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It is time to end the crippling maze like “network” system Bloomberg created so that he could funnel city funds to private organizations.  There is no doubt that, at their worst, district offices provided more support, had a more intimate relationship with their schools and provided more services and support.  These network people are more concerned with keeping their jobs and passing on Tweed’s threats than actually providing useful support to schools.

THANK YOU MR WEPRIN!!! THESE BUMS ARE ON THE WAY OUT!!! BRING DISTRICTS BACK AND SEND BLOOMBUCKS PACKING.

Has any administrator been fired? No matter what the offense or performance level? I doubt it.

You are right that they are incompetent and there is no accountability however they make their presence felt all to well. In my school the helped to force out the founding principal after only it’s 3rd year. They do nothing to thwart the DOE from overcrowding the school and filling it with special needs students to the tune of 28% which is way above the city average. They coerce our sped teachers to change the iep of students so that it fits what we can offer them instead of the student getting the services he/she needs. They literally strong arm our new rookie principal”she of 3 yrs teaching experience before becoming an administrator”into following useless DOE mandates that do nothing to affect learning in the classroom.  Have I detailed enough?  

These network people NEVER show up at my school! How can they “help” if they don’t ever see the school ? Better off, I am sure that their suggestions would be completely insane… Get rid if them and not by making them principals or ap’s… I want my tax dollars better spent…

Weprin is right.

Sometimes it takes some time to get it right:
I have worked for the DoE for 17 years and have experienced the various support and supervisory structures that have been in place since.  
As one council member stated at the hearing, ‘I have no agenda’, I just want the most support that will assist me, as the principal, with running our school effectively. The current structure of network support and district accountability is not ‘bureaucratic’ or confusing for a principal.  Our networks provide us with individualized support.  When I first became the principal of our school we were close to being put on the list of ‘persistently dangerous schools’, we had fights nearly every day and the climate of the school was not conducive to learning. The network leader and I drew up a strategic action plan to drastically change the climate of the school.  We received the support of the network safety director and youth services director. Both worked directly with our guidance counselors and deans. The achievement coach worked directly with teachers to assist them with learning classroom management techniques that would diffuse issues before they arose. Over the last 5 years, the support from our network has changed from year to year as the needs of the school have changed. They have played a key role in the progress our school has made.  Now we have 95% attendance, 97% of parents say they feel their child is safe in school and every year parents from outside our zone ask if their child can attend our community school.
Since the start of school, in September, we have had over 14 on-site visits by network staff. Unlike the council member who said, ‘no one even knew who the network staff were in his building’, the majority of my staff work directly with someone from the network team. The youth services director works with my attendance liaison, guidance counselors and deans. The achievement coaches work with teachers planning and implementing effective instruction. One also works directly with the teachers assistants in our school. The special education instructional coach and the youth services director attend our Special Education Implementation Team meetings and assist us with making the reform manageable for our teachers and also offering the best program and instruction for students with disabilities. I, also, have regular communication with our human resources director and also the budget coordinator.
Our network has 25 schools and our district has over 80 schools.  The dual system of networks and districts allows our school to get customized support from our network while still getting the services we need, that are geographically related, from our district (such as enrollment support). When we only had a community district, it was impossible to get the support we needed in a timely manner.  For example, the district budget liaison would go into my budget and move things around and not offer any explanation or communication.  I would spend a day trying to understand what happened in my school’s budget.  He had too many schools to spend time writing us all e-mails that would have alleviated the confusion and saved us time.  Now, I can have direct communication with the budget liaison because she has many fewer schools to support. This allows me to spend less time on operational items and more time in classrooms improving instruction.
Council member Weprin said “school districts were our families and our neighborhoods. The principals supported each other. The parents had a place to go to have a complaint”.  Under this new system, we still have support and parents still have a place to go to make complaints.  I see other principals in my Network once a month.  Our visits take place in our schools and so we know the work one another are doing much more than when we used to meet at the District Office. Principals within my network have established shared professional development, based on need, for our teachers; therefore they also have a network of peer support. In our network, we call each other and support one another completely outside of the formal meetings our network hosts.
Parents in our school are not confused about the structure.  They still go to the district office when they have a complaint or when they need enrollment, safety or general information. The superintendent communicates these concerns directly with me.
 As a result of streamlining job responsibilities between networks and districts, the job of the district staff is more manageable and they are more responsive.  My superintendent reviews all of my teacher tenure recommendations, spent hours with me on my own tenure review, spends time reviewing my student promotional decisions and rates my performance each year.  I am held accountable to student performance and progress, creating a safe and inclusive learning environment and meeting my individual, professional goals.  For me, this isn’t a very confusing system to understand: The role of my network is to provide the day to day, on the ground, support I need to meet expectations set by the district.
It has taken some time to get this structure right.  Several council members recognized the integrity and hard work of chief academic officer, Shael Polakow-Suransky.  He is a former principal and understands the demands of the position and has worked tirelessly to create a system that allows us to efficiently and effectively do our work. The evidence and data show that under the current structure, our school system is in a much better place based upon student performance and progress and college and career readiness and it is costing us less.
As I said originally, I don’t have an ‘agenda’.  I just want to be able to offer students, zoned to our community school, a high quality education in their neighborhood.  The support I receive from my network and the expectations set by my district allow me to move us toward that goal.
 

Networks are a waste. In NO WAY do they provide real support to principals. In fact the opposite. They intimidate principals into making unethical decisions against teachers and even students.

Time to get rid of Networks and the Leadership Academy. Time to require many, many years of teaching experience in order to be a school or school district adminstrator. And bring back REAL educators who actually care about students and the people who dedicate their lives to educating them.