GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Teacher layoff phone drive results are in, to mixed reviews

A desperate phone push to save thousands of teacher layoffs has yielded mixed results, depending on who you ask.

On Tuesday, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio launched a phone drive to implore New Yorkers to dial 311 – the city’s service line – and file complaints about Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to lay off 4,100 teachers as part of his budget proposal.

Since then, 311 operators have received at most 336 calls about the budget, according to data from the Department of Information of Technology and Telecommunications. That number spiked on Tuesday, with 109, and again today, with 83.

DoITT tracks all 311 calls, which amount to over 50,000 per day. Spokesman Nick Sbordone ran the data for three categories that are relevant to de Blasio’s phone drive: “NYC Budget Proposal”; “School Closures and Budget Cuts” and “Comments for the Mayor.”

Average daily calls specifically about school budget cuts doubled compared to the previous week, but the overall totals still fell below what some had hoped.

“That’s all the phone calls that came into 311?” asked Leonie Haimson, who organized her own efforts via email today. “I would have hoped that there would be thousands of phone calls.”

De Blasio, whose phone drive goal was to reach 2,500 people through his phone drive, was more optimistic about the turnout.

“That so many are flooding the phones in the lead-up to the budget decision shows just how big a priority this is for anyone with children in our public schools,” he said.

  • Suzie

    I don’t think 311 recorded them.  I called and they said to email the mayor..so maybe more called.

  • District 13 parent

    I didn’t call 311. Dealing with 311 is incredibly frustrating. I emailed the mayor, Quinn, and  my city council rep. I wonder how many people emailed rather than spell things out to 311 operators. 

  • District 13 parent

    I didn’t call 311. Dealing with 311 is incredibly frustrating. I emailed the mayor, Quinn, and  my city council rep. I wonder how many people emailed rather than spell things out to 311 operators. 

  • Anonymous

    It is true that many parents said that they either hung up b/c of too much waiting, texted their messages  (w/ results unknown if they were catalogued ) and/or told to contact the mayor instead.

    It is really hard to know how reliable these figures really are.  In other cases, we know that the data put out by the city is extremely inaccurate.

  • Anonymous

    It is true that many parents said that they either hung up b/c of too much waiting, texted their messages  (w/ results unknown if they were catalogued ) and/or told to contact the mayor instead.

    It is really hard to know how reliable these figures really are.  In other cases, we know that the data put out by the city is extremely inaccurate.

  • Anonymous

    However, for some records of 311 complaints, see our blog here:
    http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2011/06/sample-of-311-acknowledgements-of.html

Tips, questions, feedback?

Contact us at .

Word from Our Sponsor

Follow GothamSchools

RSS
Subscribe to the daily email digest:

Chalk It Up

Recent Comments

0 comments so far today

Archives

May 2013
M T W T F S S
« Apr  
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031