Comments on: Simmering tensions at NEST+M boil over on Curriculum Night

By: New parent

New parent — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:25:00 +0000

I am a new to Nest Parent. My child was admitted to the HS. I wasn’t aware of this boycott
and I was able to see & speak with most of my child’s teachers. Between “Curriculum
Night” & teacher conferences I believe I’ve met and discussed my child with them all at this point as we close our first semester. I have a comment for Dr. Livanis. Dear Dr. Livanis I have an immense amount of respect for your background and prior experience. After meeting with these HS Teachers several times now at these events on all 8 of my child’s subjects I must relay to you that you are truly blessed to have these Instructors. My child’s English professor was switched early in the semester and this caused her some angst because she had really made a connection with her first teacher in just the first week or so. Much more important than this, was the recovery. I told her to give the new instructor some time and the same opportunity she had given the first teacher. She did and the new teacher has proven OUTSTANDING. This proves you are working with excellent teachers THROUGHOUT that school. Indeed they ARE a HUGE part of YOUR Success! My daughter has well in excess of a 90% average on her first report card. This truly IS a school for the gifted and she has historically applied, even over-applied herself, but is most definitely challenged by your Incredibly GIFTED instructors. You do yourself a service when they are happy within your school. I can assure you that you are indeed exacting a high degree of out-performance from your instructors.

be well,

New parent

By: Former NEST teacher

Former NEST teacher — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 01:32:00 +0000

Well said, although someone who hasn’t worked with Livanis (or someone like Livanis) might find it hard to undersand. I am a teacher who left NEST for just these reasons.

By: Experienced teacher and parent

Experienced teacher and parent — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 21:57:00 +0000

NEST is clearly a school where the excellent teachers, dedicated parents and wonderful kids run what would be an exemplary place against the bizarre obstructionist tactics of a principal who seems in place just to make everyone’s worthy efforts more difficult and less successful. The DOE owes all these hard-working and well-deserving constituents a new administration — one that supports and cooperates instead of intimidates and obstructs.

By: New parent at Nest

New parent at Nest — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 00:41:00 +0000

Thank you teacher, I am a new parent of a 9th grader, I am very thankful to have met most of our child’s teachers. We felt the passion and dedication when they described their classes to the parents. Please let us know what parents can do to ease the tension. At this point it is not about taking sides, it is about expanding, and creating the best possible experience for our children. Our kids, and parents, made a commitment to NEST M, the administration, principle, and all the hard working, loving teachers should honor that commitment.
I understand, there is a time when we all must take a stand, but please do not involve our precious children, they are the ones that stand to suffer.

By: New parent at Nest

New parent at Nest — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 01:23:00 +0000

Sorry, in my post, I meant ipads in place of text books

By: New parent at Nest

New parent at Nest — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 01:21:00 +0000

I too am a new parent, attended the curriculum, and a few of the teachers was no-show which I found strange, after reading this article, we had no idea that this is happening.
Bottom line, is our children are suffering, and this issue should be settled.
I have a few pet peeves regarding this school, some of the info that we used to make a decision to come to this school has not been accurate.
If you head to the schools website, it paints a very different image of the lunch program, such as fresh salad bars, fresh vegetable purchased weekly at union market.
It also talked about sex gender classes for ninth graders in math and science for 9th graders.
During orientation after the acceptance letters were send out, one of the teachers informed our group, that all 9th graders would get ipads, in place of ipads.
None of the mentioned facts are true. In a way, I felt that some of the benefits that factored into our decision was not correct. So far, we believe that we chose the correct school to help our child nurture and grow.

By: Former NEST MS Parent

Former NEST MS Parent — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 20:29:00 +0000

SupportingParent, you make an interesting statement: ”There was no assistance at the entrance to inform parents on what to door where to go.” This has nothing to do with the teachers’ boycott, but it sums up my family’s experiences at NEST as well. The school is run in a very disorganized fashion, and events like parent conferences are a nightmare. Report cards are never ready on time, and no one in the administration takes any responsibility. A couple of years ago, a school show ran a little late, and Assistnat Principal Alfieri was literally screaming at the parents to leave, and loudly saying “I don’t know why these people don’t leave!”. All this while the parents were waiting for their children to come from backstage so they could take them home. Unbelievably bad treatment for parents here.

By: Norm

Norm — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 11:39:00 +0000

Mr. F
I can understand that given where you are coming from you miss some of the subtleties of where people on “our” side stands and why. The Ravitch move from one side to the other is the most prominent. But she did not just jump over the line and change her position. She evolved and with every day continues to evolve and refine – 10 years ago some of us were going to protest her receiving the John Dewey Award by the UFT. Many people like me also evolved. We stood up against the old status quo in the NYC DOE and the UFT/AFT as far back as 1970 and there is irony in seeing the “reform” label hijacked by the defenders of the new status quo. And to find that some of the people we opposed 30 years ago are now on our “side” because the new status quo did away with the old status quo. 10 years ago many of us were fairly isolated but as the new status quo begins to come down around the ears of the deformers — and it will get worse as the push for charter schools puts so many unqualified people and even crooks in charge — the ranks in opposition will grow. And if you are looking at things honestly and openly I believe you will join us.

By: SupportingParent

SupportingParent — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 05:39:00 +0000

I am a freshman high school parent that went the Curriculum Night. There was no assistance at the entrance to inform parents on what to door where to go. Many parents were further disappointed in not finding some teachers in the classrooms. Like myself, I was wondering if there was a scheduling conflict of some kind. I did not learn about this situation with the teachers until now. I understand the teachers needed to make a point but may be it might have been better that they stay to meet with the parents, after all it’s for the students and parents benefit. The few teachers that I did meet seem really devoted to give the best education to the student. For the sake of the students, I hope they could continue to work out the differences without making the students suffer in the middle of it all.

By: Former NEST MS Parent

Former NEST MS Parent — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 23:40:00 +0000

Same here – no “depth”, no exploration, nothing interesting to engage a gifted student, just the boring high school Regents courses moved down to middle school.

By: Mr. Flerporillo

Mr. Flerporillo — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 13:55:00 +0000

Thanks for the response. Yes, I definitely get the “no middle ground” dynamic at play. I’d probably be less relentless on the financial stuff if anybody from “your side” of the war would ever acknowledge the problem. It makes one feel a bit like Jor-El trying to tell the Council that Krypton’s going to explode. But it seems to me that, like in any political war, neither “side” will acknowledge any fact that doesn’t advance its cause.

By: nparent

nparent — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 11:33:00 +0000

there still is in middle school; it is stupid hopefully, it is gone by the time my children reach middle school.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 01:19:00 +0000

it’s a reference to the gbv song. i assume that’s where the band got it from, too. not affiliated with nest, so you remain the lonely rocker there.

By: Norm

Norm — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 00:40:00 +0000

Mr. F.
I take this as a genuine and honest expression of where you are coming from. As a contrarian who would take the other side in an argument with myself, I in fact do find merit in the rhetorical combat. I know a lot of people in the UFT leadership probably feel about me as some of the commenters feel about you.
I get your attempt to glean more precise language but for those of us in hand-to-hand combat with a billionaire funded assault on many of the things we believe passionately about, it is easy for your comments to put us on the attack. I see no middle ground in this war that we didn’t declare. So even if you try to see both sides there will still be blood.

By: guest

guest — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 00:05:00 +0000

EXCELLENT points all around. Is your first-run edition of “NEST+m: Gifted, Talented and Troubled” coming soon? :)

I would say it’s not the school size that is necessarily the problem…could be the K-12 structure? NEST+m is, I think, the only K-12 school in Manhattan, and, let’s face it…who out there in the NYC schools is qualified to run one? Might breaking NEST+m into separate schools be a good answer?

By: guest

guest — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 22:53:00 +0000

Kid Kilowatt! Are you named after the band? I’m a teacher at NEST, and I would be blown away if you knew them, and were also associated with NEST somehow!

By: Zebcrimson

Zebcrimson — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:29:00 +0000

It must have something to do with the nature of NEST+m that leads to controversy. For a while it seemed NEST had entered a period of calm, but yet another tempest has emerged.
Maybe it is inherent in the way the school is structured. You have a very small, very selective school and the constituents of the school feel ownership. The parent “owners” want to run the place but don’t realize that it is actually part of a much larger bureaucracy. Then they get all resentful towards management when they are not paid enough attention to. (Or in an earlier incarnation, you get a rogue principal who bucks the bureaucracy but the school still was absolutely not democratic).And SLTs, PTAs, and Community Councils aside, local control of the schools was an abysmal failure in NYC in the past. It is easy to forget about those disastrous experiments years later. Maybe the parents of a school like NEST are an exception and they could control a school successfully, but this is a bureaucracy and exceptions are not the rule.Not helping matters is the teacher’s union. They seem to be all about playing on the “hurt feelings” of the PTA/SLT to protect the incompetents among them.

I hope I’m wrong and that the NEST model is salvageable. But maybe a school of this size with lots of Type A parents is just a model that can’t work in NYC. Although it mostly works in the big places — maybe there are unexpected benefits to the alienation and lack of intimacy in the mega schools.Or maybe they built the place on an Indian Graveyard or something. Because, there is a lot of tumult around this place. Let’s look at the history (many of these items generated serious press coverage too):- Founded during controversy. Kids arrive at school expecting to be met by local protestors- Post 9/11 Principal gets into trouble for initially denying placement of displaced students from schools closed by terrorism.- Founding Principal runs school with iron fist. Tossing out teachers and students regularly.- School is accused of discrimination in admission (nice Times article for that one).- Attempts to co-locate school for Autistic children fought off by parents- Attempt to co-locate Charter School fought off by parents- Founding Principal tossed with accusations of impropreity- PTA quits en masse over sacking of Principal (quickly reformed by people who did not support the fired Principal).- Current controversyI’m sure I left a bunch of stuff out. And of course, there’s a similar (longer?) list of great accomplishments.But I’m stuck on the question: Will NEST+m every be free of commotion?

By: Actually

Actually — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:35:00 +0000

Programming is a mess. There is no longer any single-sex math or science classes in the high school, and I don’t think there are in the middle school either.

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 03:24:00 +0000

You’re missing the point–while Livanis has some good ideas and has made some great contributions to the school, she treats her staff as if though they’re entirely replaceable. There have been countless new assistant principals over the past years; she has gotten rid of many teachers mid-year, and forces many to leave on their own accord (the fact that the Upper School English department has had a complete turnover since two years ago should say something.)

The real issue at hand was not getting paid for Curriculum Night — it was sending the message that with every extra thing teachers do for the school, there’s an increased likelihood Livanis will find something to use to get one fired.

By: cuckoo's nest

cuckoo's nest — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 02:28:00 +0000

…except will she ever be ‘removed’? As far as the DOE is concerned, she is doing a terrific job. Livanis has no real authority on her own, she is basically operating as an extension of the higher ups who couldn’t care less what the teachers think, just as long as the school appears on the surface to be a successful one.