GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Teachers at a school where four classrooms were damaged by a bedbug fumigation are are holding a fundraiser this weekend to replace the supplies they lost.

Seven teachers at P.S. 197 lost thousands of dollars worth of books and other supplies when four of the school’s classrooms were treated for bedbugs earlier this year with liquid instead of air-based fumigation, said Lucille Mauro, the school’s teachers union chapter leader. To help replace the supplies, a group of teachers at the Midwood, Brooklyn school is throwing a car wash at the school tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“We’re just happy to get anything back,” Mauro said.

The Department of Education is waiting for the results of a state Department of Environmental Conservation investigation before it decides whether to replace the supplies, said spokeswoman Marge Feinberg. The city has also banned the vendor it used to fumigate the school, she said.

Mauro said staff at the school expect to eventually be reimbursed for at least some of the damaged supplies. But in the meantime, the teachers must teach. The car wash is an attempt to help prevent the seven teachers from falling behind, she said.

“Everything’s a procedure, and so we’re just sitting back waiting and it’s hard to wait,” Mauro said. “The teachers really want to get back on their feet and get back into their routine.”

Since the school year began, GothamSchools and WNYC reporters have been telling stories from inside three struggling high schools as they try to improve. To help readers put these changes in context, the clever minds behind the extensive Big Apple Ed database have created profiles for each of the schools.

The profiles for the three schools — Chelsea CTE High School, Christopher Columbus High School, and William E. Grady CTE High School — display data on the schools’ graduation rates, how much money the federal government has given them to improve, and a breakdown of their student demographics.

They also include background information on how the schools have changed over time and what they’re doing now to serve their students better. Throughout the year, we’ll be updating the data regularly as new information becomes available. We’ll also add new stories and reader polls.

You can follow the schools by checking out the “Big Fix” widget (at right) on our sidebar, which has links to all three profiles.

Further down on the sidebar, you can enter your school’s name to see a comprehensive profile designed by Big Apple Ed. By adding the school to your “backpack” you can compare it to other schools, including the three “Big Fix” high schools we’re following this year.

A serious grassroots movement to improve school food and reverse the trend of childhood obesity is afoot in our city. That message was immediately apparent when we attended the School Food Rocks Conference organized by Brooklyn City Councilman Brad Lander last month. Also apparent at the conference: Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein are conspicuously absent from the discussion. Since no fundamental change can happen without their support, we thought we’d let them know about the conference and some of the organizations working to stem the tide of disease in our city’s children.

The conference began with introductory speeches by Chef Jorge Collazo, the Department of Education’s first executive chef, and Chef Ann Cooper, widely known as the “Renegade Lunch Lady,” who currently heads the school nutrition program in Boulder, Colo. Both chefs went to the Culinary Institute of America and both spent time living and cooking in Vermont. But the similarities pretty much end there. Chef Collazo oversees the largest school district in the country with 1,600 schools serving over 1 million students. The Boulder Valley School District, on the other hand, comprises just 55 schools with 23,000 students. The sizes of the bureaucracies in which they work might help to explain Chef Cooper’s visionary program for improving school food, which includes getting regionally produced organic milk into every school, versus Chef Collazo’s more modest achievements, such as getting Barilla whole grain pasta served in city schools.

Despite the unruly size of the New York City public school system, pockets of change are happening thanks to parents, educators, non-profit organizations, and the DOE’s Office of School Food. Here’s a list of just some of the organizations that participated in the conference and the programs they offer to provide healthier meals to city schoolchildren and to raise awareness about good nutrition. (If you’re interested in a program for your school, contact the organization at their website.) (more…)

• The Lower East Side classrooms formerly used by Girls Prep Charter School are sitting empty. (WSJ)
• The number of schools reporting bedbugs has doubled; the city says there’s no problem. (Daily News)
• Old Navy is giving clothes to students at select schools who boost their attendance. (NY1)
• Students at Harlem’s PS 102 ran a mini-marathon, alongside real marathoners. (NY1)
• The city might not be putting a new Harlem Success School inside PS 145 after all. (Daily News)
• Students and staff at F-rated Lehman High School fear their school could be closed. (Daily News)
• The city officially got $20 million promised by the feds to fix failing schools. (GothamSchools, WNYC)
• New admissions rules in Chicago aim to build diversity without considering race. (Chicago Tribune)

• A dispute between the city’s comptroller and the DOE could leave school buses uninsured. (City Hall)
• State Senate Education Committee Chair Suzi Oppenheimer is likely to keep her seat. (Times Union)
• Cuomo will probably have to cut education spending, but NY still has a lot in its favor. (Flypaper)
• M.S. 223′s Ramon Gonzalez tries to combat the middle school score drop. (The Examiner)
• Teachers aren’t resistant to change, but they are tired of non-stop change. (Flowers and Sausage)
• Josh Dunn talks about NYC’s school closure plans and the grants it has to work with. (Education Next)
• New House Speaker John Boehner cares about education, but his members don’t agree on much. (Time)
• NY social studies teachers are worried about what the end of the state’s test means for them. (HuffPo)
• Chicago’s teachers’ union wants a “community panel” to choose the next schools leaders. (Catalyst)
• Will Diane Ravitch’s NYRB review of “Waiting for Superman” hurt the movie’s Oscar chances? (WaPo)
• The NEA is waiting to see what kind of Republicans will get leadership spots. (EdWeek)

The city will receive nearly $20 million in federal funds for the 11 city schools it hopes to “transform” with longer school days and experiments in teacher training.

The city has been expecting this money since April, when the federal government gave New York State $300 million to turn around the state’s “persistently lowest achieving” schools. A total of 34 of the schools on the state’s list are in New York City, and more city schools are expected to be added to the list when the state updates it in the coming weeks.

The Department of Education was eligible for $2 million for each of the schools on the state’s list, but this year the city chose to only apply for funds for 11 of them.

For these schools, the city chose the “transformation” model of school improvement, the least severe of four federally-approved strategies. The model relies on changing the schools’ leadership, bringing in extra support services and experimenting with longer school days and new teacher training. (more…)

A day after an election that saw most of the union-backed candidates win their races, New York City teachers union president Michael Mulgrew was still celebrating. “We had a very good night,” he told me.

In total, 157 of the 170 candidates the United Federation of Teachers supported were victorious on Tuesday, union officials said.

Mulgrew said he was pleased to see former City Councilman Tony Avella take Republican Frank Padavan’s seat in the State Senate. A month before the election, when polls showed Avella was down by over two dozen points, Mulgrew said he sent union members to campaign in northeast Queens. Avella, who also ran and lost in the city’s mayoral race last year, ended up with 53 percent of the vote.

“It was fun because everyone told us we wouldn’t win,” Mulgrew said.

Union-backed candidates lost in 13 races. Among them was Democratic Congressman Michael McMahon, who was also endorsed by Mayor Bloomberg and was expected to hold onto his Staten Island seat, but lost to Republican Michael Grimm. (more…)

Anyone who has spent time in a high need school knows one of the most difficult, and often frustrating, variables to control in the student achievement equation is parent involvement. Beyond anecdotal proof from our own experiences, research also supports the (rather obvious) idea that parent involvement is central to student success.*

But recognizing the importance of parents doesn’t make it any easier to get them involved. For a number of reasons — demanding work schedules, cultural barriers, mistrust of administration and/or political institutions in general — getting parents involved in high-need communities is an ongoing challenge. So, what’s the solution? When in doubt, offer incentives.

That’s the thinking behind a new Detroit Public Schools program. “Under the program, parents are encouraged to register at one of the city’s Parent Resource Centers, where they can attend workshops and find other ways to get involved in schools,” the Huffington Post reports. “They earn points for their involvement, which can be used for reduced prices at 15 businesses.” It’s a novel idea, and I’m anxious to see the outcome.

I’m also curious to what extent, if any, my own school should try to adopt a similar model. Parent engagement has been a major focus of my school’s administration. (more…)

• The city released report cards for 331 high schools. (GothamSchools, NY1, Times, WNYC, WSJ)
• John F. Kennedy HS got no grade because the city is investigating its discharge rate. (Riverdale Press)
• Half of the high schools the city tried to close last year got D’s or F’s. (Post)
• The new grades could add more schools to the city’s potential closure list. (GothamSchools)
• A smattering of higher scores could also save some schools from being closed. (GothamSchools)
• Schools that are seen as desirable got the same scores as less desirable schools. (Daily News)
• The city’s top-ranked school, Theater Arts Production Company, considers itself a Cinderella story. (Post)
• One school the city tried to close last year, New Day Academy, saw its graduation rate fall. (Post)
• To save money, the city is letting schools tell — or not tell — parents their children’s scores. (Daily News)
• A political consultant says UFT support for Tony Avella may have made all the difference. (Post)
• New schools planned for downtown Manhattan look unlikely to open in 2011. (Downtown Express)
• PS 7 in the Bronx responded to its recent C grade with lots of test-score attention. (Riverdale Press)
• Education could be the agenda to bring together a newly divided Congress. (Washington Post)
• Republican successes in Michigan augur big changes for Detroit’s troubled schools. (NPR)

• Former Denver schools chief Sen. Michael Bennett beat his tea party opponent in CO. (Politics K-12)
• Arne Duncan said he thinks education is the issue that can unite the two feuding parties. (Politico)
• But Republicans are likely to try to reduce federal funding for education. (Hechinger Report)
• Meet John Kline, the Republican soon-to-be  chair of the House Education Committee. (Politics K-12)
• Small high schools opened under Klein fared best on the city’s progress reports today. (InsideSchools)
• The schools that did better also tended to have smaller class sizes. (NYC Public School Parents)
• Ron Huberman’s last day as Chicago Public Schools chief will be November 29. (Chicago Public Radio)
• GOOD is looking to crowd-source answers to the question of how to identify “good teaching.”
• The Supreme Court is looking at whether tax credits can go to religious school tuition. (NYTimes)