For the record:
Martine Guerrier, Chief Family Advocate stated in a meeting that she organized for Manhattan CEC's this week that large class size and overcrowded schools are the result of principals choosing to enroll a large number of students.
When I explained that the Office of Student Enrollment often assigns students that schools did not enroll and will not let schools cap classes or enrollment, she replied that the other source was the electeds who pander to parents and push principals to enroll some students for them.
This at a meeting for new CEC member who came to Tweed to take a new oath of office to accommodate the new governance law.
Not training or support or even copies of the new law- just this unbelievable attempt at spin.
Is this "accountability?"
Or is it more like finger pointing and blame placing?
Lisa Donlan
CEC One
.
To: nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com
From: Mathman180@...
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:20:33 -0400
Subject: Re: [nyceducationnews] Across the city class sizes soar and many more schools feel the 'sardine' squeeze with jammed rooms
Just this once, I'd like to see someone from the DOE actually show up at a school like IS 227, meet with a press representative and perhaps a parent advocate like Leonie, and then (in the princiapal's presence) explain how the DOE's actions over the last couple years have helped his/her school. David Cantor, where are you?
Steve Koss
-----Original Message-----
From: Leonie Haimson <leonie@...>
To: nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com; Classsizematters@Yahoogroups. Com <classsizematters@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: icope@yahoogroups.com; District 3 Parent List <district3parents@yahoogroups.com>; D2 parents <D2parents@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Fri, Sep 25, 2009 5:37 pm
Subject: [nyceducationnews] Across the city class sizes soar and many more schools feel the 'sardine' squeeze with jammed rooms
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Martine Guerrier, Chief Family Advocate stated in a meeting that she organized for Manhattan CEC's this week that large class size and overcrowded schools are the result of principals choosing to enroll a large number of students.
When I explained that the Office of Student Enrollment often assigns students that schools did not enroll and will not let schools cap classes or enrollment, she replied that the other source was the electeds who pander to parents and push principals to enroll some students for them.
This at a meeting for new CEC member who came to Tweed to take a new oath of office to accommodate the new governance law.
Not training or support or even copies of the new law- just this unbelievable attempt at spin.
Is this "accountability?"
Or is it more like finger pointing and blame placing?
Lisa Donlan
CEC One
.
To: nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com
From: Mathman180@...
Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:20:33 -0400
Subject: Re: [nyceducationnews] Across the city class sizes soar and many more schools feel the 'sardine' squeeze with jammed rooms
Remarkable that whatever anyone says in criticism and how specific the details, the robotic DOE response is to state the opposite, that everything is just fine. IS 227 doesn't have any problems -- how could they when they have fewer students than last year? Too bad Ms. Kolodner didn't validate that fact and then see how many more or fewer teachers and classrooms they had than last year.
It's such deja vu for those of us old enough to remember General Westmoreland telling us everything was going just swimmingly in Vietnam, that we were making good progress. Younger folks will certainly remember hearing similar things about Iraq and "a few dead-enders" from the beloved Donald Rumsfeld.
It's such deja vu for those of us old enough to remember General Westmoreland telling us everything was going just swimmingly in Vietnam, that we were making good progress. Younger folks will certainly remember hearing similar things about Iraq and "a few dead-enders" from the beloved Donald Rumsfeld.
Just this once, I'd like to see someone from the DOE actually show up at a school like IS 227, meet with a press representative and perhaps a parent advocate like Leonie, and then (in the princiapal's presence) explain how the DOE's actions over the last couple years have helped his/her school. David Cantor, where are you?
Steve Koss
From: Leonie Haimson <leonie@...>
To: nyceducationnews@yahoogroups.com; Classsizematters@Yahoogroups. Com <classsizematters@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: icope@yahoogroups.com; District 3 Parent List <district3parents@yahoogroups.com>; D2 parents <D2parents@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Fri, Sep 25, 2009 5:37 pm
Subject: [nyceducationnews] Across the city class sizes soar and many more schools feel the 'sardine' squeeze with jammed rooms
Please keep sending me your class size stories!
Across the city class sizes soar and many more schools feel the 'sardine' squeeze with jammed rooms
Thursday, September 24th 2009, 10:19 PM
Rosier/News
Outside I.S. 277 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, kids hang out in the park in front of the school and talk about their class sizes.
Many public schools that were never crowded in the past are bursting at the seams this year, despite city promises that class sizes will go down.
Intermediate School 227 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, had no classes with more than 30 students in it last year. Now it has 15, including one for English language learners.
Teachers scramble to move desks between classes to accommodate all the children. In some classes, students must share books.
"There's a lot of graffiti in the books; pages are stuck together with gum," said Joshua Fernandez, 13, who is in the eighth grade at IS 227 and is in a class with 32 students - who also share desks.
An Education Department official said the school has fewer students this year than last.
At IS 230 in Jackson Heights, Queens, budget cuts forced the principal to eliminate an entire eighth-grade class, pushing the size of seven classes to more than 30 students.
"The principal tried to avoid hurting the kids as much as she could," said Peter Bloch, the school's dean. "They're not getting as much individualized attention now."
The school also lost the teachers who used to pull struggling students out of class for extra help.
The building is supposed to hold 750 students but now has about 965.
Schools this year took an average 5% budget cut.
The Education Department opened a new school on the upper East Side of Manhattan this year to ease crowding, but Public School 183 still has three kindergarten classes that exceed the 25-student limit - a problem that didn't exist last year.
"The number of students being served in crowded classrooms has dropped dramatically," said Education Department spokesman William Havemann. "This trend will continue as school enrollments stabilize after the first few weeks of school."
The city is building new schools in the most crowded districts, he said.
Although PS 8 has only two classes that are over capacity this year, there are small groups of special-education students meeting in converted closets.
Second-grade reading teacher Roseanne McCosh put it this way: "We're like sardines."
Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-674-7320
classsizematters@gmail.com
www.classsizematters.org
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
212-674-7320
classsizematters@gmail.com
www.classsizematter
http://nycpublicsch
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