GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• The city Department of Education made a survey for those who want to donate goods to schools. (DOE)
• Local school librarians are creating resources to address students’ post-Sandy emotional issues. (SLJ)
• Rockaway parents say they would prefer to homeschool children than relocate schools. (DNAinfo)
• An alternative school devastated by Sandy is back online, thanks to staff efforts. (Hechinger Report)
• A large Brooklyn sports complex may host the displaced and devastated P.S./M.S. 114. (Crains)
• As polls close, there are many education-related races to watch. (Answer Sheet, Ed is Watching)
• The New Teacher Project is accepting applications for its annual Fishman teaching prize. (TNTP)

Students in 22 city schools will miss a seventh straight day of class on Wednesday while the Department of Education continues to restore buildings damaged and disrupted by Hurricane Sandy.

And thousands of other students will have to make their way to school on their own because the department does not have enough buses to move all of the students who need transportation.

After calling local private bus companies and petitioning the state and federal emergency relief organizations, the city has rounded up more than 100 additional buses to join the 7,400 that ran on Monday, officials said this evening. But still, buses will serve students at fewer than half of the 43 schools that are so severely damaged that they must be moved. Those schools, which together enroll about 20,000 students, are opening for the first time on Wednesday.

A major problem, Chief Academic Officer Shael Polakow-Suransky said this evening, is that the department’s transportation hub, located in Long Island City, still does not have power. The department can only add new routes, not make the ones it already operates more efficient, while the computer system that programs the city’s 7,700 school bus routes is down, he said.

“We don’t have access to any of that,” he said. “Everything we are doing at this point is by hand.” (more…)

Teachers from the Red Hook Neighborhood School meet in the school's library during an Election Day professional development session.

Principal Rochel Brown hadn’t slept much since Friday, when she and her teachers began assessing the toll Hurricane Sandy took on the Red Hook Neighborhood School’s community.

The news she received then was grim: Several teachers lost their homes and cars in the storm, which was particularly devastating to Staten Island and Brooklyn’s waterfront neighborhoods, where many teachers from her school live. And many more families were unreachable because of power outages in the area.

To top it off, she and Shahara Jackson, principal of the Summit Academy Charter School, which shares the Huntington Avenue school building with the Neighborhood School, learned they would need to make room for another school—P.S. 15, a Red Hook school so damaged by the storm that it cannot reopen yet—by Wednesday, when its students and teachers will be temporarily relocated.

Brown told reporters this afternoon that she is managing “as smoothly as possible,” given the circumstances. The other principals nodded in agreement. (more…)

Students from Democracy Prep charter schools wore T-shirts that said "I can't vote" on the front and "But you can!" on the back as they urged people in Harlem to vote today.

Harlem Prep Middle School is one of 32 charter schools housed in public space that the Department of Education allowed to stay open today, while its own schools are closed in honor of Election Day.

In between classes, students from the school — part of the Democracy Prep network of charter schools — are spending the day reminding the residents of Harlem to exercise their right to vote.

Harlem Prep students staked out First Avenue between 100th and 106th Street today while five other groups of Democracy Prep students canvassed Harlem all the way up to 145th Street.

The get-out-the-vote activities reflect the network’s emphasis on civics. Last month, Democracy Prep students also starred in a music video that exhorted viewers to “Vote for Somebody.”

“I can’t vote but you can!” Mykev, a sixth-grader at Harlem Prep, eagerly chanted to those passing by. Some people barely broke their stride but others said they appreciated the students’ efforts and shared in their enthusiasm. (more…)

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At Leon Goldstein High School of Sciences in Manhattan Beach, today’s professional development day is personal.

Perched on the water’s edge at the Kingsborough Community College campus, the school narrowly avoided serious flooding when Hurricane Sandy devastated the neighborhood last week.

When students returned on Monday, the school surveyed them about their families’ needs in the wake of the storm. Today, instead of hosting Election Day teacher training sessions, the school has been transformed into a disaster relief center, according to Kit Wainer, a teacher there.

“Teachers are making runs directly to the homes of students who filled out a questionnaire saying that they need food,” Wainer said.

In other parts of the city, parent associations are converting their usual Election Day bake sales into fundraisers for hurricane relief. And teachers are swapping planned professional development sessions for volunteer service.

(What’s happening today at your school? Let us know in the comments.) (more…)

Smoke billows from John Dewey High School following the sound of an explosion on Monday night, during Hurricane Sandy. Credit: Sandra Aronowitz-Garron/Youtube

Teachers from John Dewey High School reported for duty to Sheepshead Bay High School on Monday with a sinking feeling. Months after narrowly escaping closure, the school had struggled since September to settle on programs for its 1,900 students and, if that were not enough, its Gravesend building had caught on fire during Hurricane Sandy.

Now they thought  students and staff would have spread out among three different school buildings, including Sheepshead Bay, for the foreseeable future.

“It could be, without a doubt, another nail in the coffin,” one teacher said about the planned relocation. “It’s a whirlwind to be told to go here or there.”

The school’s staff spent Monday deciding who would report where on Wednesday, and creating new schedules for their students. Then, late Monday evening, teachers got a phone call from the Department of Education with unexpected news: Dewey would be able to reopen right away after all.

Teachers said the phone call came as a welcome surprise, but some said they thought the location was the least of Dewey’s worries.

Last week, Chancellor Dennis Walcott cited Dewey as one of the most severely damaged schools in the wake of the hurricane. And teachers said they had received no hints that the school would be ready to reopen any time soon, even after Principal Kathleen Elvin stopped by the building to assess repair efforts on Monday morning and afternoon. But department officials said the School Construction Authority had been able to install a generator and get Dewey’s boiler to work, making the building safe for students and teachers.

The quick return was exactly what some teachers said they thought the school needed. (more…)

• Slowly but surely, city schools are reopening after Hurricane Sandy. (GothamSchools, WSJ, NY1, Times)
• Some schools opened without heat on the coldest day of the year. (GothamSchools, Insideschools, Post)
• The city plans to use today, when classes are canceled, to finalize school relocation plans. (SchoolBook)
• Some charter schools in public space will open today, after briefly being prohibited. (GothamSchools)
• Record numbers of Americans are finishing high school and college, according to census data. (Times)
• A small but growing number of urban schools aim for racial and socioeconomic diversity. (USA Today)
• In California, voters will decide on a proposition to raise taxes to benefit the state’s schools. (L.A. Times)
• Voters in Georgia will decide who should let charter schools open, likely determining their fate. (Times)
• Washington voters will decide if charter schools are allowed; Missourians face a schools tax. (Atlantic)