GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

A dispute over who would take the fall if something goes wrong inside struggling schools is delaying a federally funded turnaround effort that had already gotten off to a slow start.

As part of its application to secure school improvement grants, the city agreed to hand over operations to independent education organizations at 14 of its lowest-performing schools through a process called “restart.” The Department of Education selected six nonprofits to take over the reins at those schools, awarding them more than $17 million altogether.

But four months after the groups started working in the schools, the money remains in the city coffers.

The sticking point is that city lawyers want the groups, known as educational partnership organizations, to cover their own legal costs for any litigation brought by teachers, principals, staff or students in the schools they’re working in.

The proposition is controversial because the groups are replacing an authority figure — the superintendent — who does not actually carry any of the liability costs. The DOE is effectively an insurance carrier for superintendents, so when a lawsuit challenges, for example, a teacher rating that the superintendent signed off on, the DOE bears the legal costs.

The EPOs said they assumed they would have the same protection against legal liability, known as indemnification, because the state’s regulations mandate that they adopt all of the roles and responsibilities of each school’s superintendent. But according to several EPO directors, the city’s initial contract language treats them like vendors providing services to the schools, not managing everything from hiring to budgeting to discipline.

“It’s been several months of frustration over what we see as a fairly straightforward issue,” said a program director from one of the EPOs. “We feel we should be covered to the same extent that a superintendent would be covered in the case of a lawsuit.” (more…)