In the Bronx, an embattled school tries to do more with less

The Big Fix

October 15, 2010

In the Bronx, an embattled school tries to do more with less

by Anna Phillips, at 7:45 pm

This school year, GothamSchools and WNYC reporters will follow three New York City high schools as they try to improve. The following is an introduction to one of those schools: Christopher Columbus High School.

Christopher Columbus High School sits on a quiet street in the Bronx that’s actually a no man’s land in the middle of a policy war.

The city’s Department of Education has been threatening to close Columbus since 2003. Mayor Bloomberg has called it, and other schools like it, “failures” and warned parents against enrolling their children there, saying the students would “probably never recover from it.” About 300 ninth-graders enrolled in the school regardless, but the school’s future is still precarious. Caught in a fight between the city and the teachers union, it is being starved while other struggling schools are getting help.

Among the changes at Columbus this year are a freshman class that has shrunk by more than a hundred students, a budget that is down by more than $1 million, and widespread uncertainty over whether the city will succeed in closing the school on its second try.

But unlike some of the other 18 schools saved from closure by a union lawsuit, Columbus is still fighting. Its principal of eight years, Lisa Fuentes, applied to convert Columbus into a charter school focused on serving high-needs students. Its teachers and students are already planning rallies in the school’s defense.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein still plans to begin phasing out Columbus next year and replacing it with a new school. On the first day of school this year, he told reporters, “These are schools we intend to phase out. The solution … is to replace [them] with better schools. We’ve done this so many times in this city and we’ve succeeded and that will continue to be our strategy.”

In the meantime, Columbus is in limbo. Unlike the schools selected to receive federal transformation funds, it did not get extra money this year — instead, its budget shrank by over $1 million. The city cut another $50,000 from Columbus’s Renaissance program, which gives special attention to students with children of their own and those who need to hold down full-time jobs during the day. And though the city and teachers union brokered a deal that was supposed to give schools like Columbus additional support, this help has not arrived.

That’s left Fuentes unable to afford to hire enough teachers to cover all the necessary classes. Because of budget cuts, a smaller enrollment, and the fact that most of Columbus’s teachers have been in the system more than five years and have higher salaries, her budget for this year couldn’t stretch to cover everyone’s pay. She had let go of over 30 teachers and even now, months into the school year, there are classes being taught by a rotating group of excessed teachers rather than full-time instructors.

Columbus shares its building with four other schools and its enrollment of 1,19o students is now roughly a quarter of the size it was ten years ago. About 44 percent of its students are Latino, and 35 percent are black. After Spanish, Albanian is the second most common language, and 25 percent of the school’s students are not fluent in English. A quarter of Columbus’s students require special education services.

About 5 percent of Columbus’s students are homeless and 20 percent live with people who are not their parents or legal guardians.

Fuentes and her staff are trying to make the best of the situation. A group of teachers is meeting weekly to work on a new curriculum and the school is planning field trips to colleges a way of encouraging students to think past graduation. At the end of last school year, Columbus graduated about 47 percent of its seniors. This year they have less to work with, but they’re aiming higher.

Dee Alpert

The NYCDOE heavily incentivizes principals to set up CTT (team taught) classes for kids with IEPs and kids who have no disability classifications by giving them almost 3x the amount of money for each disabled kid in a CTT class as for each non-disabled student. The principal of Columbus could have taken the bait and set up a lot of CTT classes for the disabled kids, thereby pulling a large amount of additional funds into the building.

Some principals have learned how to game the NYCDOE’s system; some have not. It looks like Columbus isn’t part of the CTT movement. Too bad for the kids … and its budget.
Karen Sherwood

This is a response to Dee Alpert. I have been teaching in Columbus H.S. for over 17 years (over 32 years in the system), and I can tell you that there is a constant struggle to balance the needs of the students with the needs and requirements of government programs and of the DOE. These needs should not be in conflict, but unfortunately, they are. While your advice might look reasonable on paper, consider the reality. Because of our large immigrant population, many of our students are either ELL, or have received limited or interrupted education in their English-speaking,
native countries. Many of these new arrivals (both ELL and English speaking) have limited reading, writing, or math skills, or severe learning disabilities which were undiagnosed in their native countries. (Many of my students tell me that in their old schools, they were punished, even beaten, for not learning the information or for giving the wrong answers.) On paper, these students might look like Gen. Ed. students who could be paired with Special Ed. students for more government funds, but the reality is that many of the immigrant students are as needy or disabled as the Special Ed. students; they just lack the paperwork which would cerify them as such and give them access to extra services. Furthermore, many of our students who come from other countries or other school systems, enter as sophomores, juniors, or even seniors (according to their ages or their supposed number of years of schooling), and are immediately placed into a cohort which is expected to pass their Regents and graduate in a specific year. How do we best help sixteen-year-olds who are reading or writing at what seems to be a third-grade level, but who are nonetheless expected to graduate by age 18? Where do we put a high-performing senior from Boston who has excellent reading and writing skills but who has never taken the English Regents? Should she be put into a Regents prep class full of both Special Ed. students and third-grade level readers who need intensive remedial work but who are not entitled to any special services? To this mix, please add several students who could do high level work, but who are frequently absent due to illness, pregnancy, family problems, or work schedules. How much time should be spent reviewing, re-teaching, or giving remedial work, vs. moving on to more challenging material or a higher skill level? What happens when a teacher has several classes with this type of mix? Believe me, these are not imaginary situations; at Columbus, we confront them every day and we keep on striving to help every student. With this population, of course large numbers of students will fail the Regents exams or take more than four ( or two) years to graduate, but given the circumstances, we have an extraordinary rate of success. However, since our students and their statistics do not fit neatly into the little boxes and columns created by the government, the powers that be have decided to punish us (administration, teachers, and students) by withholding the funds that we desperately need to run our programs properly. Loss of programs, loss of teachers, loss of space, and loss of supplies: can any of this help our struggling students? Shame on them– the DOE, the federal government, and all the non-thinkers who support them; shame on all of those who consider this dreadful situation to be educational “reform.”
Invictus

To put what Karen said in perspective, many smaller schools do not have sufficient students in any one cohort to classify them ELL or Special Ed…thus they are able get away from close scrutiny in terms of what services they provide, as well as not getting “hit” when their yearly school report cards come up.

CTT classes are no panacea either. Perhaps with their use schools can somewhat ameliorate their budgetary problems but at what expense? The school might get extra funding but at the same time it add a very difficult educational choice in the regular education students that are in the so designed CTT class. Many regular ed students are many reading grades behind, and with the decision of NYS to reassess and toughen grading standards, a 9th grader that was on a 6th grade reading level, might really be on a 3rd grade reading level according to those standards. Place many of these sort of students together along with many students that are special needs, even with 2 instructors per classroom, the class might look workable in paper, the reality is quite different.

25% of students in Columbus as well as students in other large schools slated for phasing out are classified as special needs, and the DoE decides to allocate their money in just 11 schools?
What does that really say about what they consider the students of these schools? Substandard students? students where we should not spend the money on?

It is pretty clear to me that Tweed and the wise people who manage the schools have a grudge against these schools, for having had the fortune of surviving but of course, they should not be allowed to thrive and use the common money that belongs to every single student in New York, for flaunting their corporate wishes.

It is a crime what Tweed and the Mayor is doing to the students in these schools.

In other places and times, this would be called Apartheid or even worse, Jim Crow laws.
Columbus1939

Well it’s about time. Glad to see some publicity finally coming our way. One of the most influential high schools in the Bronx is being tortured and there is NO publicity in our defense! This is disgusting! Not only did this horrible mayor decrease funding for our school, he also warned parents not to send their children here. Where the hell was the news reporting on that? Are we that bad? We have a master teacher veteran staff. We have some of the top programs and classes to offer the students. The other schools in our building use OUR programs because they don’t have any. We are the standard in a true comprehensive school! Our students are champions statewide in multiple catagories such as step team, cheerleading, and lacrosse. We have all types of boys/girls sports teams. Our students are able to take courses like culinary foods, music, art, and technology. There is NO WAY this school is a “failing school.” We know this in part because over one hundred students who were forced to possibly attend other schools starting this past September, wound up here! Why – because their parents went to the district offices and DEMANDED their children attend Columbus! Where was the media for that? We have an incredible support group ranging from parents to district representatives.
Everything is based on student regents exams and test scores. Did anyone stop and think that WE ARE THE number one SCHOOL IN THE ENTIRE CITY with the highest population of special needs students + English learners? Where’s the stats on that? How do we compare to the A schools with that stat? How many non-english speaking students + special needs students do they have? Do you wonder why they have higher scores? Our school has HUNDREDS of kids in these catagories – are Bloomberg and Klein serious? I’m a damn good teacher and my colleagues are worthy and professional as well. It’s our fault? I have a student who reported to me this week straight from Saudi Arabia. He speaks ZERO English. I’m sure he counts on our stats!
I am furious at this nonsense. Too bad I can’t leave my real name. Save Columbus – we do a great job!
http://incongressional.com Esteban Rodriguez

Thank You for sharing Karen and Columbus. These are things that the public should know about.

Mayor Bloomberg said that attending schools like Columbus High would cause irreparable damage to students. He seems to forget he is accountable for the school’s dire state.
jodama

Wasn’t mayoral control all about accountability? Yet, the mayor and chancellor have not been held accountable in the least for the poor performance and test scores of our schools. I teach at a school in the Bronx where we have many CTT classes. Our SpEd coordinator tells me we are out of compliance because we have too many SpEd kids in these classes. The classes are huge – 34 kids with 20 or more of then students being SpEd. Many come out of 12-1 settings into CTT and need more help than can be given to them. It looks good on paper but in reality as usual the most vulnerable kids suffer.
Columbus1939

Is anyone reading this?? Did you watch the Yankee game last night? The Yankees have PLAYERS! Columbus does not have the STUDENT BODY (players) to receive the high report grades the city wants to see. Did you catch that? We take any kid from ANYWHERE including group homes, homeless shelters, prisons, facilities like Childrens Village in Yonkers and the Cottage School in Pleasantville. We take any child from wherever they come from. We don’t restrict and we do not CHOOSE. We aint the Yankees BUT we do the best we can with what we have. We turn away NO ONE. Yet we are called “failing” which is absurd! Where is the media to share OUR STORY? I know it aint those BUMS at the Daily News who are CLUELESS with their reports on our school. Where are the real reporters? Why was Columbus given a SCHOOLWIDE BONUS TO ALL STAFF 2 years ago for outstanding educational performance? Why are we singled out and GIVEN the HIGHEST population of SPECIAL NEEDS AND ENGLISH LEARNER STUDENTS? You gave Mayor Bloomberg ultimate power which you cannot do to a rich individual. He cannot rlate to OUR kids of NYC. He does not qualify to determine the struggles of these kids in all 5 boroughs. He bought his 3rd term in office by paying off the politicians who voted to give him the 3rd term. Why is 60 minutes not doing a story on this? Somebody out there with a CONNECTION – HELP!!!
andrew johnson

Columbus sucks because the parents and students they get are not interested in school. Place those students in bronx science and we’d have to shut down bronx science. No school ever gets turned around unless you change the student population. Klein doesn’t turn around schools he simply shuts them down. Small schools perform better for two reasons: 1. more money is invested into the smaller school and 2. grades and data is easier to manipulate and change
Columbus1939

Andrew,

Everyone knows the small schools manipulate their grades. They all know that they better pass their students and make a 59 turn into a 65. You’re absolutely right on the mark. The comment about placing Columbus’ students in Bronx Science is a perfect example as they indeed would shut down. Again, my point with the Yankees is similar, you need the players! I feel for the teachers and staff at Lehman, Clinton, and Truman because GUESS WHERE COLUMBUS’ KIDS ARE GOING IN SEPTEMBER 2011?? And when those schools shut down, guess where those kids are going next …….. helloooooooooo mini-schools! Full circle – great job Mr. Klein! Hey maybe they should really bomb out and hire former chancellor Rhee – then it would be the official 3 stooges!
Retired Thank God

This is such a perfect idea for a reality show. This can be a million dollar idea. Take the students in Columbus and Bronx Science and switch them all or simply switch the teachers in both schools with the entire administration. Let’s see what happens. It is not the teachers who are the problem. By the way, why doesn’t every school in the city have an exact or close amount of all level type students in their schools? Wouldn’t that be fair? Columbus has all 1′s and 2′s. Other schools have the exact opposite with all 3′s and 4′s. What’s up with that?
Jeff S

The situation described here at this school in the Bronx is exactly the same thing faced by many of the Brooklyn schools a decade ago. Loads of what are termed “over the counter” kids each September. Fourteen, fifteen year old kids. They come in sometimes with report cards that say, “so and so is a lovely child.” You ask them about what eduction they have had and they tell you they haven’t been attending school in their countries. Their countries for the most part are English speaking so ESL services are not appropriate. You give them a mathematics exam (our school used old copies of the Basic Competency Test, even easier than the Regents Competency Test if you’re familiar with them) and you discoer they can’t add, subtract, multiply or whatever. Their math level at best is about 3rd grade. But then you’re told by the Superintendent that anybody can learn algebra (or Math A) with proper teaching so yo’re forced to put them into a ninth year math A (equivalent sort of to elementary algebra) class; the only little thing they would allow is to do it in 4 terms instead of 3…some poor teacher gets half a class of these students and is responsible for preparin g them for the Regents exam. This is on top of the kids coming out from junior high schools who are passed through to prevent the school from getting a bad reputation with the local community boards. What do you think is th einevitable result. You have a great teaching staff and are able to get 25% of these kids through (if the staff weren’t great, the passing percentage would be 10%). You are crucified for having poor teachers. Nobody wants to know. And we then saw the inevitable results in Brooklyn. These schools were called “failures” and one by one, Bushwick, Jefferson, Prospect Heights, Erasmus, Wingate, Tilden, South Shore, Canarsie as when each school is closed, these kids are sent off to the next one. Now come on, do you think all these schools had lousy teachers? Lousy Principals? Lousy subject area supervisors? Dewey and Sheepshead Bay are not what they used to be and are constantly listed as being on all sorts of lists. When they close those schools, will they send those kids to Madison or Midwood or Murrow, schools that the powers that be have been able to protect.

Folks, it’s not the teachers. And do you think all these over the counters find their way into the small schools that have been set up to replace the comprehensive high schools? If it were the teachers, the solution would be simple. Take the faculty at Bronx Science and put them into Columbus.

I’m sure the same thing has occurred in the Bronx and now the Joel Klein wave of destruction is starting in Queens. It’s sad that nobody wants to understand all this but as my newspaper friends once told me never let the facts get in the way of a good story that sells papers.
Samantha

How about switching out Twed and Token Clerks underground? That would be a good switch since they don’t answer questions from myself or parent advocates. We are forming a group and heading to Albany. The parents of the city are not fooled by Bloomberg, don’t worry. We are making a short edited film on youtube called “Waiting for a Chancellor.”
Truth

What are the plans for the transformation schools selectedbalready? I appreciate Glotham taking the iniative on following three schools, of which 2 of them are transformation schools. How come the DOE doesn’t make that public since they make everything else so public.

Columbus has been struggling to support their students for years. No one ever mentions that when the initial small school movement started they force Columbus to go on a 14 period day schedule so that the small schools could have their early bell schedule. That year 9th and 10th graders started their at 11:50 am and ended their day at 6:00 pm. Imagine that as a parent, your child is going to a school that begins it’s day when you are heading to lunch at work! This scheduled last for about to three years staring from 2003.

Parents who were strong advocates for their children demanded that their children be transferred to other schools (small schools). I bet most of those students were not level 1 or 2 students.

I am not suggesting blame here but the story of Columbus is yet to be told. I hope that in your journey this year at Columbus you will uncover the “true” root causes as to why this school is in the state it is in and place those people accountable for their actions!
Ms. P.

I’m a teacher at Columbus who is fed up and destroyed over this publicity that is incorrect. The majority of my students are level 1′s. For those of you who do not know what this means, it is the lowest level type students. I teach what comes into my room. This is the way it is and has been for years. Mayor Bloomberg stated these kids who enrolled in our school “will never recover from such an education”. Nobody decided to follow up on that quote, why? Did he mean the teachers are incompetent? I have several friends that went to the other mini schools in our building which are Astor Academy, CIMS, and Pelham Prep. My friends who went to these schools were employed at Columbus for many years and now they are in these other schools within our campus. Can someone ask Bloomberg if they are now considered better educators since they are in an A school? Teachers jump to mini schools from failing schools and they are the SAME person with different students. If a teacher comes from one of those 3 schools to Columbus, does that make him/her now a bad teacher that “cannot educate” their students? I like the comparison with the Yankees above. If you put manager Joe Girardi on the Pittsburgh Pirates, do they make the playoffs nexy year? I don’t think so! Why are people in the public setting not being allowed to understand this message? I hope and pray that if Columbus closes, ALL of the 1,600 students split up and move into the mini schools mentioned within our campus. I want to see their regents scores after a year drop over 50%.
Mistah

MS. P. — ALL 3 PRINCIPALS AND MOST OF THEIR AP’s ARE PRODUCTS AND FORMER EMPLOYESS OF …………………………………. YUP, YOU GUESSED IT, COLUMBUS. UNREAL!! THERE IS SUCH A MAJOR STORY HERE.
Christine

I graduated from Columbus HS in 1993. At the time it was still a great school with nice kids. What happened? Very sad, did the neighborhood change?
Don

Big time. The whole NYC neighborhood changed when Bloomberg was given control of the schools and Klein was appointed chancellor. Since then, they’ve been on a mission to destroy public education.
Columbus1492

So what’s going on with following Columbus HS? I’m a teacher here and have not seen “coverage” by anyone. Are we missing something? Where did you say those reporters were? I can tell you where they’re not, here at Columbus!
Cindy Bear

The “over-the-counter” students who are placed in Columbus do so through the DOE High School Placement Office. The DOE is responsible for the low level students, high needs, ELLs, students coming from prisons etc. being enrolled at Columbus. You would need to be blind not to see that the New York City Department of Education, Mayor Bloomberg, and Chancellor Klein have strategically set up Columbus for failure. Columbus welcomes all these students with open arms and works tirelessly to educate them. Ms. Fuentes, the Principal, believes that all children deserve an education. Why isn’t the DOE looking at schools that openly reject accepting high needs students. Yes, these struggling students do affect this school’s stats. That’s all the Mayor/Chancellor are interested in. Columbus doesn’t turn away a “bad batch” students because of their low levels. Wake up New York City and be vocal about what is happening to your neighborhood schools!

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The Big Fix

October 15, 2010

In the Bronx, an embattled school tries to do more with less

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