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The city is “sympathetic” to — but not ready to embrace — charter parents’ desire to win spots on district parent councils, officials said today.

On Tuesday, more than 1,200 charter school parents traveled to Albany as part of Lobby Day. Their main ask was that legislators set aside seats for them on the city’s elected parent councils. The councils, known as Community Education Councils, frequently discuss charter schools but have no formal authority over them.

A Department of Education spokesman told me on Tuesday that the city’s position on the request had not changed since 2009, when officials argued that seating charter parents on CECs would represent an inappropriate conflation of charter and district school management.

As it turns out, that’s not quite true. The city hasn’t actually made up its mind about whether to support a bill introduced by two legislators — Assemblyman Peter Rivera, a Bronx Democrat, and State Sen. Marty Golden, a Republican from Brooklyn — that would reserve one of the 11 seats on each council for a charter school parent.

I heard today from Micah Lasher, the city’s chief lobbyist in Albany, who said that the city had taken a deeper look at the issue on request from charter advocates and found merit in their argument. (more…)

Charter Parent Action Network Director Valerie Babb addresses charter school parents and students in Albany. (Photo courtesy of the New York City Charter School Center)

An annual caravan of charter school parents to Albany took place today with a specific mission: convince legislators to approve a bill allowing charter parents to run for the city’s local parent councils.

It’s a battle that charter advocates will have to fight without the Department of Education’s help. The city has never supported allowing charter parents to run for parent councils, even as it has encouraged the proliferation of charter schools and allowed them to operate in district space.

State law requires that each school district in the city field an elected parent council, known as a Community Education Council, to provide an avenue for parents to weigh in on schools policy. Some of the council’s duties, such as presiding over public hearings about co-locations, involve charter school issues. But the Bloomberg administration has constrained the councils’ authority and their only statutory function is to redraw school zone lines, which do not affect charter schools. They do not actually approve or reject co-locations.

Still, the CECs are seen as one of the few formal venues for parents to voice opinions about department policies, and charter school parents see the exclusion as an equity issue. They have convinced two legislators — Assemblyman Peter Rivera, a Bronx Democrat, and State Sen. Marty Golden, a Republican from Brooklyn — to introduce a bill that would reserve one of the 11 seats on each council for a charter parent.

“In order to protect our children and their continued access to a great public education, charter parents need and deserve a seat at the table to help inform the decisions about the schools in their neighborhoods,” said Valerie Babb, director of the Charter Parents Action Network, in a statement. “By supporting this legislation, our lawmakers will send a strong signal to families that their voices carry just as much weight as other public school parents in their districts.” (more…)

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer at today's task force announcement

A task force made up of parents and elected officials is calling on state lawmakers to restore some control over city education policy to elected parent councils in each district.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer formed the task force on Community Education Councils in June, after a disastrous election cycle enraged parent leaders. Today, several parent leaders joined Stringer in announcing the task force’s recommendations.

The recommendations include turning oversight of the councils over from the Department of Education to an independent agency, clarifying and broadening the councils’ responsibilities, and streamlining the election process.

Members of the task force were divided over which independent agency should supervise the councils and what specific policies parent leaders should be able to influence. But they all agreed that the DOE is incapable of engaging parent leaders.

“Our report lays out a road map for reforming the chronic mismanagement of the CECs, especially the ongoing failure to truly engage parents in the electoral process,” Stringer said today at a press conference.

Taking control of the CECs away from the DOE would cut at the heart of mayoral control — and would require state legislators to battle Mayor Bloomberg over the role of parents. (more…)

Charging that elected parent councils are “window dressing” that allow the city to avoid listening to families, a member of one of them quit publicly last night.

Brian Rafferty, a member of the Community Education Council for District 24, announced his resignation at the council’s meeting by reading a letter of protest he had written to Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott.

“The Community Education Council serves no purpose other than to be a shield between the Department of Education and the parents of schoolchildren citywide,” Rafferty wrote in the letter, which he also posted on Facebook.

Rafferty echoed complaints that parents around the city have sounded for years about the weak role of the councils, which are seen as one of the few venues for parents to voice opinions about DOE policies, even though their only statutory function is to redraw school zone lines. Over the summer, after a disastrous set of council elections that had to be conducted twice, Walcott replaced the head of the DOE’s family engagement office.

But Rafferty suggested that little has changed since then. He said council members did not receive maps of new school zones until just before a recent public meeting about them, so members could not respond to parents’ criticism.

“We were as blindsided as the parents, and our job, as whipping boys for the DOE, was to take the brunt of the parents’ lashes without any regard to our own opinions on this,” Rafferty said. (more…)

Poorly-handled Community Education Council elections has prompted elected officials to form a new task force of parents that promises to “overhaul” their role in the public school system.

Borough President Scott Stringer and Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio spearheaded efforts to organize parents into the task force over the last several weeks. Today, they announced the group will hold first meeting next week.

“We need real parental involvement, and that begins with making the CECs more democratic and meaningful,” DeBlasio said in a statement.

In advance of the June 22 meeting, a survey was emailed out to hundreds of newly-elected parents this morning to solicit their opinions on how to improve the CECs. Officials said they weren’t sure how many parents would make up the task force, or how long it would last.

Details on what specifically needs to change are also vague. Some parent leaders, such as Noah Gotbaum, an outspoken critic of the CEC structures, have called for an entirely independent office from the DOE.

Others, such as Mary Silver, a CEC member in District 2 since 2005, believe smaller-scale changes could make a big difference.

“Training is key,” said Silver. “My experience has been – because it’s a two year term – it takes parents about a year and a half for them to figure out what exactly their role is. By then, they’re about ready to leave.”

The CECs are made up of volunteer parents and participation often wanes. Many struggle to fill the seats needed to operate as official functioning bodies.

Parental involvement is uniformly hoisted by education advocates as key contributors to a child’s education, including Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott. But the department has tightly managed their voices since Mayor Bloomberg has controlled of the school system..

And critics believe that the mishandled elections are a more realistic barometer of the city’s educational priorities.

The perception of a dwindling parental role seemed to be punctuated earlier this month at the city council budget hearing for education. As part of alternative cuts proposed to Chancellor Dennis Walcott, Speaker Christine Quinn suggested the DOE slash nearly $1 million from the budget for Office of Family Information and Action, which oversees the parent leadership.

In making the task force announcement, Stringer and DeBlasio – and the four other borough presidents with a hand in creating it – weren’t specific about what kind of changes they’d like to see.

“I am confident our new Task Force will give light to the voices of those who are most affected by decisions about our schools – and develop a set of strong, smart recommendations for enabling these bodies to play the role they were intended to in our educational process,” Stringer said in a statement.

Community Education Council 14 President Tessa Wilson said the city should extend the delay of this year's bungled parent council elections.

A day after this year’s troubled parent council elections were postponed by one week, some of their leading critics say the election process is completely on hold.

Yesterday, a group of parents filed a lawsuit asking for a restraining order to halt the elections. Chancellor Dennis Walcott immediately responded by saying he would postpone elections for a week.

After a meeting this afternoon between city lawyers and the lawyers representing the parents who sued over the election proceedings, the elections are now on hold “indefinitely,” according to Chris Owens, executive director of Advocates for Justice, the law firm that filed the suit.

The DOE disputed the account, saying that nothing has changed since yesterday.

“We continue to have discussions with interested parties regarding this matter, but we have not made any further changes to the process and we have a responsibility to ensure that Council members begin their terms on July 1st,” said Deirdrea Miller, a DOE spokeswoman, in a statement.

At a press conference today, elected officials called for the elections to be delayed further, contending that a week was too little time to undo the damage and that the Department of Education has neglected the parent councils, called Community Education Councils.

“The DOE doesn’t care to get it right,” said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. “The CECs never get the support they deserve.” (more…)

Under pressure from elected officials and organized parents, the Department of Education is delaying elections for district parent councils until next week.

For weeks, parent leaders have been simmering with anger over problems in the city’s handling of elections for district Community Education Councils. They have charged that the city did too little to recruit candidates, turned away some eligible parents, and hid the names of candidates behind password protection.

The criticism escalated today, as Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio announced plans for a press conference Tuesday to demand that the city halt the elections, which they called “deeply flawed and undemocratic.” At the same time, a group of parents, spearheaded by Mona Davids of the New York City Parents Union, filed today for a restraining order to halt the elections.

This afternoon, the city announced it would delay the election proceedings by a week. “After reviewing concerns raised by parents and public officials about this year’s Citywide and Community Education Council elections, I have concluded that the process could and should have been handled better,” Chancellor Dennis Walcott said in a statement. (more…)

Following complaints from parents about this year’s council elections, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is calling on the city to postpone the elections for a second time.

Calling the process “badly flawed,” Stringer said that a series of mistakes made by the Department of Education’s Office of Family Information and Action had undermined parents’ confidence in the elections for members of the Community Education Councils. In a letter sent to Chancellor Dennis Walcott, Stringer asked that the city redo the elections.

Walcott responded that the elections would take place, as planned, on May 7.

“I cannot stress enough the importance of parent involvement in our schools and the Office for Family Information and Action will take all necessary steps to ensure that all of our parents have an opportunity to cast a vote in the CEC elections by May 7th,” the chancellor said in a statement. (more…)