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dispatches
September 9, 2009
Live-blogging Chancellor Klein’s 5-borough back-to-school tour
It’s not just children who are heading back to school today. Every year, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein takes reporters on a five-borough tour of the first day of school. Anna reported to the press van outside Tweed Courthouse at 6:45 a.m. and will be filing dispatches all day.
Quote of the day: Asked (again) about his position on swine flu by a television reporter, Klein said, “I’m against it.”
A class at Staten Island Tech
2 p.m.: Classes are buzzing at Staten Island Tech, a specialized high school with about 1,000 students. Principal Vincent Maniscalco said the school had weathered the budget cuts easily because enrollment is up since last year. In fact, he said, the school was able to hire seven teachers to replace teachers who retired last year. The school also hired a grant writer last year when it became clear cuts were coming down the pike, Maniscalco said.
Department of Education officials corralled a group of student government members to talk to Klein. David Pfuhler, 17, president of the senior class, said Staten Island Tech has improved in recent years. Comparing it to the city’s other specialized schools, he said, “It’s in the same league, but the style of teaching is different. It’s a friendlier school to learn in.” Another student said the school had seen a recent influx of Brooklynites.
1:35 p.m. Off to Staten Island Tech now. Anna’s the only reporter remaining, so should any major news drop in Richmond County this afternoon, check here for an exclusive.
1:30 p.m.: Nearly every classroom at IS 220 in Sunset Park has an electronic SmartBoard, Anna reports. Principal Loretta Witek said she bought them with the money the state gives to schools it says are in need of improvement. JHS 220 got off that list this year, so there won’t be more money. “I used the money wisely when I had it,” Witek said.
Witek said the budget cuts haven’t hit her school too hard — yet. Witek excessed one teacher over the summer, and she said she’s worried about sustaining after school programs. “I have to see how my budget falls out,” she said.
12:45 p.m. After losing most of its members in Manhattan, the press corps is off to Brooklyn now, where the three remaining reporters will visit IS 220. The latest news is that kids will be bringing home letters about swine flu in their backpacks tonight.
Ms. Hanly reads to fourth-graders at PS 142
11:45 a.m.: Back in Manhattan at PS 142, Ms. Hanly is reading to her class of fourth-graders. The assignment on the easel beside her asked students to jot down on a Post-it note their favorite part of summer.
10:15 a.m.: Asked about the city’s Race to the Top chances, Klein said, “If we get it, we’ll dance in the streets.”
10 a.m.: Meet some of MS 144’s students. Nigel Canterbury, 11, who wants to be a marine or a technician, said, “It feels good to be back and I love school.” He watched Obama’s speech and liked it, but said, “I was studying to be president, but it was too hard.” Another student aspires to be a judge. A third is working toward graphic design. This is Principal Katina Lotakis’s 41st year at the school. (Incidentally, MS 144 was the first school I visited when I started working at Insideschools in 2005.)
Sixth-graders working this morning at MS 144.
9:35 a.m.: And now they’re found. On to MS 144, where first period is in session and students are already hard at work.
9:25 a.m.: The press van, which was supposed to be at MS 144 at 9 a.m., is currently lost in the Bronx, Anna reports.
9:10 a.m.: Now the press crowd is back in the van, heading to MS 144 in the Bronx. But before finishing at PS 111, Mayor Bloomberg singled out Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan, who was there. “I just want to take two seconds to talk about Cathy Nolan because as you know it was controversial to get mayoral control renewed in Albany, and if there’s anyone who really was a key person in delivering that, it was Cathy,” Bloomberg said.
Then the richest man in New York City revealed what his friends are saying about the schools. “Fewer people leave the city when their kids get to be school age,” Bloomberg said. “Now, my friends, when I talk to them, even my younger friends, and you say, where are your kids going to school? It is not unusual to hear that they’re going to public schools. They are proud that they’re going to public schools.”
A photo shoot at PS 111
8:35 a.m.: The huge, un-air-conditioned auditorium at PS 111, which is filled with a smattering of students, is sweltering, Anna reports. She talked to PS 111’s principal, Randy Seabrook, who said she had to excess three teachers, but not because of budget cuts. The neighborhood is losing population, so PS 111’s enrollment is shrinking, downsizing its budget, Seabrook said. She noted that two of the teachers whose positions she eliminated have found jobs at other schools.
8:25 a.m.: Now reporters are lobbing questions at the mayor. Asked about possible changes to the teachers contract, he said, “The chancellor is not going to negotiate a contract with the UFT right here in front of you.” (More here.) And about the topic on many parents’ minds, swine flu, he said, “Nobody knows if we’ll have another wave or not.”
8:15 a.m.: “All of us up here wish we were back in elementary school,” Mayor Bloomberg says. Later, he says, “I don’t know that I learned a lot, but I enjoyed school. At the same time, Anna reports, “a pile” of new students have shown up at PS 111 to register. Finding room shouldn’t be a problem: According to Insideschools, the school has been operating at just 50 percent capacity.
8 a.m.: The school and union officials pause for a photo op with PS 111’s leaders. Then it’s time for a question and answer session with reporters.
7:45 a.m.: The first stop is at PS 111 in Long Island City, Queens, where the chancellor is being joined by Mayor Bloomberg, UFT President Michael Mulgrew, and principals union president Ernest Logan. Students walking into PS 111 appear “stunned and clearly irritated” by the gaggle of 20-odd reporters and photographers outside the door, Anna reports.
The press crush at PS 111 this morning
7 a.m.: Spotted outside Tweed: A school bus driver asking passersby how to get to the first stop on his route.
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September 9th, 2009 2:54 pm
Re “…Bloomberg said. “Now, my friends, when I talk to them, even my younger friends, and you say, where are your kids going to school? It is not unusual to hear that they’re going to public schools. They are proud that they’re going to public schools.””
And proud they should be. But once again, Mayor Mike takes full, total, and exclusive credit for the resurgent interest in the public schools.
The state of the economy, its impact on parent employment, and the cost of private school (not to mention they’re full too), all had nothing to do with it. Nada. Zip. Perish the thought.
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September 9th, 2009 4:25 pm
What’s interesting about this blog is the small comment about how most of the press corps dropped out after Manhattan. This is plainly evident in any coverage of education issues in the NY Times, etc. The way these education reporters write, you’d then the NYC public schools are limited to the Upper East Side and Upper West Side and (sometimes) even Brooklyn Heights/Park Slope. Why? These reporters live there any they are too lazy the be bothered with educational issues outside of these narrow confines.
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September 9th, 2009 4:31 pm
Queens Parent: They started in Queens, went to the Bronx, then Manhattan. And there were other reporters besides the NY Times.
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September 10th, 2009 8:02 am
I’m making a bigger point here. There have been stories about “wait lists” in Manhattan in the Times and (gasp!) overcrowding in District 2. Queens has had wait lists and overcrowding for decades, so why is it suddenly a story when people on the Upper East Side have to deal with it?
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September 10th, 2009 10:41 am
I would agree that the press coverage is skewed.
For example: when District 2, which includes the UES, started complaining that virtually ALL of the schools in that neighborhood were overcrowded to the point of turning away incoming kindergarteners — at one point last spring the number was projected to be on the order of 500 or so — what did the NYPost do? They did the only fair thing they could.
Rather than fact-check the spin coming out of Tweed (G&T admissions would cure all — they did not), the ComPost so much as accused UES parents of endangering the safety of their own kids by hiring in-class aides (to mitigate the overcrowding perpetrated by Boomberg policies) not all of whom had been fingerprinted by press time.
I wish the press of its own volition had been covering problems in Quenns. But it wasn’t a gimme in Manhattan related to the domiciles of reporters. To whit: After months of organizing, District 2 held a rally at City Hall to protest rampant overcrowding CITY-WIDE. Press coverage? Gotham Schools. Crickets otherwise.
Point being: Don’t look for the press to champion the parents. In ANY boro. Not on Mayor Mike’s watch. What was their collective position on Mayoral Control? (think think)
We must hang together, for surely we are being well hung separately.
The short answer to your question is this: We worked our tails off for months to force the press to cover something they would have rather ignored. Organize. Politicize.
Education is not the top topic heading into the elections because the press is biased for Manhattan or against Queens. It’s because we reminded a number of politicians that every kid has one, and often two, VOTING PARENTS.
I’m open to other interpretations. That’s mine.
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September 10th, 2009 12:49 pm
No. I think the mainstream education reporters only live in Districts 2, 3, or 15, and so to them, the only educational issues worth covering are in those areas of the City. And come on, it is not the case that “virtually every” school in District 2 is overcrowded. That’s just not the case. Having 10 kids or so on a waiting list in not overcrowding. You need to spend some time in the Queens schools where we can show you all what a waiting list looks like.
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September 10th, 2009 2:05 pm
QP,
I would have had no interest in getting into a “whose ox is worse gored” contest, esp after I suggested that looking ahead, based on recent experience, the path to local change is through broader unity. But the facts deserve some ink.
Please note the multi-boro coverage in this morning’s papers, despite your penned-later “Chalk It Up” quote.
But what I wrote above was re virtually every school NOT in D2, but on the UES — the focus of your prior quote. Press (and our) biases aside, what are the stats?
Per Comptroller’s May 2008 report, “Growing Pains,” as of 2006 UES schools were as a group operating at 129% of capacity. Comparable for Queens: Flushing 103%, College Point/Whitestone 105%.But within D2, the accelerating overcrowding pertains to GV and Lower Manhattan as well, to different degrees, though two new elementary schools are opening in Lower Manhattan. e.g. My home school ALONE (PS41, GV) had a wait list of 90 ZONED kids at one point last spring looking ahead to this fall — not “10″ — and that was after one of our cluster rooms got nuked (but before the Pre-K got outsourced, which cleared another 25 of the 90).
Per DOE data, as of Fall 2008 actual enrollment — and “Blue Book” capacities, tallying it up school-by-school, D2 was short 615 seats by “historic” class capacities… or 2,000 by “target” capacities. “Net” there may be capacity, but then again, we have a collection of zoned schools; D2 is not one big catchment zone. (And neither is Queens. Worth note: D1 Lower East Side, is all choice, no zones.) And that was BEFORE the above-mentioned forecast of a 500 seat shortage for Kindergarten, most of which thankfully got handled. And that’s before we forecast occupancy of all the “Boomberg” towers under construction or permit.
Per the late Sen Moynihan, we’re each entitled to our own opinions — not our own facts. I’d be interested in similar stats for Queens. Perhaps Queens could emulate Manhattan BP Stringer’s Overcrowding Task Force (of which I’m a member, but hardly a key player) with a more neighborhood-specific perspective that includes pending construction (see “Still Crowded Out,” Sept 2008).
Divided we fall. NEXT fall, if not at this fall’s ballot box. Cheers.
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September 11th, 2009 2:35 pm
How come you left Glendale/Kew Gardens/Long Island City/Astoria out of your contrast/compare analysis? Do you have schools in D2 like here in D24 that enroll almost 2,000 kids with trailers? They are worse off than D2 but obviously we don’t have the loudmouthed parents & politicians that D2 has. Moreover, like I said, while your overcrowding may be a recent phenomenon, we have had it for decades. So why does yours suddenly get treated as a “crisis”? Finally, yes, I agree, one day out of the school year (opening day) the press has multi-boro coverage. But I encourage you to analyze the education stories for the remainder of this school year. You will see the pattern emerge. Once again, seemingly the NYC public schools will only appear to have issues related to D2/D3 and D15. The pattern is quite clear.
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September 11th, 2009 4:25 pm
QP,
I am getting my info above from published reports, whether DOE directly, BP Stringer, or Comptroller Thompson.Now you want me to get into “whose ox is getting less coverage?” That’s splitting a fine if sensitive hair on a topic — albeit affecting us to different degrees and with different degrees of INADEQUATE prior coverage — where the editorial boards are totally in Boomberg’s pocket.
Email me at witzeroo (at) yahoo (dot) com and I’ll be happy to send you the reports. They’re eye-popping. (I didn’t cherry-pick re Queens. That’s as the Thompson report had it.)
Again, it’s not about boro v boro, but boros v Kleinberg.
Calling fellow parents “loudmouthed” accomplishes nothing.
But I take it as a compliment to my fellow parents’ organizational and rally-hosting skills.
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Mapping the Budget Cuts
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