring, the
17 sparing, the local battles. We emerged from that
18 to the nation state and to local government and
19 central government and now we're going back again
20 somehow if we do this and I don't think it's a
21 good idea.
22 I also don't think it's a good idea
23 for our Mayor to assume control of the
24 educational system. I have heard him say time
25 and time again, I will depoliticize the
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2 educational system in this city, but what I'm
3 seeing is, he's going to re-politicize the
4 educational system in this city and I don't like
5 it and there's an awful lot of difference between
6 those two prefixes and I know there are lots of
7 parents who don't like it either.
8 I think you should leave us alone.
9 Make us better. Make us stronger. Give us
10 better parent representation. But for goodness
11 sake, don't take away from, especially in the
12 outer boroughs where nobody from the School
13 Construction Authority even knew where schools
14 should go. We had to tell them, you know that.
15 Don't take that away from us until you've got
16 something solid, better and approved to replace
17 us with. We don't get paid a lot of money. We
18 do this out of love and commitment for education
19 and for the children and I'm begging you, do not
20 abolish, don't cut off our heads until you can
21 really replace those heads with something even
22 better then we are.
23 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you.
24 MR. HOOKS: Are you going to allow
25 me to do this.
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2 MS. THOMSON: Absolutely, that's
3 why you're here. Mr. Hooks.
4 MR. HOOKS: Good evening. Thank
5 you. Good evening. I'm not deep sixing this. I
6 wrote it therefore I feel the need to read it and
7 I'd like for it to be on record.
8 My name is David Ross Hooks, Jr. I
9 am the Secretary of community school board 27. In
10 that capacity, I represent the interests of the
11 students from Pre-K through 8th grade attending
12 District 27 schools. Let me repeat that. I
13 represent the interests of the students from
14 Pre-K through 8th grade attending District 27
15 schools. I am here to speak on behalf of those
16 students and their families.
17 This task force will make
18 recommendations to the State Legislature
19 regarding whether to change community school
20 boards or eliminate them and replace them with a
21 new district governance body. The legislation,
22 as it was written last spring, sunsets community
23 school boards as of June 30, 2003. If the
24 Legislature moves forward with the law as it was
25 written, it will take away from the parents and
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2 students in our schools the opportunity to have
3 access to the system, to get answers to their
4 questions and to receive independent and
5 accountable community representation.
6 In the event that parents have need
7 for redress, without community school boards,
8 parents do not have access, there goes that word
9 again, to the independent representation that is
10 accountable only to them. They will not be able
11 to get the help they need on a day to day basis
12 in order to assist their students and to get
13 unfiltered answers to their questions and
14 concerns.
15 The press and others persistently
16 knock community school boards as guilty of a
17 myriad of crimes. I suspect that, if examined,
18 this covering of all community school boards with
19 the same blanket would prove to be false.
20 However, in 1996 the Legislature put in place
21 provisions that it felt would prevent those
22 issues from occurring. If we ignore the long ago
23 past and look at the present condition of local
24 elected community school boards, we see that
25 community school boards provide local independent
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2 and accountable representation in their district,
3 public access, there goes that word again, to the
4 district school system, open meetings in local
5 schools and advocacy for the needs of the
6 district and its schools.
7 I urge you as you complete your
8 work, to make sure that the public will have
9 access, there goes that word again, to an
10 independent and accountable district school
11 governance system. If you do away with community
12 school boards, and you don't give each citizen in
13 New York City comparable, independent, powerful
14 and accountable representation, you take away
15 each citizens ability to get the redress they
16 need and you will disenfranchise the parents and
17 families in District 27 and throughout every
18 community in New York City. In my opinion this
19 will eventually ensure the collapse of the entire
20 system.
21 If you find that the public still
22 wants community school boards to exist, I hope
23 you will have the courage to act on that request,
24 maintain community school boards and refuse to
25 deny the parents and voters of New York City, the
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2 local school board representation the Legislature
3 maintains throughout New York State.
4 Thank you for the opportunity to
5 present my presentation here. May I just say one
6 thing ladies and gentlemen. Let me be explicitly
7 clear. I have absolutely no children in the
8 board of ed. However and I boast this where ever
9 I go. I am a grandfather and I'm a grandmother
10 and I have children in District 27 on the
11 Rockaway Peninsula. I have nieces and nephews,
12 they are my vested interests. I want good for
13 them therefore I want good for others and as many
14 a folks have said here this evening and I'd like
15 to echo it, my colleague prior to Ms. Schaub and
16 I coming here, whether I'm in the supermarket,
17 the barber shop, folks have found where I work,
18 they call. And I must tell you, I am a fortunate
19 man because I am able to make an appointment at
20 the District Office and leave my job or go to my
21 job late or attend a school meeting and go to my
22 job late, but the bottom line is if someone calls
23 and they say, listen can you attend the meeting
24 with a group of parents, hey, I will avail my
25 self. Today I have. Now I don't want to fly
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2 under no false colors. I've only been on the
3 school board since January of this year as a
4 result of a Mr. James Saunders becoming a City
5 Council member. However, it's been fun. I've
6 been able to help a lot of little people and when
7 we talk about access, ladies and gentlemen you
8 must understand, I understand this school
9 governance thing, I understand this thing about
10 -- I like to call it a look at the Chicago
11 experience and this school leadership team thing,
12 it tends to mirror that, however, there are so
13 many flaws (inaudible) and I think that is
14 something that needs to be revisited. But, let
15 me say this, whatever you put in place, if you
16 don't proper train the folks that you are going
17 to let be responsible for working with folks in a
18 community, if they're not properly trained, then
19 we're going to have to always have to revisit
20 this problem and one of the problems that we have
21 here is the training is not adequate.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: We thank you
23 and we hear you. Thank you very much. Thank
24 you.
25 MS. THOMSON: James Williams, from
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2 CPAC. Is he still here? Debra Falcone, a parent
3 from P.S. 146 in Howard Beach.
4 MS. FALCONE: My name is Debbie
5 Falcone. I'm former PTA President of P.S. 146,
6 M.S. 202. I've sat on District Council of
7 Presidents. I have also been a parent and child
8 advocate for children and parents within my
9 district. I'm very upset tonight because I feel
10 that I want to thank my community school board
11 because they have listened to me when I've gone
12 to them. When we had problems at our middle
13 school with children coming from all over the
14 district, Mrs. Caltapeano sat on the worst
15 committee possible phoning and listened to
16 parents tear her apart and yet she did the best
17 job she could and I'm proud of her for it. When
18 parents needed books, because I've been on the
19 PTA a long time, but new people follow you, so
20 every year or so you had someone new. There
21 was nothing for us to leave the other PTA's.
22 Mrs. Bevilacqua worked with DCP President, worked
23 to form a book and held workshops. When I had
24 problems at P.S. 146, I could always call my
25 community school board and I have to tell you
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2 within 24 hours they called me at my job, at my
3 home. I never felt that they didn't care about
4 me. That they didn't care about my school. If I
5 asked them to come to a meeting, they did. As of
6 now, I have yet to see Mr. Braum, because he
7 spends two days a week at the Tweed Building. At
8 DCP which I attend faithfully after working a
9 full day, helping my children with homework and
10 going to multiple meetings throughout the
11 district, he's not there. So now, he sends
12 delegates who have no information for us, who
13 cannot answer the question, who say they'll get
14 back to you but don't, okay, because they don't
15 do it. You give them your work number, you give
16 them your home phone number. I'm still waiting
17 for a reply and, you know what, I always felt
18 that the elections were poorly done. They should
19 be done at the time of regular elections.
20 They're not advertised well and you know what,
21 there shouldn't be rollover and I'm very
22 concerned that you're taking away my voice.
23 And as far as school leadership
24 teams, I've worked on two. I've worked at the
25 gammer school level and at the junior high school
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2 level. The gammer school level, wonderful team.
3 Parents and teachers worked well together and yes
4 sometimes the principal would try to get her way,
5 but parents stood tough and fought. That's what
6 you're supposed to do. But at the junior high
7 school level, when the parents stood tough, the
8 principal didn't give in. The teachers didn't
9 give in and it became a battle of who was going
10 to get their way and UFT was a big problem at the
11 junior high school level.
12 And so I'm here today because I
13 really do want my community school board to stay.
14 I appreciate them and I appreciate the parents
15 who work on the committees and I think if you're
16 going to have representation the parents should
17 vote for it. It shouldn't be people who, I'll
18 have to go to the Tweed Building to see or a
19 representative who I won't be able to recognize
20 on the street. I want to know who my
21 representative is and I'm also the type of person
22 who has lobbied on lobby day, who has gone to
23 Albany, who has been at Livingston Street
24 fighting for funding. So it's not like I'm an
25 inactive parent. So, I hope you will listen to
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2 us and thank you.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well, we are
4 listening and we thank you for speaking. Thank
5 you very much. Robin Brown.
6 MS. BROWN: I have one question.
7 Prior to this past year, the superintendent
8 attending -- Prior to this past year has the
9 superintendent been attending President Council
10 meetings?
11 MS. FALCONE: Yes he did. There
12 were times when he couldn't, but he did send his
13 Deputy Superintendent or someone who knew the
14 information. Now it's getting to the point we're
15 getting people who don't know anything, who have
16 to go back to somebody to find it and we're not
17 getting the information.
18 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
19 again.
20 MS. THOMSON: Dory Figleola. Vice
21 President of I.S. 119 in Queens, District 24.
22 MS. FIGLEOLA: Hi, good evening.
23 Thank you all for being here listening to us
24 while I apologize I do not have a written
25 statement. I was not going to speak, but since I
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2 am from District 24, we have had many, many
3 problems over the years. Our school boards
4 biggest thing the last three years was how to get
5 rid of our superintendent. So, we had to
6 constantly go to school board meeting to listen
7 to them bicker when we wanted to learn about
8 where could we get money for books, if the city
9 doesn't have it. Why should I have to go to Surf
10 Maltese and ask for money? Why should I go to
11 Cohen? Why should I go to Gallegher? I
12 shouldn't have to do these things. Our school
13 board, if the monies are not there and given to
14 our Superintendent to be given out to our
15 schools, then these people should be doing it. I
16 went to City Hall. We went to meeting and had
17 chairs thrown at us because they didn't want the
18 site built at Grand Avenue. We the parents did
19 that. I don't recall our school board members
20 sitting next to us though.
21 Also, we were the people that have
22 gone to fight for so many things in the
23 community. I am on community board 5, I am on
24 the board on Forest Hills Civic, I also work.
25 But, I will be totally supportive of a board, but
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2 not as it stands now. As I would vote for you, I
3 want to be able to vote for that person. I don't
4 want the votes rolled over that your little buddy
5 gets in with you. No, they need to have a
6 system, they need to have it changed. We need to
7 have more structure. I am also on leadership.
8 But, you listen to UFT and the CSA fighting. We
9 need to have more structure within these systems,
10 but we need them and that is all, very short, but
11 we need it.
12 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
13 very much. Message delivered.
14 MS. THOMSON: Just one question.
15 How would you change, what would you do with
16 school boards? This is recorded by a
17 stenographer so you have to answer in the
18 microphone.
19 MS. FIGLEOLA: We need to keep the
20 system where you have more parents who have
21 children in the schools. I have a 12 year old.
22 Been there, did it, 28 years old up, gone. Now
23 we're back again, so those years that I was not
24 in the system, I had no clue what was going on.
25 Therefore, my voice should not have been heard if
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2 I'm not there. I can't even tell you who our
3 liaison is for the school and I did see a few
4 liaisons going around, but then again, they were
5 running for public office, so you know, we were
6 campaigning too, unfortunately. But we need the
7 parents to be involved that have the children,
8 that know the issues, that know the problems,
9 that want to rectify it. I have a superintendent
10 that I can call up and walk into his office and
11 speak to him. We have school board members that
12 run away. So, where is the connection there?
13 It's not. So if you have more parents that are
14 involved, that have children in the system that
15 know what's going on, you will have a better
16 school system because you will have the support
17 of those parents.
18 MS. THOMSON: Thank you.
19 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Robin Brown.
20 MS. BROWN: Just one quick
21 question. If we were to look at a school
22 leadership team model, would you support
23 increasing the number of parents who currently --
24 MS. FIGLEOLA: Definitely, because
25 then you would eliminate a lot of the CSA and UFT
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2 problems and issues and we would be able to
3 discuss why we might not have an updated book or
4 why we are missing several reams of paper and why
5 wasn't this printed and as a PTA, we have to have
6 our notices out 10 days before a meeting. I get
7 school board notices sometimes 2 days before.
8 So, why are they allowed to do that and misinform
9 the parents because now you can't go if you
10 perhaps didn't calendar the meeting properly or
11 they've changed it, but yet, I have to be, you
12 know, Central has to say, Oh no, you get your
13 notices out. I don't want to be in violation, so
14 we get our notices out. So if we have to abide
15 by a lot of rules and regulations that come down
16 from Central, then there should be a board that
17 knows what's going on and how you're being
18 regulated. They get their stiping. I don't even
19 get a thank you sometimes for being PTA. So, you
20 know people have to take the parents, build us
21 up, give us more training, and when your kids
22 out, so are you.
23 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
24 very much.
25 MS. THOMSON: Assemblyman William
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2 Scarborough.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Before Mr.
4 Scarborough makes his statement, I just want to
5 remind everyone, we're trying to confine remarks
6 to five minutes best we can. I just want to
7 acknowledge -- Well you came in late. I just
8 wanted to also mention for the benefit of
9 everyone here, the enormous amount of hard work
10 that you have put in on the Education Committee
11 and so many other endeavors in the Assembly, but
12 your constituents and your neighbors in Queens
13 need to know that you are one of the hardest
14 working member of the Education Committee and I
15 want to thank you for that.
16 ASSEMBLYMAN SCARBOROUGH: Well
17 thank you for those kind words.
18 MS. THOMSON: A number of members
19 of your Education Task Force came here this
20 morning and testified.
21 ASSEMBLYMAN SCARBOROUGH: I know
22 they did, yeah they came with a lot of vigor and
23 we are committed to being involved in this. I
24 want to thank you for letting me speak. As you
25 indicated, I'm William Scarborough, the
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2 Assemblyman for the 29th District here in
3 Queens. I'd like to greet my education chair and
4 Ms. Thomson and all the members. Needless to say,
5 what you guys are doing, I think is of the utmost
6 importance. Steve knows that I tried to get on
7 this panel because I think that what is being
8 done is going to be extremely important to the
9 future of education and of this city. The people
10 who are on here I know to be people of integrity.
11 I know you are going to deliberate and come out
12 with some good recommendations that we can act on
13 next year.
14 In the interest of full disclosure,
15 I should mention that I was a member of Community
16 School Board 28 for six years, so that's part of
17 my background. You should know, as my colleagues
18 do, that I did not vote for the School Governance
19 Bill that we passed last year and has led to
20 these deliberations and the reason I did not vote
21 for it was precisely this issue. Steve knows and
22 Audrey and others know, I thought we made a
23 mistake in removing community school boards.
24 Certainly, some of them had problems, there's no
25 question. I'm not one of those who said that
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2 everything was hunky- dory. There was some good
3 school boards, there were some bad school boards.
4 Just like there are good school leadership teams
5 and bad school leadership teams. I thought they
6 could have been reformed. They could have been
7 modified and made to work. I thought that we
8 ended up throwing out the baby with the bath
9 water. I thought that the boards were victims of
10 assassination by anecdote. The worst instances
11 of school board malevolence or incompetence or
12 whatever, was spread over the papers and in the
13 media and so on and were made to be in the mind
14 of the public, the norm, when that was not the
15 case. I thought that was a mistake. But be that
16 as it may, it has been done, we need to go
17 forward and look at where we're going from here.
18 My druthers would be a return of
19 community school boards with modifications.
20 Realistically, I know that that's probably not
21 going to happen. So we need to look at what the
22 vehicle is going to be. I think whatever you
23 come up with has to be an elected body. You have
24 to give people the opportunity to vote for their
25 representatives. I don't think a body of
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2 appointed people is going to have the credibility
3 nor will people feel they have the input into
4 what's happening with their schools if they don't
5 have the right to vote for those people.
6 I believe that that system can work.
7 It could be reformed. I think the original
8 system was made to fail by people who were afraid
9 of it. You make the elections in November.
10 Steve knows that I had a bill in for many years
11 that would make the term four years and have the
12 election in that November where it doesn't
13 conflict with state or city elections. There's
14 every four years and have the elections then.
15 People are used to voting in November. You know,
16 Audrey knows, those of us who labor in Albany and
17 Upstate for years, anyone who knows the areas
18 outside of New York City, school board elections
19 around this state are tremendously participant
20 activities. They can work, they don't work here
21 because they were designed to fail. You let
22 people vote on a simple ballot, you don't give
23 them this proportional representation and this
24 rollover that nobody understands. You put the
25 election in November and people will participate.
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2 I think we absolutely have to do that.
3 Whoever gets involved, I think that
4 the body should be a majority of parents, not all
5 parents, but certainly the majority of that board
6 should be parents who have children in that
7 school. I think there needs to be room for
8 people, community people who may not have kids in
9 the school, but have a stake in what's going on
10 and have expertise to bring to the table.
11 They should be trained every year.
12 You can't put people in there and just leave them
13 and expect them to have knowledge of what's going
14 on. They should be trained each year in budget,
15 they should be trained in curriculum. The
16 problem seems to have been with personnel, so you
17 keep them out of personnel, but those areas in
18 which they have input, they should be trained,
19 they should be required each year to keep up
20 their training so that they understand that
21 there's a level of professionalism that's
22 involved in that board.
23 That same thing goes for the school
24 leadership teams. Just like school boards, there
25 are good leadership teams and there are bad
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2 leadership teams. They have to be trained. They
3 have to be supported. They have to be made to
4 understand that they are an integral and
5 important part of the educational system and not
6 shunt into the side.
7 As far as the parents. Now, the
8 concern that I have is that we have structured a
9 system right now that gives an enormous amount of
10 power and influence to the professionals. I'm
11 not one of those who thinks that every
12 professional is out to get the parents and so on,
13 but we need to have the input from others other
14 then the Mayor, the Chancellor, the
15 Superintendents, the Principal and so on and so
16 forth. There has to be a role, an important role
17 for the parents and for others.
18 Now the other thing I would suggest
19 that we codify in this law is that part of the
20 principal's evaluation be based on their efforts
21 to include parents in the school, just like we
22 evaluate them on whether the school is going up,
23 you know, all these other things, because it's a
24 fact that some schools would prefer not to have
25 the parents and shunt them to the side. I think
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2 that they should be evaluated based upon their
3 efforts to encourage and include parents and
4 there should be strict criteria laid out for
5 that, so that they have a stake in doing that.
6 The other thing I would suggest and
7 I don't know whether it can be codified or not,
8 but when you have parent teacher night, and you
9 have the parents coming in already, you have a
10 captive audience, the school should become an
11 open school night. There should be a whole
12 layout, maybe not a night, maybe two or three
13 days, where all of the best things about the
14 school are on exhibit where parents can come in
15 and learn about the things they can do with their
16 school, the things that their schools are doing.
17 I think that's the way of capturing their
18 attention and bringing them into the process.
19 These are some suggestions. I will
20 get them to you in a typed manner. Hopefully,
21 they'll be part of this process and thank you for
22 their consideration. Thank you very much.
23 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Any
24 questions? Robin Brown.
25 MS. BROWN: I just have one
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2 question. You talked about an open election and
3 the majority being parents. How would the other
4 non-parents get on to this entity?
5 ASSEMBLYMAN SCARBOROUGH: Well,
6 everybody would be elected. Let's say you kept
7 the nine number board, my suggestion is that
8 there would be five designated slots for parents
9 with children in the district that would be
10 designated for them. You would have maybe one or
11 two designated slots for community people, civic
12 leaders, who may not have kids in the district,
13 but have an interest in what's going on in the
14 district and maybe you want to have a slot for
15 somebody who is an educator, not in that
16 district, you know, but somebody from another
17 area who brings that sort of expertise or
18 administrative expertise. So you get a rounded
19 body. I think it's important that the parents
20 have the majority vote but you need to have a
21 diverse body so that you're getting diverse
22 opinions.
23 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well, I'm
24 just going to reiterate what I said at the
25 outset, Queens is lucky to have you as one of
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2 their representatives.
3 ASSEMBLYMAN SCARBOROUGH: I should
4 get that on tape.
5 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: As a matter
6 of fact it is.
7 MS. THOMSON: Deonereen Basteao.
8 Deonereen? Well next is Nat Washington.
9 MR. WASHINGTON: Good evening
10 everyone. My name is Nat Washington. I'm a 25
11 year resident of District 29, Queens, the father
12 of seven, all of whom went to schools in public
13 schools in District 29 as you well know. How are
14 you doing? I'm here tonight to offer you an
15 alternative to the things as they are now and
16 that is to revisit the way things were before
17 1996. If you look at the statistics of the
18 schools since the legislation in '96, things have
19 gone down hill. I know for sure in my district
20 in some sense and throughout the city because my
21 district is doing better then half of the city
22 and it's not where we want it at right now.
23 Now what I'm telling you to do is to
24 look into what, the way things were prior to the
25 1996 legislation. If you attend a school board
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2 meeting now, as many of the people have said
3 before, you will not find Assistant Principals,
4 Principals, principals out there like they used
5 to be out there. When school boards had an
6 opportunity to not select, but a voice in the
7 selection of a principal or assistant principal
8 and certain administrators, there were more
9 attention given to the districts in itself.
10 Since that was taken away, they no longer come
11 out.
12 Parents feel as though as many of my
13 colleagues have said before that the school
14 boards with the water down duties that we have,
15 in effect, are not as effective as they were
16 before because you could have the Superintendent
17 jump to the tune of nine people who are jumping
18 to the tune of 28,000 in my district. But, now
19 as many of the people before me have said,
20 Superintendents would never ever miss a school
21 board meeting in the past, you know. Now, a bid
22 on ask to be excused, some of them tell you I'm
23 not going to be there. I have a meeting at the
24 Tweed Building or someplace else that's more
25 important. Then you find out later on they were
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2 at some civic meeting.
3 However, the thing, why I'm here is
4 to offer a solution to what you guys perceive to
5 be a problem. I don't believe there's a problem
6 with school boards as Councilman Scarborough,
7 Assemblyman Scarborough said before. You know I
8 voted for you. He represents me in Albany, of
9 course I live in his district. But, you need to
10 have elected, locally elected people, be it
11 parents -- My board, I mean, it's insulting at
12 times being President at 29, coming to forums
13 I've been to and have a question asked, what do
14 you think about parents being school board
15 members? I'm a father of seven, all of my kids
16 except the one that's in high school, have
17 college education, higher degrees, lawyers,
18 doctors, all came out of 29. So it's insulting
19 for a panel to ask should we have parents as
20 school board members. Every member on my board
21 are parents.
22 All of them, the majority except one
23 have kids that go to schools in District 29. So
24 they have a vested interest. And then you get
25 legislation and regulations from 110, used to be,
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2 to say that if you are a parent involved in your
3 school as a parent, like the young lady that was
4 on the school leadership team, if your a school
5 board member I'm going to take you out of the
6 equation. When I became a member of the school
7 board and my wife was President of the PTA, then
8 they put in some rules and regulations as he seen
9 fitted. The Chancellor's rules and regulations
10 sometimes are out of line, as you well know.
11 Okay, we need to have local, locally
12 elected people to represent those on a local
13 basis. You cannot -- District 26 borders 29.
14 The situations are totally different. From block
15 to block. From school to school. From cluster
16 to cluster. So you cannot, and I have nothing
17 against appointed positions, because your
18 position was appointed and so is Evita's now,
19 that was always an appointed position. But to
20 remove a local, local elected officials such as
21 we are is wrong and someone mentioned, it's
22 taxation without representation because we're not
23 only advocates for the students that are there.
24 We're advocates for teachers, principals,
25 superintendents, community businesses, churches,
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2 houses of worship. We represent everyone.
3 If I showed you a list of the things
4 that I have to do this week alone, the things we
5 do without compensation and the question is why
6 would you want to remove something that's working
7 in most cases. As someone said, in some of the
8 worst cases and none of them I heard about in
9 Queens, there have never been a school board
10 member arrested for anything. So when they say
11 that the kids are not learning, we implement
12 policies and priorities for the Superintendents,
13 for the teachers and principals to implement. We
14 do not teach. I believe the Chancellor now has a
15 grip on what's happening. If you have a lousy
16 principal in the school, then the school goes
17 down. The focus should be put in that school
18 with the principal in the classroom. But right
19 now, like everything else, you have to focus on
20 something that's (inaudible), the school board,
21 let's get rid of that and take the focus with the
22 UFT's billions of dollars that they have to lobby
23 removal of school boards. Who doesn't benefit?
24 The only group of folks in the whole
25 equation, and I'll just be one more minute
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2 please, that do not get paid are school board
3 members, so you're taking away something that
4 we're doing for the good and welfare of our
5 communities. That's all. Assemblyman
6 (inaudible) can tell you, I belong to no club in
7 my neighborhood. I've been an independent since
8 '95. Every year I run for school board, the
9 times when I did was because of me and my record
10 as a parent and that's it. School leadership
11 teams as you well know, was it three or four
12 years ago you visited his office, we told you it
13 doesn't work. You knew this before you went to
14 Albany that school leadership teams throughout
15 the district don't work.
16 The best district, so-called best
17 district in the system, District 26, Sharon
18 Maurer told you in her district it do not work,
19 so that's no the thing to do. As Brown said from
20 27, Mr. Brown, I've done eight years, but I want
21 to ensure that this process remain in place
22 because it was put there for a reason. There's a
23 reason why you have the voting the way it is.
24 There's a reason why school boards were put in
25 place in the first place. So without taking any
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2 more time of the councils time and I will type
3 something out because as someone else said, I
4 must comment on this, the process for getting to
5 this microphone needs to be changed because you
6 inhibit folks who are coming up and we did it
7 years ago and it wasn't meant for more
8 participation, it was meant to pull it back.
9 Give me 10 copies of this, fax it here, fax it
10 there and then you can speak for three minutes.
11 I think it's wrong. Thank you for your time.
12 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
13 very much.
14 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: I know, I
15 just have to ask you, are you comfortable with
16 the voting now of the rollover system?
17 MR. WASHINGTON: The voting as it
18 is now, I understand why it was put in place, but
19 it's complex and it should be made simpler. The
20 Assemblyman, lay it out in a way that you can
21 have parent participation, elected parents, but
22 as you know, you must have continuity. You
23 cannot learn in a year to work in those school
24 board. By the time the first two years are gone
25 by, you're just getting a grip on all the things
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2 that you need to know and a lot of these people
3 that come to the microphone on the legislative
4 level, most of them never attended school board
5 meetings that I've seen, and I've never missed a
6 board meeting since '95. Okay, so you must know,
7 first of all, what the school boards do, you
8 know, before you can say let's eliminate them.
9 Thank you. Anything else?
10 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
11 very much Mr. Washington, we appreciate your
12 being here very much.
13 MS. THOMSON: Frank Baluccio,
14 Democratic District Leader. Is he here Audrey?
15 Do you know who Frank Baluccio is? Is he here.
16 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Oh, he was
17 here before. He left, he must have left a
18 statement. They're the one's that brought Joe
19 Addabo's statement.
20 MS. THOMSON: Tom Lowenhaf, Vice
21 Chair, Community Board 3, Queens. Good evening.
22 MR. LOWENHAF: Good evening. My
23 two children attended New York City public
24 schools from K through 12. During that time I
25 was an active parent and member of P.S. 69,
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2 active Parent Association Member at P.S. 69 and
3 P.S. 122 here in Queens. I served in many
4 capacities and I served on several committees at
5 community school district 30.
6 The day my second son completed his
7 work was a joyous day. He graduated, obviously.
8 But also because I no longer had to involve
9 myself with the morass that was the New York City
10 Board of Education. It was just a pleasure not
11 to have anything to do with it and I think what
12 the Legislature has been doing has been
13 excellent.
14 For the past decade I've been a
15 member of community board, I'll call it community
16 planning board tonight, 3, covering Jackson
17 Heights, East Elmhurst and North Corona
18 neighborhoods. District 3 has a diverse
19 community, is a diverse community of 160, 000 as
20 per the recent census. I am currently, I am
21 currently the Vice Chair.
22 Chapter 70, Section 2801 of the City
23 Charter lists 21 areas of responsibility for the
24 community board. The first is the catchall, it
25 says the board shall consider the needs of the
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2 district which it serves. In fulfilling this
3 mandate, Board 3 has set up 16 committees with
4 both board and public numbers. We have an
5 airport committee, a budget committee, business
6 development, communications, health, housing,
7 landmark, land use, parks, public safety,
8 sanitation, traffic, youth services and we have
9 an education committee.
10 We've been blessed over the past
11 decade with strong local leadership that enabled
12 our community to have five entirely new schools
13 constructed and additions added to three others.
14 Our community board and especially it's education
15 committee was an active participant in long and
16 arduous task of identifying the need, locating
17 the land and overseeing the construction and
18 zoning of these schools.
19 I'm here today to suggest that the
20 community boards be assigned part of their
21 governance responsibility. They currently exist
22 in the neighborhood, there are 59 of them in
23 operation, they're close to the people, there are
24 59 of them versus 32. They have very
25 identifiable boundaries. They have meetings at
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2 which the council member, the board member, the
3 community board members are there, the 50
4 community board members. There are
5 representatives or actual council members are
6 there. There's a representative always from the
7 Borough President's Office, there are Assembly
8 members there or their representatives. It's a
9 true community forum where issues are discussed
10 and when I was active on in the schools, I was
11 always surprised and disappointed that I'd see
12 the two different worlds. One where sort of
13 everything went on that dealt with our community
14 and a second world where just the schools were
15 dealt with and very poorly as I said earlier.
16 So, I know community boards, there's nothing
17 wonderful about them. They're a reasonable way
18 to, a reasonable part of the governance process
19 but I think that they can be improved and I think
20 if the educational issues are included in there
21 they will benefit our community. Thank you.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: We thank you
23 very, just one moment sir.
24 MR. CLAYTON: Just one, just one,
25 just one point of clarification.
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2 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Mr. Clayton.
3 MR. CLAYTON: Thank you Steve.
4 This whole point of clarification. What's an
5 airport committee?
6 MR. LOWENHAF: When Laguardia
7 Airport is your neighbor, you have an airport
8 committee.
9 MS. THOMSON: This is Queens.
10 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Now Earnest,
11 you know you are in Queens. Okay.
12 MS. THOMSON: Does Earnest know
13 what the mainland is? Alright. Doris Destoso,
14 Vice President of P.S. 177 in District 75.
15 MS. DESTOSO: Good evening, my name
16 is Doris Destoso and I stand on the Board of
17 Director's of QUSAC, a service agency that treats
18 autism. I'm also the Vice President of P.S. 177
19 in District 75. My colleagues had to go
20 home,they have many children. I have two and I
21 also am Co- Chair of my school leadership team,
22 very successfully along side my Principal elect.
23 I came tonight to learn what this
24 process is because I never heard of it before and
25 I've been Co-Chair of my school leadership team
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2 for two years and I'm now experienced in three
3 school leadership teams, very successful
4 experience except for the first one, the year I
5 first started. I'm here today as mother because I
6 want to represent my eight year old son who is
7 autistic, cannot speak, and he is a student in
8 District 75. For those who don't know, District
9 75 serves the severely disabled in all five
10 boroughs and not the learning disabled, but it's
11 still important to understand. In the media and
12 in the Chancellors Office and in the Mayors
13 Office, they seem to keep confusing the two, so
14 I'd like to clarify it up. They serve, District
15 75 serves the autistic, the medically fragile,
16 developmentally disabled, multiply handicapped,
17 and the emotionally disturbed.
18 Like tens of thousands of, I'm also
19 speaking on behalf of the tens of thousands of
20 children in New York City who now are being
21 diagnosed as autistic or have other developmental
22 disabilities and I'm here to say they need caring
23 parents and friends to speak for them since they
24 cannot. For the many years of the existence of
25 school boards, the severely disabled have never
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2 had a school board who understands this
3 population or represents them in any way that can
4 be helpful. Only their parents, individually,
5 one by one have represented them case by case.
6 As we know, there is power in numbers
7 and many of the parents of District 75 children
8 have had no central body to turn to except
9 District 75. We have a tireless and dedicated
10 Superintendent who we believe has been very
11 effective working with us. Now last week, there
12 was a report issued, a so-called analysis of
13 findings approved by Bloomberg from the Citizen's
14 Board Commission. They recommend completely do
15 away with the entire entity that has ever
16 understood our children. That has found and
17 provided the scientifically proven therapies and
18 methodologies by Harvard, various Universities,
19 Princeton throughout the world, this district has
20 specifically approved and used methods that have
21 finally helped a lot of our children and to make
22 tremendous progress because they can learn.
23 Why do they recommend the dismaning
24 of this district? Because they believe the city
25 can save dollars if general education districts
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2 can observe a learning disabled. Well I beg to
3 differ. Learning disabled does not equal
4 severely disabled. It must be clarified. There
5 are specific successful ways to reach our
6 children that general educators do not learn in
7 one college course or one week long conference
8 which seems to be the solution they're coming up
9 with. I also happen to be a certified ESL
10 teacher and I've had to delay entry into the work
11 force because I'm advocating for my child and
12 providing the direction and wisdom of what it
13 takes to educate these children to reach a status
14 of success in our society.
15 So what I propose is this. I
16 strongly urge this governance committee to create
17 a special school board of District 75 parents,
18 inclusion parents, educators and service
19 providers who sincerely care about our children
20 because most of them do not. Most people do not.
21 And to have a voice in the community where both
22 they are educated and especially where they live,
23 which is almost never the same. So, I think you
24 tonight.
25 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Thank you
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2 very much.
3 MS. THOMSON: Thank you very much.
4 Karen Blanding, President of NAACP, Corona/East
5 Elmhurst Branch.
6 MS. BLANDING: Good evening. Yes I
7 come here today to speak as an activist an a
8 person that has sat incidentally on the C-37
9 process in District 24 and I'm a President of a
10 Branch of the NAACP. The NAACP already has a
11 call for action in education. I come to speak on
12 the governance of our school system here in New
13 York City District 1. I state the need for some
14 group to represent, and advocate for all
15 children, parents and communities. Over the
16 years, we have experienced some benefits of the
17 community school boards and experienced reason
18 for a change.
19 The NAACP has a long history in it's
20 commitment to the successful completion of a
21 quality education for all students throughout the
22 city and the nation. We strongly believe that no
23 child should be left behind. The New York State
24 Conference of NAACP Branches has developed an
25 Adopt a School Program which has met with success
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2 in some of the districts here in New York City.
3 The task force should consider
4 developing a format inclusive of a parent
5 advisory board, along with youth, community and
6 business representatives that would give an input
7 on curriculum, funding and to mediate of issues
8 pertaining to schools within their jurisdiction,
9 meeting with the Superintendents on a monthly
10 basis. The parents should be the one's that make
11 the agenda. Parents should be selected by
12 district PTA's and President Council's or by
13 demonstration of outstanding educational
14 involvement. Youth should be selected from high
15 schools, CUNY schools, selected by their peers
16 and would add a fresh view on what is needed in
17 education. The NAACP Corona-East Elmhurst
18 Branch, we have a very, very active Youth Council
19 and these young people are indeed, they're
20 concerned with the educational system. Our
21 president would have been here today to the Youth
22 Council, but he is in SUNY schools and gets out
23 nine o'clock this evening. Community
24 representation should come from active
25 organizations that have a proven track record for
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2 education without political influence. The
3 business community should develop a program
4 similar to SCORE, we are sure their knowledge
5 could be useful and those elected would serve a
6 period of one year.
7 And being that we are strong
8 advocates of voting rights and civil rights, we
9 feel we must keep a voting process in place.
10 And reform is necessary for the
11 productive future of education in New York City.
12 Accountability is a must for the success of our
13 young people today that are our future leaders of
14 tomorrow. The road to educational success,
15 ensuring that we leave no one behind must include
16 parents, youth, community and business
17 representatives. Thank you.
18 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well, we
19 thank you. I just want to observe something that
20 I did earlier today, there was another President
21 of one of the local chapters of NAACP and I just
22 wanted to repeat what I said to him that we all
23 acknowledge with great understanding, the hard
24 work of the NAACP for so many years going all the
25 way back to Brown v. Board of Education nearly 50
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2 years ago. A guy by the name of Thurgood
3 Marshall who led that effort and all of the hard
4 work and effective work that the NAACP has done
5 in education, in voting rights issues and civil
6 rights. So, we're delighted that you could share
7 your time with us and share your statement with
8 us and we thank you for your work and the work of
9 the NAACP.
10 MS. BLANDING: Thank you.
11 MS. THOMSON: I think our last
12 speaker is Nancy Ramos, a member of Community
13 School Board 28 and a parent. Nancy. She was
14 here. She was just here. I just turned in --
15 Did she walk out the door there? She was right
16 here. Okay.
17 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Well while we
18 are checking to see whether Nancy has been able
19 to stay, let me just make mention of the fact
20 that these hearings will continue. They will
21 continue beginning next Thursday in the Bronx at
22 Hostos Community College. The schedule of time
23 will be about the same, ten o'clock in the
24 morning until about four o'clock and then six
25 o'clock in the evening until whenever. Until we
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2 don't have anyone left to speak to us and then we
3 will be reconvening these hearings on Monday,
4 January the 6th on Staten Island at the Petredees
5 Complex Building K which is 715 Ocean Terrace and
6 then finally on Thursday, January the 16th, we
7 shall be in Brooklyn in the Brooklyn Borough Hall
8 in their courtroom. Even though these hearings
9 are separated one for every borough, you don't
10 have to be from the Bronx to testify in the
11 Bronx, so anyone who wants to come to the Bronx
12 or come to Brooklyn or Staten Island, they will
13 be most welcome. We will try to accommodate as
14 many people as we can. Audrey.
15 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Yes. I was
16 handed this petition from some of the parents in
17 School District 27 and I would like to submit it
18 as testimony. Do I give that to you Steve?
19 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: It will be so
20 done.
21 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: Thank you.
22 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: So, on behalf
23 of Terri Thomson and myself and all of the
24 members of this task force, first of all we
25 appreciate the hospitality shown to us by the
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2 Borough President of Queens, Helen Marshall, her
3 staff and all of the residents of Queens who have
4 taken their time on, I know short notice to be
5 with us, to inform us of your views about what we
6 need to do to make public education better and
7 more effective at the community school district
8 level and the school level. We have listened, we
9 will continue to listen. Our recommendations in
10 the final analysis will be formed and informed by
11 much of the testimony that we hear in all five
12 boroughs. Does someone wish to add something?
13 Yes, Audrey.
14 ASSEMBLYWOMAN PHEFFER: I'm sorry,
15 Steve, I was just advised that that petition was
16 from P.S. 155 in School District 27. Thank you.
17 ASSEMBLYMAN SANDERS: Okay, Terri,
18 do you have anything to add?
19 MS. THOMSON: No, thank you all for
20 joining us tonight have a safe trip home.
21 (Time noted 9:15 p.m.)
22
23
24
25
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2
3 C E R T I F I C A T E
4
5 I, Frank Gray, do hereby state that
6 I attended at the time and place
7 above-mentioned and took a stenographic
8 record of the proceedings in the
9 above-entitled matter, and that the
10 foregoing is a true and correct copy of the
11 same and the whole thereof, according to the
12 best of my ability and belief.
13
14
15 ___________________________
16
17 FRANK GRAY
18
19
20 Dated: December 12, 2002
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