Chalkbeat

Former NYC schools Chancellor Meisha Porter again a finalist to lead Chicago schools

2026-03-13T17:39:37+00:00

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Former New York City schools Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter is once again a finalist for the top job in Chicago’s public school system, the school board announced Friday.

Chalkbeat first reported that Porter, who served as chancellor at the tail end of former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, was a finalist for the Chicago job in November, but the process was bogged down by in-fighting for several months.

At the same time, Porter was also reportedly among the top contenders for schools chancellor under Mayor Zohran Mamdani, but the job ultimately went to Manhattan superintendent Kamar Samuels.

The other finalists for the Chicago job are interim CEO Macquline King and Sito Narcisse, a former superintendent of East Baton Rouge Parish schools in Louisiana, and chief of secondary schools in Washington, D.C., the school board said.

During Porter’s short tenure as chancellor, which started in early 2021 while the COVID pandemic was in full swing and ended when Mayor Eric Adams took office in January, 2022, she was seen as a steady hand who had the respect of district and school staffers. Porter, who rose from teacher to principal to superintendent in the Bronx, also oversaw the introduction of a long-promised plan to phase out separate gifted and talented classes, which have long been starkly segregated. (The plan was swiftly overturned by Adams.)

After she left the school system, Porter took over as CEO of the Bronx Community Foundation, an organization charged with distributing philanthropic donations to needy local organizations. But the foundation was in turmoil during her tenure and failed to distribute most of its donations, according to reporting from New York Focus. Porter was fired by the organization’s board in 2024.

She has served as a visiting fellow at the Center for Educational Innovation since 2024, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Porter didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Former NYC schools chief a finalist for Chicago schools CEO

2025-11-07T21:26:42+00:00

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A former New York City schools chief is one of the two finalists for the job of Chicago Public Schools’ next CEO, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the situation.

Meisha Ross Porter, who led New York City Public Schools in 2021, will interview with Chicago Board of Education members, a community panel, and the mayor next week.

Chicago’s selection will mark the first time its new 21-member school board chooses a new leader for the nation’s fourth largest school district. Earlier this week, WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times reported that the current interim CEO Macquline King was no longer in the running for the top job. Chalkbeat could not confirm the identity of the other finalist. Late Friday, the outlet also reported Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero was a finalist. Marrero told Chalkbeat in a statement Friday that “my dedication remains firmly with Denver Public Schools where I am proud to continue serving as superintendent.”

Porter spent more than two decades working in New York City’s public schools, rising up the ranks as a teacher, principal, and high-level administrator. She ultimately became the first Black woman to lead the nation’s largest school system in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic after her predecessor abruptly stepped down.

She only spent 10 months at the helm of New York City’s public schools, appointed in March 2021 and replaced when Mayor Bill de Blasio left office at the end of the year.

In her short tenure, Porter oversaw two sweeping but late-breaking policy pushes under de Blasio that were subsequently scrapped by Mayor Eric Adams: a plan to eliminate separate gifted and talented classes and a $200 million proposed universal curriculum.

Porter is widely respected by many education leaders in New York and has also been floated as a possible schools chief for incoming Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani has said he is also considering current Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos for the role.

Porter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither Chicago Board of Education President Sean Harden nor the school board’s chief of staff returned requests for comment.

After leaving her post as New York City’s schools chief, Porter became the president and CEO of the Bronx Community Foundation. The foundation was set up to help finance other local nonprofits, but was in turmoil during her time there. It failed to distribute most of the money it raised from 2019 to 2023 and spent more on consultants and overhead than charitable giving, according to an investigation by the news organization New York Focus. In 2024, the organization’s board of directors fired Porter.

More recently, Porter has served as a visiting senior fellow at the Center for Educational Innovation, an organization that works with school leaders and families, according to her LinkedIn profile.

The Chicago Board of Education is scheduled to meet Monday for a special meeting during which they plan to interview the two finalists in person, WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times reported this week. The board plans to reconvene later in the week to make a final pick and the full 21-member board could then vote on a final contract with the new leader at a meeting scheduled for Dec. 3.

Chicago began its process to find a new leader in March, hiring the search firm Alma Advisory Group, an executive search firm known for its work helping school boards hire superintendents.

The previous CPS CEO Pedro Martinez was fired without cause in late December 2024, but remained at the helm of the district until late June. Martinez, who made about $360,000 annually as head of CPS, clashed with Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former teachers union organizer, over how to handle the district’s finances. The tensions at one point led to Johnson’s entire seven-member appointed board resigning en masse.

For the past 30 years under mayoral control, CPS’s leader has been chosen by the city’s mayor.

Earlier this year, a key lawmaker who helped pave the way for an elected school board raised the possibility that the mayor should still get the final say on who runs CPS. Legal experts and local officials disagree on whether that is still the case and the language in state law is murky.

Nevertheless, Johnson is expected to interview both finalists next week, according to a source close to the search process. He also maintains significant influence over the school board given that 11 of 21 members are his appointees.

Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates criticized the secrecy surrounding the finalists and the “hand-picked panel” of community members being asked for input, calling it “a fundamental failure of the democratic values this new process was meant to uphold.”

“Black and Brown students and their families will bear the brunt of this decision,” Davis Gates said. “Their voices must be at the center of this process, not excluded from it.”

But in a letter sent to the school board president late Friday night, Davis Gates said “the authority to appoint the CPS CEO resides with the Mayor of the City of Chicago” and argued that the board’s “apparent belief that it is empowered” to pick the district’s next leader is against state law.

Dwayne Truss, a member of the West Side branch of the NAACP, said the group is upset that interim CEO King has been eliminated as a finalist.

Truss, a former member of the Board of Education, said the current board should be prioritizing a local candidate. He pointed to former “outsider” CEOs, including Barbara Byrd-Bennett, who was convicted of receiving bribes during her time at Chicago Public Schools, as failing to be successful.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering Chicago Public Schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Porter to step down as NYC school chancellor, clearing the way for Adams to make his pick

2021-12-01T12:38:16+00:00

Meisha Porter will step down as New York City schools chancellor when Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure comes to a close at the end of the year, she announced Wednesday morning.

Porter, who rose up through the ranks of city schools, stepped in to lead the nation’s largest school system in March following the sudden resignation of Richard Carranza, becoming the first Black woman in the position.

Her departure, which she announced on NY1, clears the way for Mayor-elect Eric Adams to select a new schools chief. He is expected to tap David Banks, a mentor to Porter and head of the Eagle Academy Foundation, which supports six all-boys public schools in New York and New Jersey. Adams has signaled that he will announce his pick for chancellor after he returns from an overseas trip on Dec. 8.

Porter, who has worked in the education department for more than two decades, will become the inaugural CEO of a new nonprofit called the Bronx Community Foundation next year. The organization describes itself as advocating for “social, economic, environmental and racial justice,” as well as access to “quality education,” in the Bronx — the borough where Porter worked most of her career.

“So many families in the Bronx, my family included — I raised my family in the Bronx — have depended on and relied on schools as our second home and our second community partnership, and I really look forward to working with schools to build out those partnerships,” Porter said on NY1.

In a statement, de Blasio described Porter as working “tirelessly and fearlessly” on behalf of students and highlighted their efforts to fully reopen city schools after the pandemic shuttered buildings.

“There is no doubt in my mind that she will bring the same determination and passion to her work serving Bronx families,” he said.

Some observers wondered if Porter would stay at the education department under Adams, though recent mayors have opted to appoint their own schools chancellor upon taking office. An education department spokesperson did not say whether Porter sought to keep her job or take another role under the Adams administration. In response to a similar question from NY1, Porter said: “I never looked for this job. And so I haven’t campaigned one day for this job. I’ve spent every single day in this seat, doing the job and what’s what I intend to do.”

Porter became chancellor during one of the most turbulent times in the school system’s history. The coronavirus pandemic had already upended in-person schooling for a year, with a majority of students learning remotely full-time — which not only exacerbated long-standing inequities in the education system, but also socially isolated many students. To help ease the transition back to school this year, Porter helped launch a universal summer school program that was widely embraced by many families despite a rocky start.

Chancellor Meisha Porter visits P.S. 15 in Red Hook on her first day as chancellor.

Porter was then charged with executing de Blasio’s goal of bringing the city’s roughly 1 million public school students back into buildings this school year. The administration largely achieved that goal, though nearly 2,800 classrooms — or about 4% of such spaces — have been temporarily closed so far this school year due to positive COVID cases. Even so, many educators report that both they and their students are happy to be back in the classroom, and just under 1% of students have tested positive for COVID since September, according to public data.

But the process was not without hiccups. There were legal battles surrounding the city’s vaccine mandate for educators — which Porter has said was one of the most challenging efforts of her tenure — followed by staffing shortages at some schools. There have also been busing delays, concerns about ventilation, and some parents opting to keep their children at home out of health and safety concerns — prompting some to be contacted by child protective services.

Her tenure also saw a historic infusion of federal and state money into New York City schools, resulting in billions of dollars in new investments. That includes providing every school with 100% of the funding they’re owed under the city’s Fair Student Funding formula and a $635 million “academic recovery” plan. Many advocates, however, were frustrated that more money wasn’t dedicated to other things, such as lowering class sizes, or that promised plans of extra services for students with disabilities were delayed.

New York City Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter interacts with an elementary student in on the first day of classes this school year.

There are still some loose ends on Porter’s plate. Before departing at the end of the month, de Blasio and Porter have signaled they will announce middle and high school admissions policies, which have been disrupted by the pandemic and have yet to be announced for fall 2022.

Porter, a Queens native, rose from a community coordinator and teacher to leadership roles in the Bronx, including 18 years as a principal, superintendent and now, chancellor. Her appointment as the chief of city schools came with a plethora of praise from educators, parent leaders and elected officials who said she had a reputation for building trust with parents and students.

Her 10-month stint as chancellor did not afford her the opportunity to advance a complete policy vision of her own. But she was still a public face of high-profile initiatives, including the city’s efforts to vaccinate public school students. And unlike Carranza, who often criticized the district’s status as among the country’s most racially segregated, drawing attention to the mayor’s resistance to tackling the issue systemically, Porter largely hewed to the mayor’s talking points.

She was known to be a lighthearted presence at public events at schools or vaccine clinics. She often danced — once doing the electric slide during an announcement about electric school buses — or was playful with students on visits.

“For the first time in a number of chancellors, principals and superintendents are gonna feel like they have a friend, someone to talk to and someone who understands them,” Richard Kahan, the founder of Urban Assembly, who gave Porter her first teaching job, said when she was first appointed as chancellor earlier this year.

Alex Zimmerman and Carrie Melago contributed.

Only 1 in 5 NYC students took last year’s state tests, making results almost moot

2021-10-28T17:14:24+00:00

About a fifth of New York City’s third through eighth graders took the state’s English and math exams last school year, when a majority of students learned remotely and the tests were deemed optional, according to data released Thursday by the state education department.

With only about 20% of students in the five boroughs sitting for the exams and 40% of students statewide, the results will be hard to interpret because testing conditions and participation rates were vastly different than normal, experts have said. In 2019, when the test was last given pre-pandemic, 96% of students took them in New York City, while more than 80% across the state typically take the exams, officials said.

Even state education officials warned against comparing the scores to previous school years.

“Our teachers, students and families grappled with various forms of instruction and often had to change how that instruction was delivered literally overnight because of quarantines and school closures,” New York State Education Department Commissioner Betty Rosa told reporters. “On top of that, many faced personal tragedies from the losses of a loved one to the losses of a job or feeling isolated or disconnected.”

Because they felt that the group of test takers did not fairly represent the state’s students, officials departed from the usual script and declined to share statewide scores. The state did, however, post results for districts and schools online. Rosa said test results on a local level “can help shape students’ individualized learning.” Officials said schools should use the test results as one of many tools, coupled with coursework, projects and local assessments, to understand how students are faring academically.

“These scores do not — and I stress, do not — tell the whole story as it relates to student performance,” Rosa said.

New York City parents had to sign their children up to take last spring’s state exams. Typically, parents must opt their children out of exams if they don’t want them taking them. The recent exams were only administered on campus, and children learning remotely were not required to come in for tests — in a year where more than 60% of New York City public school children were learning exclusively from home.

Of the roughly 90,000 third through eighth graders who sat for the English exams, nearly 64% were considered proficient. Of the roughly 85,500 students who took the math exams, a little more than half passed. The rates of passing scores were much higher than previous years, but as in previous years, disparities existed among different racial groups, with about 27% of Black students passing.

Chancellor Meisha Porter touted the city’s $635 million academic recovery plan, which includes assessments to understand what students have learned and where they’re falling behind, as the city’s “north star” for supporting students this school year.

“One thing is clear: our families each faced many different circumstances last school year and these results do not accurately reflect the diversity of New York City schools,” Porter said in a statement.

New York and other states last year had requested waivers for the federally mandated tests for a second year in a row because of the toll of the COVID pandemic. Beside families being directly affected by illness, student learning was disrupted because of technology access, mental health struggles, and other issues. Federal officials rejected those requests, saying the tests were needed to understand how students fared academically during the pandemic.

Still, there were big asterisks that would make such a task difficult: students who were learning remotely at the time were not required to come into buildings to take the exam, and New York officials declined to offer an online exam.

Drawing meaningful conclusions from last year’s exams is also complicated since different shares of students from various races and income levels may have sat for the exams. For example, though Asian students were most likely to choose remote learning in New York City, Asian students had higher rates of test participation than other students. Black students, who also had high rates of remote learners, sat out the test at higher rates than other children.

Overall, economically advantaged students were more likely to take the exams than their disadvantaged peers. Homeless students and children with disabilities had lower rates of participation. Fewer eighth graders took the test compared to other grades, with just 15% of eighth graders taking the English exam and just 8% for math.

Additionally, some of the test questions were recycled from previous years, and many educators said they had used those questions in test prep before the exam — so some students were already familiar with the answers.

New York education officials had said there was no time to field test new questions as they were awaiting a response from the federal government about whether they would be required to administer the standardized exams.

Officials delayed the release of results this year — which in recent years have been available by September — because they were taking extra time to analyze the data following an “unprecedented” testing year, a spokesperson previously told Chalkbeat.

Schools were not held accountable for the results or the number of students who took them, as they typically are. Test results contribute to whether a school is considered struggling or in need of extra support. And while parents can opt their children out, schools can be penalized if fewer than 95% of students take the exams.

Accountability requirements have been waived since the start of the pandemic, meaning a school deemed struggling during the 2018-2019 school year has remained that way since, and no new schools under this designation have been identified since.

State officials on Thursday touted a more “support- based” approach in helping schools designated as struggling, versus focusing solely on requirements to craft improvement plans. Officials said they have offered several optional services since the 2019-2020 school year, including coaching for educators, for the group of schools that need the most oversight from the state. Eighty-five percent of schools from that group opted for these services, officials said.

“What we are doing is shifting emphasis from what was more of a focus on compliance to one where we are looking to partner with our school districts to provide them levels of support that they need across a continuum,” said Jim Baldwin, senior deputy commissioner for education policy.

Last year’s test scores are the latest in a string of results that come with caveats when comparing past test results and looking for answers on whether student performance is improving.

No tests were given in the spring of 2020, when all school buildings were shuttered due to the COVID pandemic. State officials have discouraged comparing Thursday’s results to 2019 — when 47.4% of city test takers passed reading and 45.6% passed math. And while year-over-year comparisons could be drawn between 2018 and 2019 test results, prior to that the test was longer and had other differences, making it hard to get long-term data.

This spring’s tests — which are expected to go on as usual — may be adjusted in some way, as well, state officials said Thursday, once again, making it difficult to use them as a barometer for how schools are or aren’t improving over time.

Use the tool below to search for test scores and participation rates at any district or charter school. Schools that show a dash after “Proficient” means the state did not provide data for that school because fewer than five students took the exams.

Where is NYC’s plan for ‘gifted & talented’ admissions?

2021-10-05T22:49:25+00:00

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appears to be dragging his feet again when it comes to making reforms to the city’s starkly segregated gifted and talented programs — and comments made Tuesday by schools Chancellor Meisha Porter at a state senate hearing made it even more unclear when any changes might be announced.

De Blasio promised last month to present “a very different approach” for gifted programs, saying changes would be announced by the end of September.

That deadline has come and gone. On Tuesday, Porter suggested the timeline may get stretched out further, saying the city would be starting a process to engage with the public about any changes.

“We look forward to centering engagement as a part of our plan forward, and look forward to beginning and launching more information around the engagement process soon,” she said in response to questions from lawmakers at the hearing, which was called to discuss how districts are spending COVID relief money.

Meanwhile, time is ticking for anxious families. Usually, the test for the program’s 2,500 kindergarten seats is given in January, and many parents spend time and money prepping their 4-year-olds for it.

Education department spokesperson Katie O’Hanlon did not answer questions about when the city would announce the admissions process or other changes to the gifted program this year, or whether the reforms would be delayed to collect more feedback from parents and others.

“The best plans are made when everyone has a seat at the table. We are listening to our families and will offer more opportunities for community conversations,” O’Hanlon wrote in an email.

With only about three months left in de Blasio’s term-limited tenure, Sen. John Liu said the city should wait until a new mayor — and, most likely, a new chancellor — is in place to usher in reforms.

“There’s just not enough time to truly engage, unless the Department of Education and City Hall has some preconceived notion that they were going to try to steer people [to],” he said. “It’s too late.”

Porter said she disagreed.

“I think that, while the next administration is going to absolutely guide the ship forward, as it relates to gifted and talented, I think that it’s never too late to engage families in the process and in a conversation, or in recommendations that will inform the next administration,” she said.

New York City’s gifted programs have been a lightning rod of controversy.

Classrooms are deeply segregated and the focus for reform. While Black and Latino students make up almost 60% of all kindergartners citywide, their enrollment in gifted programs is only 14%.

The greatest share of students in gifted classes are Asian American, at 43%. White students are also overrepresented at 36% of enrollment. Just over a quarter come from low-income families, compared with almost 70% citywide. There are almost no students with disabilities or who are learning English as a new language in gifted classrooms.

Admission has long been determined by a test given to rising kindergartners when they’re about 4-years-old, which many blame for driving segregation. Most academic experts agree that tests given to such young children aren’t likely to measure a student’s abilities, but are more likely to reflect a family’s advantages, economic and otherwise.

De Blasio’s pledge for reform came after he sat for years on recommendations for making the programs fairer, made by a committee he appointed in 2017.

He promised to make changes after a pause in the typical admissions process last year that de Blasio said would be temporary. The city was forced to admit students based on a lottery, after a citywide panel refused to extend a contract to give rising kindergartners the admissions test typically used.

Officials at the time had promised to present more permanent reforms and kick off a public engagement process — which some parents who are worried about potential reforms say never formally happened.

Q&A: Chancellor Porter talks COVID safety, segregation, and discipline

2021-09-21T23:37:54+00:00

YouthComm's writers asked tough questions about the issues they face at school.

Here are New York City Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter's positions on back-to-school COVID safety, New York City's long history of education inequality, student vaccinations, and how to work successfully with a new mayor.

This interview took place in July and has been edited for clarity.

Miles Dale, a student at Hillside Arts and Letters Academy.

Miles Dale, Hillside Arts and Letters Academy: Do you think every student should get the vaccine, even students under 12?

Chancellor Porter: I think every person who is eligible for the vaccine should take the vaccine. I have had to do vaccine education with my own family. I think it's important for our society — it's not just about school, it's about our world, it's about our city, it's about our country.

I am a Black woman, and you know that our community is very concerned about taking the vaccine, and there are a lot of theories. But I really leaned into what was important to us as a family — being together, coming together, celebrating. I had a very good experience with the vaccine. I didn't have any side effects; I just was tired.

Kaylee Pierre, a student at Forest Hills High School.

Kaylee Pierre, Forest Hills High School: There are over 900 students in my graduating class but only two college counselors. What is being done to increase college resources and college counselors in schools like mine?

Chancellor Porter: My sister went to Forest Hills High School, and it was big then too. We've made it one of our priorities to focus on college [and] career readiness, making sure that all students have access to college advisement. You should start doing research on colleges in ninth and 10th grade. And so that meeting you have in the 11th grade should be technical; it shouldn't be your first meeting, your first experience.

Elijah Elvin, a student at Brooklyn Technical High School.

Elijah Elvin, Brooklyn Technical High School: I'm a senior at a school with over 5,000 students and teachers. When COVID numbers fluctuate, what do you plan to do to ensure our safety?

Chancellor Porter: I'm an educator first, but I'm also a mother who has an 11th grader going into a public high school every day. So, it is very important to me that you're all safe.

Part of health and safety is educating young people, and right now with the COVID rates, the safest place to be is in school. We will still have masking, health screenings, hand sanitizer all throughout buildings, PPE (personal protective equipment), and nurses. We're also going to keep the situation rooms readily available in case there has to be a closure in classrooms or school buildings. We're going to ramp up access to vaccines.

Dominique De Castro, a student at Brooklyn Technical High School.

Dominique De Castro, Brooklyn Technical High School: There is a noticeable amount of inequality in educational opportunities and resources for children. What is the best solution to level out the playing field?

Chancellor Porter: My mission is to create an environment where every family can proudly send their kids to any school and feel confident that they're receiving the education that they deserve. You should have access to AP classes and college counselors and career readiness in all schools. We need to level the playing field so families can feel fine about their children's education if their children don't get into specialized high schools.

YouthComm writer and New York City student Leroy Chen.

Leroy Chen: I read your piece, "A Rigorous Curriculum in Schools" in the Daily News. What would be the strategy to successfully create curricula that "truly connects to who students are" — to their identities and life experiences?

Chancellor Porter: I think it's important for students to see themselves in the curriculum and to see themselves as strong leaders to make changes across the city and our country. It's also important for students to see cultures different from their own in the curriculum. It helps society to value differences. In the article, we talked about the launch of the Mosaic curriculum. I think young people need to have a voice in what they learn and a voice in the development of that curriculum. I think all of those things will make a significant difference.

Yotam Pe’er, a student at Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School.

Yotam Pe'er, Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School: In November, Eric Adams will most likely be elected the next mayor. He has more conservative stances on education than you. How do you plan on incorporating his ideas into your plans?

Chancellor Porter: Opening in the fall is going to be, I think, less about anybody's political stance and more about what students need to come back to school after being out for 18 months during a pandemic. Really grounding our focus on the social-emotional needs and the academic needs of our students has to be everyone's priority.

Liza Tuyuc, a student at East-West School of International Studies.

Liza Tuyuc, East-West School of International Studies: Do you believe that Eric Adams' push for improved online learning would affect your agenda and the plan of opening schools, and how would you shift your priorities to accommodate both of these different plans?

Chancellor Porter: I've been in online classes, and I've seen and experienced it in a very different, innovative, engaging way. I think, as a system, we've got over 500,000 devices. We need to lean in and leverage those tools. Teachers learned so much about online learning platforms and how to use them to create more creative classrooms.

Kiran Yeh, a student at Brooklyn Technical High School.

Kiran Yeh, Brooklyn Technical High School: Asian American students make up 62% of New York City specialized high schools seats, yet we make up only 16% of the population for all city high schools. African American students make up 3.9 % of the specialized schools' population, but 25% of all city high schools. In order to diversify these schools, should the SHSAT be abolished completely or should there be more criteria added in the admissions process for students applying to specialized high schools?

Chancellor Porter: I don't think there should be any school in the system that has one measure to get students into that school. I know that many Asian American families have made great sacrifices to prepare their students for that exam. I don't think they should have to do that! I also know, having spoken to many Asian American students, that there is a level of pressure that comes with that, and so I think it is important that we not rely on one measure.

Kiran: Thank you so much, yes it was very stressful.

Chancellor: I'll call your mother!

Anthony Ortiz, a student at JVL Wildcat Academy Charter School.

Anthony Ortiz, JVL Wildcat Academy Charter School: In my opinion, the heavy presence of police and metal detectors demeans students into being treated like cattle as they enter school. Are there any plans to reconsider heavy police and security measures so students do not feel so dehumanized?

Chancellor Porter: I worked in the Bronx for many, many years and really pushed against metal detectors. I think in this moment of coming back to school, I don't want you to walk in the building and feel uncomfortable. I want you to walk in and feel excited. There's also another side of that conversation: there's a whole group of people who feel safer because of metal detectors. I think there's an opportunity to build a bridge with our student safety agents. Not being at the door, saying, you know, pull up your pants and why do you have a cellphone? But, welcome, good morning, it's so good to see you, it's so good to have you in this building.

Richard Zhao, a student at Brooklyn Technical High School.

Richard Zhao, Brooklyn Technical High School: The Discovery program is a summer enrichment program for eligible, rising, low-income ninth grade students who take the SHSAT and score right below the cutoff. As a current student who has gone through the Discovery program, do you have any ideas for the future expansion of this program?

Chancellor Porter: We worked really hard to expand this program in the Bronx and did. I think we should expand the Discovery program, but I also think that we should make sure to have multiple measures to enter [specialized high schools]. When you apply to college, you have to take a test, tell your story, demonstrate your learning, share your grades. Some of you probably even had to go through an interview. When we talk about college and career readiness, why aren't we starting earlier by ensuring that students are engaging in a selection process that is similar to the college process in middle school?

Geraldy Mercedes, a student at Kingsbridge International High School.

Geraldy Mercedes, Kingsbridge International High School: Are suspensions necessary and, more importantly, effective? In my high school, problems were solved between two parties by suspending both without properly hearing what happened. I was beaten up by a girl when I was a freshman, and yet I was suspended as well.

Chancellor Porter: I think we have to look at more restorative ways of solving conflict, and teaching young people how to solve conflict, how to identify their emotions, so when you are getting a little too high, how to bring yourself down. We also want to help kids recognize their triggers so they can learn from their mistakes. And also helping you acknowledge when you are in a space where you may be behaving inappropriately. I don't think suspension has ever done any of that for the system, and I think we have an opportunity to think differently.

Etana Williams, a student at Brooklyn Technical High School.

Etana Williams, Brooklyn Technical High School: Do you have any ideas for making students of color feel less targeted or ostracized, specifically at schools lacking diversity?

Chancellor Porter: I believe that the work of transforming communities is about the merger of hearts and minds. So when I talk about the Mosaic curriculum, that's one thing. The other part of it, training and development of teachers to see students, to see their beauty, to see their talents, to see their authenticity, but also to lean into that as a way to bring you into the room. So, ensuring that students of color don't feel left out is about curriculum, it's about how I value your lived experiences; it's about how I value the community that you come from.

I think that this moment is also celebrating the cultures and heritages of young people who make up our school system. I think this is also a moment when, as a system, we have to value student voice in a very real and significant way, to tell us when you show up at your school building, "What do I feel? What do I think? What do the people greeting me or not greeting me in the morning tell me? What does the curriculum tell me about how you feel about me? What is the way my teachers check in or don't check in tell me about how you feel about me? What's up in our hallways? As I walk through the buildings, what do I see?"

This interview was originally published in YouthComm Magazine.

NYC teachers union, city at impasse over vaccine mandate for medical and religious exemptions

2021-09-02T22:31:23+00:00

Negotiations have stalled between New York City’s teachers union and City Hall over a vaccination mandate for school staffers, pushing union leaders to file a formal complaint with the state.

The city has refused to pay teachers who have a legitimate medical or religious reason not to take the shot, according to the complaint filed by the United Federation of Teachers, or UFT, with the Public Employment Relations Board.

The board would serve as a mediator on the matter for a session scheduled Thursday evening between the city and the union, said Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, who expects an update on Monday. If there is still no agreement, the issue will go to arbitration, he said.

Mulgrew said he doesn’t expect there will be many religious exemptions among his members since major religious leaders approve of the COVID vaccine. But he was more alarmed that the city is refusing to pay those who cannot take the vaccine. However, he did not know how many of his members would need such exemptions, and the nature of those exemptions have not yet been defined in bargaining sessions with the city.

Experts believe the list of people in need of a medical vaccine accommodation is small, NBC News reported. No one with a previous serious allergic reaction to components in the vaccine should take it, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It’s really shocking to me, you know, as teachers across this city have gone above and beyond, reached out and helped so many families and so many students, the mayor’s idea of, ‘Oh, I’m going to mandate the vaccine, and if you don’t like it, I’m removing you from payroll,” Mulgrew said during a press conference announcing the complaint.

In late July, Mayor Bill de Blasio said all education department staffers must get vaccinated or get a weekly COVID test in order to work. About a month later, de Blasio announced a blanket vaccination mandate for all school employees, with their first dose required by Sept. 27, which is two weeks after school starts.

As of late August, 63% of education department staffers were vaccinated, but the actual figure is likely higher because New York City does not track educator vaccinations that happen outside of the five boroughs. The union estimates that 80% of its members are vaccinated.

At the time, while publicly supporting vaccines, Mulgrew also said the city must negotiate details of the mandate with the union. But those talks broke down after the city refused to pay people who would qualify for a medical or religious exemption, Mulgrew said, describing it as “disgusting” to reporters.

Union officials also want the city to allow medical accommodations for vaccinated immunocompromised people so that they can work from home because doctors have told the union that some of them are at higher risk of getting sick — even with a booster shot, Mulgrew said in an interview. (Those with weakened immune systems became eligible for boosters last month.)

While there is no remote school option for most children this year, medically fragile students can attend virtual learning. An estimated 5,000 children are also expected to receive home instruction, which is one place unvaccinated staffers or those with medical accommodations can be assigned, the union argued. They can also help with “curriculum development, academic and social screening, as well as school data management and analysis,” the complaint says.

The complaint said the city has “no intention of budging from its inflexible stance or including the UFT in any meaningful bargaining concerning the implementation of the city’s vaccination policy.”

City officials declined to elaborate on their side of negotiations.

“The health and safety of New York City children and the protection of our employees is at the core of the vaccine mandate,” said Danielle Filson, spokesperson for the education department. “We will continue to negotiate with the UFT to reach a successful agreement because that is what’s best for our school communities.”

People with a medical reason not to take the vaccine would be required to use their remaining sick days — up to 90 days — before going on unpaid leave and losing health insurance, the complaint says. Those with religious reasons cannot use sick days and would have to use other accrued time off before losing their benefits, the complaint says.

The city has bargained over the matter twice, according to the complaint.

Office hours in store for NYC students who must quarantine when their peers remain in school

2021-09-01T23:04:01+00:00

For students who must quarantine when their classmates can remain in school, their teachers must provide “office hours” instead of live instruction, education department officials announced Wednesday.

“Office hours” can mean multiple things — answering a student’s questions, individual or small group tutorials, check-ins on assignments, according to education department spokesperson Sarah Casasnovas.

Office hours will largely be for middle and high school students, who will have different quarantine rules from those in elementary schools, said Lauren Siciliano, the department’s chief administrative officer, during a Wednesday City Council hearing on school reopening.

Teachers will be paid overtime to dedicate two hours a week toward office hours for quarantined students, earning more if they teach multiple courses with students staying home, Casasnovas said. They will also receive $225 to set up “digital classrooms” for remote learning, and will receive four hours in overtime pay if more than half of their students are in quarantine at a given time, according to the agreement with the teachers union obtained by Chalkbeat.

Though Mayor Bill de Blasio said he anticipates fewer quarantines this year, if other parts of the country are any indication, teachers may end up needing to devote time and attention to a significant number of students.

At the hearing, schools Chancellor Meisha Porter said school officials have been working closely with the union to hammer out the details of remote instruction during quarantines. Casasnovas confirmed that negotiations are complete with the union over remote instruction requirements. Union officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“We’ve been really working with our union partners to answer those questions,” Porter said. “The commitment to continuing instruction for our students throughout, in a quarantine, is there from all of us.”

Teachers — who are required to have at least one vaccine dose by Sept. 27 — can hold the office hours during their preparation period, during lunch time, or after school, Casasnovas said.

Who will have office hours?

Many schools may have a challenging time figuring out how they will provide office hours when entire classrooms don’t have to shut down but some children might be in quarantine.

In middle and high schools, vaccinated students won’t have to quarantine following exposure to an infected person in a classroom, as long as they’re not showing symptoms, but their unvaccinated peers will have to isolate for up to 10 days. They will have an option to return after a week as long as they have a negative COVID test after five days in isolation.

This could get complicated, since students in older grades move from class to class with different students.

The city is trying to ensure as many eligible children are vaccinated, so as part of the city’s vaccination push for children, all schools with students ages 12 and older will provide vaccines (with parental consent) during the week of Sept. 13, when students return, officials also announced on Wednesday.

Second doses will be provided at those same schools the week of Oct. 4.

The rules around remote instruction are more straightforward in elementary school where children are too young to be vaccinated: if a positive COVID case arises, the entire class must quarantine and instruction will shift to remote.

There are no requirements for how much live instruction teachers must provide in the case of full classroom or school closures, according to the agreement between the city and the union. Teachers and other mandated related service providers will be required “to share content via these classrooms that is necessary to effectively engage students and provide instruction during the emergency closure.”

Additionally, there may be situations where just one student in an elementary school class will have to quarantine, depending on how they were exposed, and they would receive office hours, Casasnovas said.

Teachers scratch their heads

If teachers are overseeing multiple courses with quarantined students, they can divide their allotted time for office hours equally among those classes. For example, a teacher with two partially quarantined classes could devote 90 minutes of office hours to both.

Many teachers said they were initially blindsided by the news.

Mike Loeb, a middle school science teacher at the Urban Institute of Mathematics in the Bronx, wondered how schools would build in office hours for quarantined students into their existing schedules.

“Schools have already made their schedules,” he wrote in a text message. “Office hours didn’t exist before COVID so the only template we have is what we did during COVID, when office hours came at the expense of instructional time.” He noted that the school might have to repurpose time that is typically reserved for training and other activities.

Nate Stripp, an eighth grade social studies teacher at M.S. 50 in Brooklyn, said his school is planning to hold individual Zoom rooms for students in the same grade who are required to quarantine. They would place “remote coaches” in those virtual rooms to help students and ensure they are “with an adult,” he said. Those coaches would be a range of staffers, including paraprofessionals and substitute teachers.

But it’s unclear to Stripp whether that plan would meet the city’s requirements without any further information from the education department or the union. He’s also unsure how teachers would plan for office hours with a full in-person schedule this year.

“If we are teaching full loads and doing office hours, I want to see a more specific plan for that,” Stripp said. “Really, I would like to see a more fleshed out policy about all of this — that would be particularly helpful for all of us involved so that we can make our plans concrete.”

Debate over a remote option continues

School officials promised that students would have the technology needed to shift to remote learning. At the City Council hearing, officials said they’ve purchased an additional 175,000 devices, which are a mixture of internet-enabled iPads and Chromebooks, to distribute to schools in need of them. They could not say how many device requests are currently unfulfilled.

Multiple council members asked Porter why remote instruction is not an option for the fall, echoing calls from families over the past several months. They said families should have the option, pointing to the highly transmissible delta variant of COVID and protecting students who aren’t eligible for vaccines.

Porter and Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi reiterated that they didn’t think a remote option was necessary for most students in the face of the city’s multiple layers of protection in schools, including masking, social distancing where possible, improved ventilation, and testing 10% of each school twice a month.

Porter also said she heard the most concerns from families with medically fragile students, who will be eligible for a remote instruction.

She also said the system is prepared to shut down entirely, if necessary.

“If cases rise and we have to go remote, we are prepared to do that,” Porter said.

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

From isolation to building solar ovens: For one NYC student, summer school is a bridge to the fall

2021-07-22T21:45:30+00:00

Before this month, Isaac P. had not been inside of a classroom since March 2020, when the coronavirus forced school buildings to close across the city.

So the rising fifth-grader felt a little tense about the city’s summer program.

He had never attended summer school before this year, and on top of that, he hadn’t interacted with other students or teachers in person for more than a year. But he wanted to “learn more,” so he signed up, he said.

Now a few weeks in, he said his butterflies are gone. On Thursday at P.S. 96 in East Harlem, Isaac served as the “materials manager” for a STEM project, where he helped his classmates find cardboard, aluminum foil and other materials to build solar-powered ovens to cook s’mores.

“I love this,” Isaac said of the project incorporating science, technology, engineering and math.

Isaac P., a rising fifth-grader at P.S. 96 in East Harlem, poses for a picture during his summer program.

Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter wanted the city’s ambitious Summer Rising program to be a bridge to the regular school year for children like Isaac, who is among the 200,000 students enrolled in the ambitious effort. City officials revamped summer school this year by opening it up to all students — not just those who are failing or falling behind in coursework — and offering a mix of academics and enrichment activities, provided by community-based organizations who partner with schools.

For some, summer school has traditionally carried a stigma of being for children who had fallen behind. But by opening the program to every student and adding activities, this year’s model attempts to break new ground as many students emerge from isolation to get reacquainted with their school communities.

The idea was widely lauded, but the rollout was rocky.

Many families were initially confused about how to enroll. Meanwhile schools received last-minute orders from the education department to enroll anyone who wanted to participate. As a result, some sites enrolled more children than they expected, some had trouble hiring enough staff to supervise the program. Separately, there have been concerns over transportation options for students with disabilities and those in temporary housing.

Those problems did not seem to affect P.S 96, according to Principal James Konstantinakos.

The rollout was smooth at his Harlem school, which Porter visited on Thursday. Konstantinakos said he had no issues shoring up enough staff to run it. He credited YMCA and Mission Society, the organizations that partner with his school, for doing a lot of early outreach to families ahead of the program’s launch.

When launching the program, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he hoped it would be replicated in the future. This year’s program is estimated to cost about $200 million — a “vast majority” covered by federal coronavirus relief dollars, according to education department officials. That raises questions about where this sort of funding would come from down the line, when this dedicated federal funding runs out.

When Porter visited P.S. 96, which enrolled about 120 children this summer, she looked at the solar ovens and turned to Isaac, who greeted her at the door: “[Is] this literally gonna cook s’mores?” He nodded yes — and showed her all their supplies, including marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate.

As Isaac zipped around the room to help his classmates, students cut out the tops of cardboard boxes and attached aluminum foil to the top so that they could capture heat from the sun. Porter joined in, holding one group’s cardboard box as a student used scissors to cut the top.

Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter, left, held down a cardboard box for students at P.S. 96 as they attempted to build a solar-powered oven during their summer program.

(A Chalkbeat reporter did not stick around long enough to see whether the marshmallows melted onto the graham crackers.)

This was the sort of in-person experience that Isaac had missed for the past 16 months. But he was most excited about silent reading time, after which students must write down a summary of the chapter they read. He’s on Chapter 11 of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

Isaac didn’t opt for in-person learning this year — just like three out of every five New York City students — because of fears about contracting the coronavirus.

Isaac said he’s looking forward to the fall because he will “get to see my friends again,” and he’ll have recess. For months, he had been nervous about what it would be like since it had been so long since he’d stepped inside of a school. After attending summer school for a few weeks, it seems that some of those nerves are starting to wear off.

“I’m feeling a bit more confident, a bit nervous at the same time,” Isaac said.

A Bronx principal turned congressman unveils ambitious Green New Deal for nation’s schools

2021-07-15T21:19:12+00:00

New York City Democratic Congressman and former principal Jamaal Bowman returned to his public school roots in the Bronx on Thursday to unveil a pricey federal proposal that would help construct energy-efficient schools, hire more staff and create more culturally responsive curricula.

The $1.43 trillion package would create hundreds of billions of dollars in grants over 10 years that districts could use to do “green retrofits” of buildings — such as installing solar panels and getting rid of toxic substances — for the nation’s top third of highest-need schools, as measured by socioeconomic indicators. Other schools could also qualify for partial grants and low- or no-interest loans, according to a news release about the bill.

“Schools, as the heartbeat of our communities, can be the epicenter of clean, green, renewable sustainable energy, not only for themselves but for the extended, larger community,” Bowman, who aligns with a group of the most progressive federal Democratic lawmakers, told reporters outside of Sousa Junior High School in the Bronx.

Bowman’s package is meant to address “environmental justice, economic justice, and racial justice” by sending more resources to the highest needs schools, as well as teaching children about systemic problems. He said he wants students to understand the history of redlining, which blocked people of color from getting loans to buy property in certain neighborhoods, and why school buildings in low-income communities tend to be in more disrepair than those in more affluent neighborhoods.

Improving school buildings is a perennial issue, but it gained renewed attention during the pandemic when many districts scrambled to repair their ventilation systems as a way to protect against coronavirus transmission. In New York City, officials raced to fix faulty ventilation systems at buildings before they reopened for students this past year.

Recent research has found that upgrading school facilities results in better student performance.

Bowman is hoping that his proposal, dubbed the Green New Deal for Public Schools, will be included in a broader infrastructure plan as the White House negotiates a new budget. With 22 co-sponsors and a price tag exceeding $1 trillion, it is an ambitious measure introduced by the freshman congressman. Bowman, who was the founding principal of Cornerstone Academy for Social Action in the Bronx before he ran for public office, gave a shout out to his Bronx and Queens colleague, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who co-penned two years ago the Green New Deal, a resolution that maps out a larger plan to combat climate change.

Bowman noted long-standing building issues he experienced in his two decades as an educator and has heard about across the country, such as schools with non-operable or lead-laced drinking fountains and faulty ventilation or HVAC systems, as well as rodent-infested schools. He blamed those problems on “the historic neglect of resources that have not come from our federal government.”

New York City, which is home to the nation’s largest school system, has taken some steps to build greener school infrastructure, including a recent commitment toward a fully electric bus fleet by 2035. In February, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city would install solar panels on top of 47 public schools. The city’s roughly 1,600 schools that house nearly 1 million students contribute to one-third of the carbon emissions released by all city buildings, officials have said.

Bowman’s bill would allocate federal funds that would help the city do much more, according to Chancellor Meisha Porter.

“There’s no doubt that the new Green Deal for Public Schools will help New York City and districts across the country and will continue to ensure that New York City and New York City public schools chart the path forward for this nation to strengthen academics, build greener schools and combat climate change,” Porter said.

Major sections of the bill go beyond energy efficiency. Another $250 billion in block grants would go toward hiring more staff at high-need schools, which districts could use to hire and train more teachers, paraprofessionals, school psychologists, and counselors. This pot of money could also be used to design curriculum that’s “trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and restorative justice practices,” as well as to partner with community organizations who can offer more services to schools, such as after-school programming, according to a news release.

The city has taken some steps in this regard, as well. Officials recently announced a $200 million plan to bring culturally responsive English and math curriculum to all schools by the fall of 2023. (Schools would be required to use the curriculum unless they get a waiver to use existing courses of study.)

The largest chunk of Bowman’s bill — nearly $700 billion — would go toward boosting Title 1 funding, which goes toward schools with high shares of students in poverty, and toward services for students with disabilities.

The bill’s impact on saving energy could be significant for New York City, if passed, said Jeff Vockrodt, executive Director of Climate Jobs New York, a coalition of city labor unions advocating for more climate-friendly infrastructure. The city could save $70 million in energy costs annually if energy efficiency was improved by just 25% across all schools, according to a campaign the group launched to push for clean-energy schools. The organization recently wrote a letter highlighting their findings to New York’s federal leaders, urging them to build greener schools.

“Just here in New York City, we can have the impact of the equivalent of planting 400,000 trees — that impact on emissions,” Vockrodt said during Bowman’s press conference. “We can create thousands of good union jobs [and] we can address a lot of long-standing facilities issues in schools.”

‘Literacy blitz’ and other ways de Blasio plans to spend $635 million to help NYC students catch up

2021-07-08T19:28:45+00:00

New York City will infuse public schools with $635 million for an academic recovery plan that includes a universal literacy screening through second grade, after-school help for students with disabilities, and college counseling services for all juniors and seniors, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter announced Thursday.

The announcement provided long-awaited details on how some of the influx of federal stimulus money — expected to total $6.9 billion over three years— will be used to support the city’s nearly 1 million students and close what the mayor has called “the COVID achievement gap.” A main focus will be on literacy, including extra coaches and interventions, class size reductions at certain schools, and even the books that students read. As part of a new universal curriculum, called Mosaic, that the city plans to roll out in 2023, classroom libraries are expected this fall to begin getting 9 million new books that reflect the diversity of children in the nation’s largest school system.

“We’re going to jumpstart each child’s educational comeback,” de Blasio said, reiterating his years-long promise to have every child reading on grade level by third grade. He had previously pledged that by 2026 all children would be reading on grade level by the end of second grade.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, spoke at the press conference in support of the city’s plan, saying that people will be working this summer to ensure schools have the resources and training they need to carry it out.

“We know that there’s a lot to do here, but this is what we signed on for,” Mulgrew said. “Now we just have to make it work for each and every child in every classroom.”

De Blasio had previously said the academic recovery program would include personalized online tools for children after school as well as assessments given to children in the fall. Neither of those were part of Thursday’s announcement. Education department officials said that schools will indeed assess children as a way to supplement the newly unveiled plan, but this would be funded separately.

The chancellor made a point to say that English language learners — about 135,000 students in the city’s public school system — will receive “dedicated supports” as part of the academic recovery plan.

An education department spokesperson said schools would get the funding “soon,” with literacy coaches and other intervention staff in place on Sept. 13.

Here are some of the plan’s highlights:

Special education: $251 million

Noting that the pandemic had a disproportionate impact on students with disabilities, Porter said the city will launch after-school and Saturday programs for the more than 200,000 students with individualized education programs, or IEPs. Through this funding, students will also be able to do their related services, such as speech and occupational therapy after school, officials said.

Porter also said 800 additional special education pre-kindergarten seats will be in place by September 2022, as the city has historically not provided a seat for every student with a disability who is entitled to one. At the end of the 2019-2020 school year, 1,215 preschool students with disabilities were still waiting for classroom seats.

During the pandemic, the education department struggled to provide students with disabilities with the services they are entitled to receive. According to a report released in February, nearly a quarter of students with disabilities were not receiving mandated special services, which might include smaller class sizes or other specialized support, and other services like physical therapy were often difficult to deliver remotely.

The city has previously said it planned to spend roughly $236 million on make-up services to compensate for lost time during the pandemic. This is now part of the plan announced Thursday.

Still, Advocates for Children of New York Executive Director Kim Sweet wanted to know more about how the city will address the lapse in services for these students.

“We are still waiting for the DOE to release a plan for make-up special education services for students with disabilities without requiring each individual family to request and litigate an administrative hearing, which can take months and sometimes years,” Sweet said in a statement.

By including compensatory services in this plan, the goal is that parents would not need to make a request or file for a hearing, education officials said.

Universal Mosaic curriculum: $202 million

More than $200 million will be invested in creating and sustaining a universal culturally responsive curriculum designed by New York City educators. The comprehensive curriculum, which is slated to be ready for schools to implement by the fall of 2023, is designed to reflect the diversity of the city and will include support materials for English and math, officials said.

This announcement comes one week after the City Council announced a $10 million “education equity action plan” to create a K-12 Black Studies curriculum. That funding includes professional development for educators to support the implementation of the curriculum and was included in the city’s $98.7 billion spending plan.

“I’m excited to ensure that every student is welcomed into an affirming, supportive, and rigorous learning environment where they see themselves in the curriculum, where we honor the voices of our students and families,” Porter said.

The Mosaic curriculum, which covers English and math, would be mandated, unless a school gets a waiver to use an existing curriculum, officials said. “This isn’t about a mandate. It’s about a collaborative process,” the chancellor said, emphasizing that the curriculum will be made in partnership with educators.

The teachers union president seemed to be on board with the “massive project” of creating the new curriculum.

“Teachers have scrambled for decades trying to find these materials,” Mulgrew said. “What we’re saying here is that the school system is taking on the role and responsibility of bringing all these materials together that represent all of the different children and populations and cultures that we teach, and making them available so that the schools don’t have to scramble over and find them on their own. It is absolutely the smart thing to do.”

Parents for the NYC Coalition for Education Justice, which has long advocated for a culturally responsive curriculum, said they were excited about the new curriculum.

“All students, educators, school workers and families will learn collectively about their own cultures and other cultures,” said Rasheedah Brown-Harris, a parent leader in the Alliance for Quality Education, which is part of the coalition. “This will truly support our healing practices building our understanding, appreciation, pride and respect for each other.”

Students as digital citizens: $122 million

The COVID pandemic exposed digital divides in New York City, as nearly 60% percent of students were learning remotely through the end of the school year. Nearly one-fifth of New York City students lack home and mobile broadband services, and 40% of students have only one or the other, according to the internet master plan released last year.

During the pandemic, the city invested in about 800,000 devices for remote learning. The academic recovery plan calls for investing in an additional 175,000 devices, ensuring all students have access to a device with internet access. Eighth grade students will also be required to complete a tech capstone project to make sure they have developed computer skills.

“This plan will position all New York City students as digital citizens in today’s world,” the chancellor said.

The plan also expands the Computer Science 4 All initiative to 400,000 students by 2024. More than 5,000 educators will be trained in advanced computer science.

Literacy for all: $49 million

To ensure students are reading at grade level by third grade, educators will use a universal literacy screen to identify students with challenges, including print-based disabilities such as dyslexia. The number of reading coaches will also increase to 500, which the chancellor said would ensure every classroom from 3-K through second grade would have a reading coach. School officials said there would be additional funds to provide targeted support, such as tutoring, extended day and enrichment activities.

“This is going to be the year of the literacy blitz,” Porter said. “Our educators will use a universal literacy screen to identify students’ strengths and challenges, including dyslexia, and make a support plan. Too many of our kids have struggled with print-based disabilities like dyslexia. And this is not okay.”

The city has long struggled to serve students with dyslexia and other reading challenges, leading some families to move their children to private schools and sue the city for reimbursement. The city has previously experimented with dyslexia screening on a small scale; dozens of other states mandate some level of screening to identify struggling readers.

Porter also said that class sizes at certain schools would be reduced. Approximately 140 additional teachers will be hired and specifically deployed to the 72 elementary schools with the largest class sizes, targeting areas with low English proficiency rates.

Nearly half of third graders in New York City public schools are not reading at grade level, according to state test scores, and expanding literacy has been a cornerstone of de Blasio’s education agenda. The mayor’s Universal Literacy program has already placed hundreds of literacy coaches across the city’s elementary schools to train teachers in phonics-based instruction.

This year’s interventions will include programs that support word recognition skills as well as “research-informed methodologies” that support vocabulary and reading comprehension, school officials said. They did not immediately say what the timeline would be for the students to get support or how long it might take for schools to identify students’ needs.

College and career readiness: $10 million

To help keep students focused on what’s next after graduation, the city will provide all juniors and seniors with free after-school college and career counseling, along with college financial aid guidance in multiple languages to help navigate the application process, according to officials.

“Especially as our students heal from the pandemic, we need to make sure they are better prepared for the next steps in life,” Porter said.

The city also plans to add dozens of virtual Advanced Placement courses and restore the “College Now” program, enabling thousands of students to take courses at 18 City University of New York campuses across the boroughs.

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Correction: Based on incorrect information from the education department, an earlier version of this story said that compensatory services for students with disabilities were separate from this plan. They are included in it.

NYC tells schools to expect an influx of summer students. With just days left, principals aren’t happy.

2021-07-01T00:10:00+00:00

Just days before summer school begins, city officials informed schools on Wednesday that they may need to accommodate an influx of students, frustrating principals who said the last-minute move could create a staffing crunch.

Chancellor Meisha Porter informed principals that “all schools should plan to serve all students interested in their site’s program,” according to a Wednesday afternoon email. The message suggested that students who have been waitlisted at programs that are oversubscribed or had not yet applied could still be sent to their home school’s summer program or one nearby.

Principals fear that many more students than expected could show up at their sites on Tuesday, the first day of the summer program for most students. Multiple principals told Chalkbeat it would be challenging to plan for the program’s launch next week without knowing exactly how many — and which — students to expect, including those with disabilities who require specialized staff.

One elementary school leader in Manhattan said their school has a waitlist of about 500 but only managed to recruit fewer than 10 teachers to work the summer program. Students are supposed to be served breakfast and lunch while on-site, and those food orders have already been placed. Classrooms have not been set up to welcome students, and safety equipment like masks will be needed, they added.

“You can’t promise families something that you can’t deliver,” the school leader said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear of repercussions. “It’s not right. It’s just creating a really unsafe situation. It’s untenable.”

City officials have struggled to pull off the launch of its new summer program, known as Summer Rising, which will include a mix of academic programming staffed by the education department and afternoon enrichment activities operated by nonprofit community organizations.

The summer programming is open to any city student who wants to participate, but the enrollment process has confused many parents, some of whom have been rejected from certain programs or placed on waitlists without clear communication from the city about the next steps. The move to enroll families at the sites of their choice may help those who had been rejected or waitlisted and were concerned about not being able to enroll at a school that is convenient to their home or staffed by familiar educators.

Mark Cannizzaro, head of the city’s principals union, said union officials had raised concerns for weeks about the waitlists and caps on the number of students who could be served during the enrichment portion of the day. He noted that informing principals five days before the program’s launch and immediately before a holiday weekend about a significant change was already breeding frustration.

“I’m getting emails from people saying, ‘I have 450 students on my waiting list. How am I going to staff for them?’” Cannizzaro said. The situation “is completely disrespectful of people, it’s potentially harmful to kids, and it’s incompetent.”

After an exhausting year full of pandemic disruptions, some principals have struggled to find enough teachers to staff their summer programs. One Manhattan elementary school principal said the summer school site affiliated with her school is still searching for teachers. Porter’s email noted that substitutes and special education aides would be available and that “budget support will be provided.”

Site leaders said that scrambling to find substitutes will likely water down the quality of instruction and care. Teachers have been planning their instruction in teams, and many community organizations providing summer camp-style activities have already trained staff.

“It’s not just about having the bodies,” a community organization leader in Manhattan said, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize their contracts with the city. “It demeans the work we’ve been doing.”

School leaders added that this change is the latest in a series of last-minute moves. Some principals were recently given spreadsheets and told to call waitlisted families with alternative summer school sites, though not all families have been contacted.

Multiple principals said they faced logistical issues getting information about which students were enrolled at various summer school sites because of communication issues between the education department’s computer systems and the Department of Youth and Community Development, which ran the registration process.

“Some families have been waitlisted but not told where they’ve gotten a spot,” said a Manhattan principal, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak publicly. “Some families today don’t know where their child will be attending next week.”

An education department spokesperson, Sarah Casasnovas, said parents would be informed of their summer school placement by the end of the week. Officials have not said how many students are on waitlists.

“Summer Rising is all about reconnecting families with their school communities, and we’re excited to provide even more students with a seat at their home school or preferred location,” she wrote in a statement.

City officials have also faced criticism over their summer school transportation plans, declining to provide bus service home at the end of the day to all homeless students and those with disabilities who typically receive it during the school year. On Tuesday, officials said they would pick up the tab for taxis so those students could make it home.

Budget cuts ahead for some of NYC’s community schools, while most get a boost

2021-06-23T18:26:58+00:00

Even as the city plans to dramatically increase the number of community schools by 2022, a change in how it funds the program is causing a mix of joy and frustration among its existing schools. Some nonprofits that have been providing extra services for students are getting a financial boost ahead of next school year, while others are seeing painful cuts.

The changes have so far affected most of the 145 campuses, which cover 165 schools, where organizations applied to oversee extra services, since their contracts expire this month. Ninety-three of those will see more money and 52 will see less.

Community schools, which embed social services directly in high-need schools by partnering with outside organizations, have been a central part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s school improvement philosophy. Research suggests that the schools have improved attendance, graduation rates, math scores, and the rate at which students move to the next grade. Now, the education department has changed how it funds the program to create a more consistent formula for all of the schools, taking into account enrollment, the percentage of low-income students and how many grades are at the school.

The result is that nearly two thirds of the sites whose new contracts start July 1 received a bump in funding that will allow them to expand mental health and academic support for their students. But more than a third face cuts, and will need to lay off staff and pare down services they’ve offered for years just as many students are returning to buildings for the first time since March 2020.

Bushwick Leaders High School will get $280,000 in new funding, which will result in more social workers at the school, as well as more staff that can counsel and mentor students one-on-one, according to officials with Good Shepherd, the organization that runs services there. In contrast, Long Island City High School will see more than $425,000 in cuts, said Anju J. Rupchandani, executive director of Zone 126, the organization that has provided a suite of services at the school for the past decade. They plan to lay off three to four staff members who focus on improving chronic absenteeism, conduct home visits, mentor students, and work on college and career readiness both during and after the school day.

“I get it — we need to support any and all of our children — but when we are coming out of a pandemic it feels especially hard to swallow, considering many of our youth were living in East Elmhurst, Corona, and many of them lost family members and many of them had to go out and be the breadwinners for our households,” said Rupchandani.

Funding change sows confusion

The change in how community schools are funded comes ahead of a planned expansion of the program, which will bring the total number of schools from 266 to 406 by fall 2022. The expansion, which will be paid for with federal COVID relief dollars, is meant to target communities that were hardest hit by the pandemic, officials said.

Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the education department, defended the new funding formula as a more “equitable” way to distribute dollars, but said that they are working “toward a solution” for schools experiencing cuts. He declined to say whether the department is considering giving those schools more money.

“We are reviewing the smaller number of organizations that saw budget decreases as a result of our improved, equitable and consistent funding formula, and will be working closely with them to best support schools and students,” Styer said.

Previously, about half of community schools were funded through the weighted formula, while the other half received a patchwork of city and state grants that the city distributed, officials said. Now all community schools are funded through the same formula, which starts with a base of $250,000 and then adds money based on a few weighted factors, such as the percentage of low-income students and total students.

Many of the organizations that work in the community schools had lobbied the city to find a more equitable funding structure, in part to boost funding for schools that were receiving $100,000 or less and found it difficult to provide extra support to their students, said Annie Minguez, director of government and community relations for Good Shepherd Services and also a member of the Coalition for Community Schools Excellence. Minguez noted that of the 266 community schools, there are 73 that are funded by the state and at generally lower levels than other sites.

But now mixed emotions have spread among the schools and community organizations who were notified of funding increases, cuts, or termination of their contracts. While Minguez said many schools are happy about funding increases, there wasn’t enough communication about what the new funding formula would look like, and schools received the news just 19 days before the new, three-year contracts would go into effect on July 1. Her organization saw funding increases, cuts, and lost contracts at schools it partners with.

Organizations are now making quick decisions about how their services for students will change — whether that means they’ll be expanded or cut — or how they will hand off the baton to another organization that beat them out for a contract at a given school.

Minguez said organizations that did not win new contracts need longer than June 30 to transition out of schools. They want the education department to cover additional costs that come out of that transition process.

“We have to sit with what happened here — that providers are struggling with being notified three weeks before the contract ends, or that they didn’t get the contract and they have to close a program and lay people off,” Minguez said.

Services boosted at some schools, while others cut back

Education officials said the department held planning sessions and met with advocacy groups and community organizations, to “make it clear that there would be re-leveling of funding.” The range of funding that an organization could receive also was outlined in the request for proposals, or RFP, that groups filled out to either renew their contracts with schools or apply to become new providers, officials said.

That RFP said schools could get a maximum of $785,000. In the end, however, that turned out to be $237,000 less than the highest award offered to any of the nonprofits. (A department official said the RFP simply provides a potential range for funding.)

That came as a surprise to the program at three high schools on the Franklin K. Lane campus in Cypress Hills.

School officials at the shared campus were expecting less than the annual $1.1 million they’ve received the past three years. They were planning ways to pare down services or make up funding gaps, but were surprised to learn earlier this month of the steep $591,000 cut for next year. As a result, the organization is laying off four social workers and slashing a variety of mental health services, said Emily Van Ingen, deputy director of Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, which runs the program for nearly 1,000 students.

“We are coming out of this pandemic that has rocked the Cypress Hills-East New York community,” Van Ingen said. “Here we are, poised to come back in September, and we are losing a huge number of resources that would have been critical to bringing students back.”

Social workers provided one-on-one sessions with students and check-ins with families to connect them with housing or food assistance. They also teamed up with the school’s guidance counselors, and taught a social-emotional curriculum to students, Van Ingen said. The organization also employs “engagement specialists,” who work with families and students to make sure students are showing up to class or finding out why they were absent.

Two of the three schools will no longer have a full-time social worker through Cypress Hills, but Van Ingen said those schools have received new dollars from the education department to hire a full-time social worker on their own. Still, she’s concerned that it will take time to hire those staffers and get them up to speed with the school community’s needs as students return with compounded mental health and academic needs after two disrupted school years.

The four full-time remaining staffers across the three schools will focus on ensuring students are showing up to class. They also typically help pay for extended learning time, but Van Ingen isn’t sure yet how they will pull it off with less money.

In contrast, Bushwick Leaders High School is set to receive about $450,000 — roughly $280,000 more than they received each of the past three years. On top of their hiring plans for a new social worker and advocate counselor, who works one-on-one with students through counseling and check-ins, they will also be able to keep their restorative justice coordinator, whose salary was funded by a state grant that was set to expire this year, said Adam Bartholomew, the school’s community school director.

Bartholomew and Dana Spada, division director for Good Shepherd, said they’ve been stretched for years in providing extra academic and social emotional support for the school’s 340 students, nearly all of whom are from low-income families. They said the funding boost is a game changer.

“We’ve still been pulling off the work, but with such a skinny staffing structure,” Spada said. “We don’t really have what we need to do it, and finally we’ll really have the means.”

Rupchandani, whose organization is partnered with Long Island City High School, said it was necessary to increase support for schools that have historically had low levels of community schools funding. But she was frustrated there were any cuts at all, even as the mayor and Chancellor Meisha Porter have touted billions of dollars in federal stimulus funding for schools.

“They are robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Rupchandani said.

School mask mandate can be lifted, state says. But NYC plans to keep face coverings.

2021-06-04T21:16:13+00:00

New York City schools will still require masks despite state guidance allowing localities to lift masking mandates Monday for schools and summer camps.

The end of the in-school masking mandate was revealed Friday in a letter from State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker to Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

No one will be required to wear masks inside of schools or outdoors, Zucker wrote. However, people who are unvaccinated will be “strongly encouraged” to mask up inside, while the same will be suggested for unvaccinated people who are outdoors in “higher-risk” outdoor situations. The CDC defines this as being in close contact with others.

This new guidance will still allow schools and camps to impose stricter rules, Zucker wrote.

New York City schools, which require all students and staff to wear masks on school grounds, aren’t planning to change course for the rest of this year or for its ambitious summer school program.

“The health and safety of our students, educators and staff remain our top priority,” wrote Danielle Filson, spokesperson for the education department. “Per State guidance, local districts may implement standards that make the most sense for their communities, and we are continuing with our universal mask policy at our schools.”

Currently, vaccines are available only to people ages 12 and older. As coronavirus rates have dropped and vaccinations have gone up, federal officials have loosened general masking and social distancing guidance. It remains to be seen if the CDC will issue new masking and social distancing guidelines ahead of next school year and what changes city schools will make.

Zucker’s letter raised concerns about inconsistent federal guidance between masking for K-12 schools and youth camps. While the CDC recommends universal masking at schools, it only makes a distinction between outdoor and indoor activities for camps — specifically noting that people generally don’t need masks outdoors. The CDC encourages masks for unvaccinated people indoors, as well as outdoors if they are in close contact with other people, especially in an area where the coronavirus transmission rate is high.

Barring any concerns from the CDC, Zucker wrote that the new guidance will go into effect Monday.

Andy Pallotta, president of the state teachers union, said the Friday announcement was “whiplash-inducing news,” with just a few weeks left of the school year.

“Short of any additional guidance from the state or the CDC before Monday, we implore school districts to closely evaluate local conditions and connect with their educators and parents to decide the best course of action for protecting their school community,” Pallotta said in a statement.

NYC students in foster care need dedicated office and guaranteed busing, advocates say

2021-06-01T22:16:54+00:00

Three dozen advocacy and child welfare organizations are asking Mayor Bill de Blasio to pump $6.5 million into support and services for students in foster care, in time for next school year.

The organizations want two things: a new office within the education department to create policy and provide support for the nearly 5,900 city students in foster care and guaranteed busing for students in foster care who need it.

“This group — we absolutely need to not waste one more minute,” said Brenda Triplett, educational director at Children’s Aid, one of more than two dozen city agencies that place children in foster care homes. “We have to recognize that they are there and recognize the needs.”

In a letter sent Tuesday to the mayor and schools Chancellor Meisha Porter, the groups argue that these students, who make up 1% of all students and are among the most vulnerable, need new investments because they face steep disparities in the classroom. Just 42% of students in foster care graduated last school year — the lowest of any student subgroup — while 79% of their non-fostered peers earned diplomas, state data show. A city report from 2018 found that one-fifth of students in foster care had to repeat a grade in 2015, versus just 6% of students citywide.

They’re asking city officials to include these requests in the budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. Similar requests made last year by more than 20 advocacy and legal groups were unsuccessful.

City Hall and City Council are negotiating over the mayor’s proposed budget, which does not include specific new support for students in foster care. De Blasio wants to boost education department spending by more than $2 billion, including more money for individual schools and a vague $500 million program to help students catch up academically.

Once a child is placed in a foster home, schools often don’t know whom to invite to parent-teacher conferences, who can make special education decisions, or “whether the school can share information with the student’s parent or foster care agency,” the letter said. The organizations believe that $1.5 million could establish a new, seven-person office — two people at the central level focusing on policy, plus one person in each borough as a contact for individual schools — to provide extra support and answer questions for students and their families, while also helping schools’ staffers and providing training or workshops on how to help these students.

In 2018, a city task force recommended the education department “explore” ways to create a team of borough-based staff that schools could lean on for help with individual cases and professional development.

Department officials said there are staffers across every level of the education department who, as part of their regular responsibilities, provide support for students in foster care and act as points of contact for child welfare agencies. That includes liaisons at every school and directors of student services in each borough. The letter notes that these staffers are juggling multiple responsibilities.

Erika Palmer, an attorney with Advocates for Children who focuses on foster care, said these liaisons are existing school staff, such as an assistant principal. She’s heard about school-based liaisons who proactively reach out to families and agencies, while other schools have liaisons who don’t know that they’re this special point of contact.

Before this school year, Triplett’s agency called the foster homes of about 450 children to tell them that birth parents — not the foster parents — have the right to decide whether their children should participate in hybrid learning, unless their rights have been terminated by a court. They found that some schools were not aware of this, while many birth parents didn’t know there was a survey to fill out online. (The agency and Administration for Children’s Services would step in to mediate if there was a conflict between what the foster parent and birth parent wanted.)

“If there were an office, this would have been thought out ahead of time,” Triplett said.

The letter also asks for $5 million to guarantee that children who don’t have busing should get it. The organizations argue transportation will be crucial in getting these students to school next year, as many of them will be returning to a school building for the first time since March 2020.

Students in foster care may have to move to homes far from their school, but federal and state law requires that districts provide transportation to their home school. All students in foster care are eligible for free transportation, but the education department guarantees busing only to those students whose individualized education programs — which are created for students with disabilities — require transportation, the letter noted. The department allows other students to apply for busing, but the letter argues that the requests sometimes take weeks or months to process, “putting tremendous stress on already fragile foster care placements and over-extended agency staff in the meantime.”

Sometimes those requests are denied, and those students instead will get MetroCards. But taking the subway alone may not be a feasible option for very young students, Triplett said. Palmer estimates that between 300-400 of these students need busing who don’t already receive it.

Sometimes foster parents can’t pick up and drop off children, or ride the train with them, so agency officials will take that on, she said.

“These students are abruptly dropped into an unfamiliar environment with new teachers, peers, and curricula at the same time as they are coping with the trauma of separation from their family and community,” the letter said. “Without guaranteed transportation, foster care agencies have had difficulty finding homes for some children and have had to move other children from one home to another.”

Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the education department, pointed to the various staffers whose responsibilities include students in foster care.

“We deeply appreciate Advocates for Children for their advocacy on behalf of this student population and we will review this proposal and continue to support our students in foster care,” Styer said in a statement.

For the first time, all parents can vote in Community Education Council elections. Here’s what that means.

2021-04-30T20:57:40+00:00

Odds are, many public school parents don’t know who serves on their district’s Community Education Council.

That may change when voting begins Saturday for these 36 parent-led committees.

These councils, which have the power to shape school zone boundaries but are otherwise largely advisory, tend to operate below the radar for a lot of families. Until now, just three parent association leaders from each school selected members for Community Education Councils, or CECs.

In this new election cycle, parents will have more of a say. For the first time, voting will be open to any parent or guardian of a child who attends a public school (excluding charters) in a particular district.

“This is an unprecedented opportunity for all parents to make their voices heard and have a direct hand in choosing the future representatives of our school communities,” Chancellor Meisha Porter said in a statement. “I encourage all parents and guardians to get involved and vote!”

As New York City transitioned from the Board of Education to mayoral control and a more centralized vision of running the nation’s largest school system, it dismantled each district’s Community School Board. Those school boards — which oversaw budget and policy decisions for the city’s 32 districts — were replaced in 2004 by the parent-led CECs, which are much more limited in power.

In 2019, when Mayor Bill de Blasio was lobbying the state legislature to extend mayoral control over the city school system, he was granted another three years on certain conditions, including boosting parent involvement. One way to do that, state lawmakers believed, was to expand voting for the councils to all parents and legal guardians.

CEC elections take place every other year, and already, interest in serving on these councils has jumped nearly 70% since 2019. A record 1,785 parents applied to serve this year, up nearly from 1,060 two years ago, according to education department data released Friday.

Here are three things to know before voting.

What is a Community Education Council?

New York City’s district schools are spread across 32 individual districts in the five boroughs. For each, there is an 11-member CEC. Nine members must be district school parents with children in pre-K through eighth grade, and two are appointees of the borough president, who can be residents or local business owners.

There are also citywide councils representing high schoolers, students learning English as a new language, students with disabilities, and District 75, which serves students with the most complex disabilities.

In New York City, the mayor retains control of the school system and ultimately steers policies that trickle down to classrooms, students, and teachers. Each CEC, however, is charged with approving rezoning changes and holding public hearings. For example, in 2016, when the city created a controversial and highly publicized rezoning plan aimed at easing overcrowding and boosting integration on the Upper West Side, all eyes were on the District 3 CEC, which spent more than a year debating the plans.

Sometimes CECs pass resolutions sharing their collective stance on policy matters that they have little power over. Last fall, for instance, a CEC in Queens took a vote of no confidence in Chancellor Richard Carranza over complaints of uneven communication and guidance during the coronavirus pandemic. Last June, amid a city and national debate about police in schools, the CEC in Brooklyn’s District 15 passed a resolution calling for reforms to how school safety agents operate.

The citywide councils are also responsible for drafting an annual report on how effective the city has been in providing services for the community that they represent.

Am I eligible to vote?

Any parent or legal guardian of a child attending an education department-run school can vote for the council representing their district. They can also vote for citywide councils if they have a child represented by that council.

Essentially, each parent gets one vote per child, which means bigger families have more of a say in terms of representation. Each vote allows you to choose up to three seats on the council. Additionally, parents can vote for members on a citywide council that may represent their child’s needs. (Again, each vote allows you to pick three representatives.)

For example, a parent with two children with individualized education programs, can cast two votes for their district council and also two votes for the Citywide Council on Special Education.

When and how do I vote?

Voting begins Saturday, May 1 and lasts through May 11. Parents and legal guardians of children can vote online for their district councils and citywide councils using their NYC Schools account.

You can also vote in-person starting May 3 at the sites linked here, which will be open from 4-7 p.m.

Correction: This article originally stated that voting is through MySchools accounts. It is through NYC Schools accounts.

Once again, few Black, Latino students admitted to NYC’s prestigious specialized high schools

2021-04-29T18:15:35+00:00

The number of Black and Latino students admitted to the city’s vaunted specialized high schools dipped this year, a blow to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s long-running and largely unsuccessful goal of making the schools more reflective of New York City’s diversity.

Black and Latino students, who make up almost 70% of the city school system, received 9% of offers for the 2021-22 school year. That is down from 11% the year before, according to education department data released Thursday.

Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter held up the results as another reminder that state law requiring an entrance exam as the sole basis of admissions — the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT — should be repealed and replaced with a “more equitable” process.

“I know from my 21 years as an educator that far more students could thrive in our Specialized High Schools, if only given the chance,” Porter said in a statement. “Instead, the continued use of the Specialized High School Admissions Test will produce the same unacceptable results over and over again, and it’s far past the time for our students to be fairly represented in these schools.”

Just 3.6% of offers went to Black students, while 5.4% went to Latino students. Last school year, Black and Latino students received 4.5% and 6.6% of offers, respectively.

Only one Black student was admitted to Staten Island Tech’s incoming freshman class.

Almost 54% of offers went to Asian students and just under 28% went to white students. White students make about 15% of the school system, while 16% of all students identify as Asian.

Eight of the city’s specialized high schools — including Stuyvesant, Bronx High School of Science, and Brooklyn Tech — require a top score on the SHSAT for admission. Many opponents blame the test for the schools remaining largely white and Asian. The schools are considered some of the most prestigious in the country, but studies have shown that students with similar qualifications who attend other high schools earn comparable SAT scores and college offers.

De Blasio has spent much of his two terms proposing reforms that have done little to budge the needle when it comes to admitting more Black and Latino students. The coronavirus pandemic may have further contributed to the lack of representation in this year’s class. Amid an overall drop in the number of test-takers this year by about 4,000, to roughly 23,500 students, the vast majority of the decline was among Black and Latino students.

Education officials suggested that fewer students took the test because city schools lost roughly 43,000 children across the board, as families left the public school system at higher than usual rates.

The dip in test-takers, however, also likely resulted from major changes in how the test was administered during the pandemic. First, it was given in January, months later than is typical. To account for social distancing, it was offered at every middle school as opposed to a handful of sites, as usual — causing big logistical challenges for principals, whose school buildings were shuttered at the time amid a spike in COVID-19 rates. They had to administer the high-stakes test in person to eighth graders, who were learning exclusively from home this winter.

Black students made up an even smaller share of test-takers this year, down roughly 1,200 students, or almost 1.5 percentage points to 18.5% of all test-takers. The share of Latino students who took the test dipped even further, and was down by almost two percentage points, to 22.8%. Roughly 1,500 fewer Latino students sat for the test.

Meanwhile, even though Asian students had the highest rates of fully remote learning, the share of Asian test-takers grew by about three percentage points, to 34.7%. The overall number of Asian test-takers dropped by about 560 students, but as in past years, Asian students remained most likely to take the SHSAT. Nearly 430 fewer white students sat for the exam this year, but the share of white test-takers grew slightly, from just over 17% to 18.4%.

While advocates for more diverse schools had hoped that the city would press pause on administering the test during the pandemic, de Blasio did not directly answer whether he made any attempts to lobby the state to waive the admissions requirement this year. Other cities have pivoted in response to COVID-19. In Boston, for example, the city decided it wasn’t safe to administer an in-person test for admission to its prestigious exam schools, and will temporarily admit students based on a combination of a student’s grade point average and their ZIP code.

To diversify the schools, de Blasio proposed three years ago to scrap the exam and admit the city’s top middle school students based on a combination of their state test scores and report card grades. But the test is required under state law, and de Blasio unsuccessfully lobbied state lawmakers to consider changes. The movement to keep the test is backed by wealthy benefactors, who also called for creating more specialized schools and expanding subsidized test preparation.

De Blasio also faced fierce pushback from some white and Asian families, who felt the changes would unfairly undercut their chances for admission. The mayor has admitted that he failed to engage enough on his proposed changes with Asian New Yorkers, many of whom are recent immigrants who see the schools as a way for their children to get into a top college.

Last year, buoyed by a national reckoning over racial discrimination, some state lawmakers took a different approach by proposing to repeal the 1971 law associated with the test, instead of changing it as de Blasio had proposed. The original law, which took away the city’s power to change admissions, was passed just as the chancellor at the time announced an investigation into whether the test was discriminatory against Black and Latino students. That repeal bill has not gained momentum.

The de Blasio administration has also tried to change the makeup of the schools by tweaks to the Discovery program, a summer course that offers admission to students who just miss the cutoff score on the SHSAT. Education officials said that 800 seats will be set aside for incoming ninth graders through the program. Discovery has not resulted in notable changes in demographics at the schools, and the program is the subject of a lawsuit that is still winding its way through the courts.

This year’s admissions season has been especially stressful for families and students, and the release of admissions offers on Thursday only continued that trend. The education department said that some students would have to wait another day to learn whether they had been accepted to the specialized schools, due to a technical glitch with Microsoft that made it impossible to open emails containing admissions offers. Students who didn’t apply to the specialized high schools should expect to receive their offers in late May.

IMPORTANT: Due to a Microsoft-related issue, some families were not able to open the email with their child’s SHSAT results.
🔹We will send you a new email by tomorrow, 4/30
🔹If you didn't yet receive an email with your child’s results, your email will arrive by tomorrow, 4/30
— NYC Public Schools (@NYCSchools) April 29, 2021

Also on Thursday, a separate snafu led to some students’ middle school acceptances being posted to the city’s online portal. The information was then quickly removed. The education department said the offers are valid but that they were accidentally posted early — middle school admissions results aren’t expected until early May. Only about .3% of students were able to access their offers before they were removed, according to an education department official.

Addressing mental health: NYC to screen students at all schools, add 500 social workers

2021-04-27T22:19:13+00:00

New York City teachers will screen their students for mental health needs this coming school year. The city also plans to hire about 500 new social workers to help schools address possible trauma and isolation during a year of disrupted learning, officials announced Tuesday.

That means all schools will soon have at least one full-time social worker or a school-based mental health clinic, according to the plan. These new hires will be placed at schools that don’t currently have a full-time social worker, said Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the education department. Additionally, 90 school psychologists and 30 family support staff, who work with school psychologists, will be hired for 270 high-needs schools, officials said.

While the city has not yet chosen a screening tool, a press release from City Hall said school staffers, including teachers, will be looking for “common signs of trauma and distress in students, and helping better plan next steps in providing care.” Parents can opt their children out of the screenings, Styer said.

Once students are screened, they can be referred to a team of support staff at the school who “can gather more information” and decide what services students should receive, be it a meeting with a social worker or guidance counselor or a visit to the school-based mental health clinic, Styer said.

The plan builds on an announcement from December, when city officials said they would offer mental health screenings and extra support to 830 schools in the 27 neighborhoods hardest hit by the coronavirus. But with billions of dollars in new federal pandemic relief, the city can expand the planned screenings to every school, said New York City’s First Lady Chirlane McCray, who has spearheaded many of the de Blasio administration’s mental health efforts, including this one. Elected officials and community groups have questioned the effectiveness of Thrive NYC — one of McCray’s signature mental health efforts — and criticized its perceived lack of transparency.

“Children will receive individual attention to their emotional well-being. They will have an opportunity to talk about how they’re feeling, how they’re getting along with friends and classmates, how things are going at home — really anything big or small they’re experiencing,” said McCray. “Those are conversations they should be able to have in the best of times, but after the year we’ve had, those conversations mean more than ever before.”

The new investments will cost $91 million next fiscal year, all covered by federal relief dollars, said City Hall spokesperson Laura Feyer. Asked how the program will be sustained when stimulus dollars run out, Feyer said the city is “optimistic revenue will bounce back strong over time as our recovery continues.”

Mental health staffers are also expected to be at every site for the city’s new Summer Rising program, which will combine summer enrichment activities, such as camp, with academics, schools Chancellor Meisha Porter said. That program is expected to cost $160 million — about double what traditional summer school has cost in years past.

Tuesday’s announcement earned praise from City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who, along with the rest of the council, had called for $130 million to ensure every school had a full-time social worker and guidance counselor. Johnson’s office did not immediately say whether they would still be pushing for more than the 500 additional promised staffers as City Hall negotiates a final budget, which must be approved by July 1.

Grisel Cardona, a parent leader in the Bronx who joined the mayor, schools chancellor, and McCray at Tuesday’s press conference, praised the new investments.

Cardona told Chalkbeat that she was initially hesitant to ask for help when she felt depressed this school year. Unsure where to turn and worried about her daughter’s grades, she reached out to the guidance counselor at P.S. 294 in the Bronx, where her daughter attends school. The guidance counselor and Cardona began talking every Friday for hour-long discussions about “everything.” The counselor also holds regular chats with Cardona’s daughter. Those discussions have helped the family cope, she said.

She said she’s happy that all schools will be receiving extra support.

“I think that when you hear the word[s], ‘only some schools can get this,’ you know, it’s kind of like, hit-and-miss. ‘Well, my school may not get it.’ To hear ‘all’ will get it means a lot,” Cardona said.

This new initiative comes on the heels of the “trauma-informed” curriculum promised for the current school year, along with training for teachers, paid for through a partnership with private donors. Those same donors helped the education department launch a mental health training program that pays parents to become “wellness ambassadors,” who will eventually help lead sessions for the school community.

NYC summer school 2021: field trips, academics, and open to all students

2021-04-13T16:02:33+00:00

New York City is ditching its traditional summer school model, opening programming to all students, not just those who have fallen behind with coursework, officials announced Tuesday.

The city will also mix camp and school activities, offering on both field trips and academics for students who have gone for more than a year without opportunities to interact with friends and learn in the classroom.

The “Summer Rising” program, run by the education department in conjunction with the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development, will combine summer enrichment activities such arts activities and outdoor games, along with academic programs and social emotional supports. Nearly half of all school buildings are expected to participate as summer school sites.

There will also be a remote option for students who are mandated to attend summer school, or interested families whose children are eligible for year-round special education services.

“We’ll be able to provide students across the city with a holistic summer experience. This will include academic support, social-emotional learning, and exciting enrichment opportunities,” schools Chancellor Meisha Porter said at a press conference. “After a year of heroic work on the part of our families and schools, we are embarking on an unprecedented reimagining of what summer needs to be.”

With a full school year of learning interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, polling shows that many families are eager for summer programming, and the federal stimulus package earmarked a large chunk of money for addressing learning gaps. But the biggest question looming over New York City, once the world’s epicenter of the virus, is whether families will feel safe sending their children to in-person summer school. This academic year, only 38% of students signed up for in-person learning.

For in-person summer programs, the city plans to follow yet-to-be specified safety protocols. Officials did not immediately say whether these will be the same as during the current school year. Schools are now required to test 20% of students and staff weekly for coronavirus, along with masking and social distancing requirements. New York City recently changed its distancing to three feet apart for elementary school children and six feet for middle and high school, based on updated U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.

For elementary school students, the program will run five days a week, for seven weeks. For middle school students, the program will be four days a week, and last six weeks.

High school students who need to make up unfinished work or who failed a class will participate in summer learning for five weeks, with the schedule depending on what individual schools work out. They’ll also be able to play on sports teams and join the Summer Youth Employment Program, which places teens in jobs around the city.

Officials said that teachers aides, or paraprofessionals, will be available at every site to serve students with disabilities. Providing paraprofessionals had been a huge roadblock to serving students with disabilities at the city’s free Learning Bridges child care program during this school year, with some students turned away.

“Any child who needs those supports will get them,” said Chris Caruso, the city’s outgoing head of the community schools program, which provides wraparound services such as mental health supports in city school buildings.

Officials say the goal is to provide a bridge to the coming school year, by providing a space for children to reconnect while also getting some academic and social emotional support.

Virtual summer school programs typically have had lackluster results when it comes to helping students catch up.

The new plan is a sharp break from last year’s fully virtual summer program, where the city scrambled to deploy a centralized platform that suffered from technical glitches that dragged on for weeks. In addition, teachers were often working with students they had never met and struggled to forge relationships. By the end of the program, nearly a quarter of students hadn’t logged on a single time.

Last year, nearly 115,000 students were required or recommended to attend summer school, city data show, though department officials have not answered questions about how many of those students successfully completed summer coursework.

A high school principal said she is more optimistic about this summer’s programming, especially as schools appear to be able to help craft and execute their own programs as opposed to relying on a centralized system.

“I’m really happy to plan it because I know what our students need, and I also know what our teachers and staff are able to provide,” she said. The principal, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak publicly, already launched a summer planning group at her school and is looking for outdoor activities and ways of making the academic component more lively.

“The bigger priority is getting students used to being around each other again so we can hit the ground running a little bit faster” this fall, she said. “Kids are just desperate to get out of their houses.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio said he hopes the city’s model for this year becomes the new standard for summer school, and credited a major boost in state funding for making it a possibility. After a years-long fight for more school funding, lawmakers in the most recent budget committed to fully funding Foundation Aid, a formula that sends extra money to high-needs districts such as New York City.

“This will be a part of summers in New York City for years and years to come,” he said at a press conference. “We have the resources now.”

More details on the program:

Rising kindergarteners through seniors can sign up for the free program beginning April 26 through the “discover DYCD” website.
Elementary students can participate five days a week for seven weeks (July 6 - Aug. 20)
Middle school students can participate four days a week for six weeks (July 6 - Aug. 13)
High school students with incomplete work or who failed a class can participate in academic instruction for six weeks, in person or online (July 6 - Aug. 13)
High school students will also be able to participate in accelerated learning, arts programs and social emotional support as well as participate in the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program, which has 70,000 slots for paid job opportunities.
Students with disabilities entitled to 12-months of schooling will have five days a week of instruction related to their Individualized Education Programs as well as enrichment activities run by community organizations. They can participate in person or have an online option.

They were targets of racist remarks. Now, these NYC students want to talk about Asian American history — and hate.

2021-03-23T22:44:17+00:00

For New York City high school students Amanda Chen and Joyce Jiang, the recent mass shooting in Atlanta that left eight people dead, including six women of Asian descent, was more heartbreaking than surprising.

The teens have been painfully aware of the surge of anti-Asian hate crimes over the past year. Across the five boroughs, this past weekend alone saw at least four possible anti-Asian hate crimes, even as hundreds took to the streets protesting to end such assaults. Amanda and Joyce, who are friends and juniors at Manhattan’s School of the Future High School, were the targets of racist remarks amid news of a novel coronavirus that had originated in China.

As they continued to hear about violent acts targeting New York’s diverse Asian community, the teens — who have shared their own experiences with racism on a student-run podcast that later won an NPR contest — have begun to fear for their safety in new ways.

“Whenever I would walk on the street, I was seriously afraid I was going to be harmed, and my life was going to be taken away, even though those people on the street were casually walking and going about their day,” Amanda said of her anxiety levels last spring. “That’s how panicked and insecure I was.”

The incidents over the past year have galvanized both teens, inspiring them to confront the issue of anti-Asian hate and violence and to push for more Asian representation in their school’s curriculum. They want their classes to discuss anti-racism and include more about Asian American history in hopes of bringing others into the conversation.

In a note to families last week, New York City’s new schools Chancellor Meisha Porter described the shooting and other reported anti-Asian hate crimes as “horrific.” She pointed to a list of resources that the education department shared with teachers to fight school-based hate crimes and to support students emotionally. On Tuesday, during a City Council budget hearing, Porter said students must be able to see themselves in their lessons, when asked how schools will support students returning to campuses after more than a year of disruption to in-person schooling.

“What this recent wave of hate crimes against our Asian American brothers and sisters has shown us in a real way [is that] our diversity and inclusion plan has to be about what happens in classrooms, how we train our teachers, how the adults show up for our students, and so they are all very deeply connected tissue,” Porter said. “And the learning loss is connected also to students being able to really see themselves in the curriculum they experience.”

Lingering fears

In the year since their stories were featured on the student podcast, both teens have been more isolated since they — along with the overwhelming majority of Asian students citywide — opted to learn fully remotely. But fears linger.

After the Atlanta shooting, Amanda and Joyce said they were disappointed that their teachers had not brought the topic up in their classes the next day. Joyce said she wished they had created a space to discuss what’s been going on just as they did in June, as Black Lives Matters protests swelled in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis. (Their principal, Stacy Goldstein, said teachers were likely still planning out lessons.)

“I feel like all of these inequalities, racial inequalities, should be talked about in class,” Joyce continued.

Last year, 28 hate crimes were reported against Asian New Yorkers, compared to three in the prior year — though advocates and police officials suggest many more incidents go unreported, according to the New York Times. And the Asian American community — a diverse group that includes nearly 20 different ethnicities — is reeling in other ways. Unemployment claims among Asian-Americans surged past other racial groups last year, and one report found that unemployment among Asians grew past 25% in New York City during lockdown.

Amanda said she was raised “to mind my business,” but she’s choosing to speak out.

“There are people like that in my life who choose to endure the harm they receive because they don’t want to cause any trouble to other people, or they are afraid they won’t be heard,” she said.

Amanda Chen, a junior at School of the Future

In one incident, Amanda said she and Joyce were standing outside with a group of other Chinese American students when a group of upperclassmen laughed in their direction and said “that group of Asians” is spreading the virus. Amanda recalled a fellow Chinese American student pointed at their group of friends and said, that they “have coronavirus because I live in Chinatown.” One day during lunch, Amanda was eating spicy noodles when the spiciness caused her to cough. A boy nearby said she must have the coronavirus.

“I had to scream back at him that I don’t have coronavirus just because I was coughing, but he just took it as a joke, like, ‘Yeah it was just a joke. You’re overreacting,’” Amanda said.

On a separate occasion, Joyce said one of her classmates asked her if she knew how to make “bat soup” — a reference to reports that the virus likely first emerged from a bat.

Both students shared their experiences during writing club, alarming their club’s supervisor, who was their former English teacher. That educator alerted school administrators, who contacted the parents of at least one of the students and asked the teen to apologize, according to Goldstein.

Goldstein now says there should have been a bigger discussion among students at the time about what Joyce and Amanda experienced.

‘Spaces for solidarity’

Last week, the morning after the Atlanta shooting, Goldstein penned a note of support and solidarity to families. In a separate email to staff, she encouraged teachers to heed her advice from a few weeks ago: Consider planning discussions about anti-Asian racism into lessons. She noted that 21% of their middle schoolers and 13% of their high schoolers identify as Asian-American — compared to about 16% of students citywide — and that she wants “to be explicit about our support for their communities’ safety and dignity.”

“It’s also an important opportunity to explore the intersectional reality of civil rights efforts and spaces for solidarity,” Goldstein wrote.

Goldstein expected teachers to begin talking about anti-Asian discrimination and racism in weekly student “circles,” which are similar to advisory periods and are spaces for students to share their feelings.

But students often skip their circles, Amanda and Joyce said. They became disappointed over the past week not to hear their teachers weave anti-Asian racism into lessons. That changed on Tuesday, when their math teacher had students watch a New York Times video about the recent rise in hate crimes against Asian people and had students use Jamboard, a virtual whiteboard, to anonymously share their takeaways. He shared data about the number of anti-Asian hate crimes in different cities in recent years, highlighting the percentage rise in New York City. Students were asked if they were aware of or had experienced anti-Asian crimes online, at school, or in their communities. Most said yes.

“Not everyone is active in this, but I appreciate my math teacher and those who participated for doing so,” Amanda wrote in a text message.

Helping students feel ‘heard’

Amanda wants to see teachers embed the topic of historical and structural racism into lessons, similar to what her math teacher did. That would make students feel “heard” and “cared about,” she said.

She also wants to see more of herself and her culture in the curriculum. Specifically, she’d like more lessons about Asian immigration to the United States.

“It’s part of America’s diversity and culture,” Amanda said.

Joyce added: “I think that right now in English and history we are doing a lot of how the past relates to the present. I feel like that should also be implemented into our curriculum — how different races impact and make America into what it is, and how they continue to do that, so it’s not just like white Americans, you know?”

Joyce also believes there is not enough emphasis on Native American and Hispanic history in her classes. Goldstein disagreed, noting that there are multiple big units about Native Americans, including their fight for independence, Latin American movements, and the “havoc” that American imperialism caused in Latin American countries.

Anti-Asian racism comes up in sixth and ninth grade global history courses and an eighth grade immigration unit, but “it’s not a pervasive enough part of the curriculum,” Goldstein said. She wants her school’s equity committee to consider these gaps as they rethink their school’s curriculum this summer, as their administration also grapples with becoming more integrated through changes in its admissions process.

“We talk about discrimination in general and microagressions and equality in a lot of different places, but I don’t think we specifically talked about the Asian American experience,” Goldstein said. “I think we talked a lot about Black Lives Matter — not like it’s a competition, I don’t want it to be framed that way. It’s all important, and it’s not like either that or this, but when I sent the email to the staff and the families, I definitely was like, we don’t explicitly speak about the Asian American experience enough and we should.”

Learning from home full time, Joyce and Amanda said they have not experienced any bullying or racist comments since schools closed last spring. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be talking about it.

“I feel like if we brought those topics up, maybe we can learn to understand each other, develop more of a compassion and love towards each other to ultimately have some sort of peace,” Joyce said.