GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Planting a garden at your school can be as simple or elaborate as your ambitions, financial resources, stamina, and the support of your principal, custodial engineer, and science teacher.

The garden at PS 107

Recently we spoke with Michele Israel, a parent at PS 107 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, to find out how she started a garden at her school. We won’t lie to you: The process takes planning, diplomatic skills, research, creativity, resourcefulness and — did we mention this already? — stamina. But if you’re willing to dive in and spearhead a garden at your school, you could be rewarded with the sight of your child joyfully eating the lettuce, peas, and purple basil she herself planted in the school’s courtyard while learning firsthand about growing fresh food and healthy eating.

Because there are so many facets to getting a school garden started, we’ve decided to break down the process into three phases: development/planning, materials/financing, and planting/harvesting. Today we’ll look at the development/planning stage.  Over the next two weeks we’ll cover the other phases.

There can be no garden at your school unless you win people’s support, particularly that of your principal, custodial engineer, PTA board, and teachers. (more…)

• Principals are planning to cut after school offerings, aides, and supplies purchases. (Wall Street Journal)
• Dozens of education department employees got $340,000 in raises in recent weeks. (Daily News)
• A rise in applications has left more pre-K applicants without a spot for next year. (Post)
• A thief hacked into the DOE’s coffers and stole more than $600,000. (Daily News, Wall Street Journal)
• The Times says the only way to improve the salary freeze solution would have been to tell the union first.
• Online charter schools enroll 200,000 students with very little oversight. (Times)
• David Brooks says Race to the Top is good governance because it motivated without dictating. (Times)
• Much of D.C.’s new teachers contract was in the last one but was never implemented. (Washington Post)
• Small schools in Milwaukee are closing down after not delivering promised results. (Journal Sentinel)

• A teacher says seniority-based layoffs mean talent goes elsewhere and doesn’t always come back.
• Teachers’ Night at the Apollo began with booing and ended with a music teacher winning first prize.
• A day of protest focused on ending cuts to city schools is being planned for tomorrow.
• Students’ chances of finding a summer job have improved with the passage of a jobs bill.
• Two Queens teachers saved a colleague and a student from choking in separate incidents.
• Miss Eyre: no raises make sense if there’s no money, but saying teachers shouldn’t want more is wrong.
• Mike Petrilli says Bloomberg’s call for no layoffs shows you don’t need more federal money to save jobs.
• Many states that require students to take gym have loopholes that water down their mandates.
• States that avoided severe cuts to education and healthcare may have to make cuts there next year.
• Chad Aldeman looks at two competing merit pay studies experiments and early evaluations of them.
• The head of the Center on Education Policy thinks Pennsylvania has a “decent chance” of winning RttT.
• While Maryland and D.C. are likely to adopt common standards, Virginia remains unconvinced.
• And a study finds that competition from tax-credit vouchers is improving Florida’s public schools.

In its third attempt to find a home for a Chelsea middle school, the city is proposing to rent a former Catholic school.

Starting next year, the city will rent Saint Michael’s Academy to house the Clinton School for Artists and Writers, Department of Education officials announced today. The city is moving the Clinton School from its current home at P.S. 11, which is rapidly expanding. The Clinton School is due to move into a newly constructed building when it is finished in 2014.

But the city has proposed and abandoned two previous plans to move Clinton into temporary space since January. The most recent proposal, which would have moved the school into an East Side building currently shared by the American Sign Language and English Lower and Secondary Schools, sparked fierce protests from parents at all the affected schools. Critics of the plan, including the United Federation of Teachers, also voiced concern that adding 300 middle school students to the building would create fire hazards. On the eve of the citywide school board’s vote on the plan, the city backtracked, saying it would explore other options. (more…)

As a teacher, I check in with the blogosphere and major news networks only after 5 p.m., so during the day I get my updates through the rumorsphere. On Wednesday, I heard about Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed raise-cuts from Ms. AlmostRetired. She seemed downcast, and she came to me because I am one of the few young teachers at the school. Her bad news (not receiving the raise) could possibly be good news to me (the revenue saved might save my job). “You might like this, Mr. Arp,” she said. “The raise I thought I was going to get next year might be your paycheck.” She said it with warmth, and I appreciated her thoughtfulness.

Because, you see, I have been Mr. MaybeFired all year. Our teacher’s lounge has been ablaze with budget talks. At our monthly faculty meetings, our principal warns us again and again that our school will be facing serious setbacks and that not all teachers will be coming back next year. All eyes on me, of course.

To the uninitiated, it works like this: In accordance with current union policy, widespread layoffs would be implemented by seniority. The first hired, as they say (again and again), will be the first fired. This leads to some interesting conversations. I remember Ms. AlmostRetired holding her head in her hands at lunch time, crying “Why won’t they buy me out? I’m ready to go! Buy me out!” (more…)

Question: If you’re Chancellor Joel Klein, how do you celebrate not having to lay off your newest 4,400 public school teachers?

Answer: By partying with a few dozen of those rookie teachers, of course.

Chancellor Klein spoke to public school teachers, most of them recent hires, hours after Mayor Bloomberg announced there would be no teacher layoffs.

By “partying” I mean sipping what looked to be Coke while addressing a small crowd of young teachers at a Hell’s Kitchen bar. The teachers were a sympathetic crowd: Brought together by Educators 4 Excellence — a group created by teachers who hope to influence the public debate over seniority and teacher evaluations — the teachers gathered Wednesday evening to hear Klein speak. (more…)

Yesterday’s Teachers’ Night at the Apollo Theater got off to a nerve-wracking start when four of the first five acts were booed off the stage. But the majority of the 17 groups of public school teacher performers got positive marks from a rowdy crowd that included some of their students.

Here’s the Apollo’s video of the winner, Darryl Jordan, a vocal music teacher at Harlem’s Urban Assembly School for the Performing Arts. Videos of the two teacher runners up are posted on the theater’s YouTube channel. The clips of some of the teachers who were booed off are cute, too.

• Mayor Bloomberg spiked raises to avert teacher layoffs. (GothamSchools, Times, Daily News, WNYC)
• Teachers spared layoffs were delighted by Bloomberg’s decision. (Daily News)
• The move hints at the city’s contract negotiating tack. (GothamSchools, Daily News, Wall Street Journal)
• Schools are also getting their budgets cut by an average of about 4 percent. (GothamSchools, NY1)
• Parents at PS 251 in Queens wants the school to expand to grades 4 and 5. (Daily News)
• Students at the Queens school whose water was tainted are now drinking bottled water. (NY1)
• Chancellor Klein and other big-city school chiefs are urging states to adopt national standards. (Times)
• Chicago teachers wonder how the strapped system can pay for extended days. (Chicago Sun-Times)
• Los Angeles schools are saving some money by cutting classes for disabled students. (L.A. Times)
• High schools can now legally stage productions of “Phantom of the Opera.” (Wall Street Journal)