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The head of the Department of Education’s public affairs office broke the law when he urged school employees to engage in political lobbying, according to a report today from Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon.

During “Lobby Week” in March, Lenny Speiller, executive director of the DOE’s Office of Public Affairs, inserted language into an email to parent coordinators asking them to share a petition calling on lawmakers to do away with seniority layoff rules for teachers, investigators concluded. Mayor Bloomberg was pushing the policy change heavily at the time. But the state constitution prohibits public employees from engaging in private political lobbying.

Parent coordinators told us that the lobbying had begun months earlier. We reported about the advocacy efforts, which the city immediately disavowed, on March 16. The next day, teachers union president Michael Mulgrew filed an official complaint against the lobbying, and SCI launched an investigation. The union opposes changes to seniority layoff rules.

The petition asked lawmakers to “allow the City to keep it’s [sic] most effective teachers by ending the State’s ‘Last-In, First-Out’ policy, allowing teachers to be retained based on their performance, rather than just seniority.” Speiller told investigators that he suggested that language but didn’t expect it to be included in the petition that parent coordinators were asked to distribute. But other DOE employees said he made clear that his revisions would be included. (more…)

The city should rethink the money used on outside consultants to save the jobs of the school aides, health workers, and parent coordinators who help schools function from the inside.

That was the message delivered by members of DC-37, parents, teachers, activists, and elected officials during a protest on the steps of Tweed Courthouse today against the impending layoffs of nearly 800 school workers, most of them DC-37 members. The cuts – announced Aug. 15 – are slated to take effect in October.

Noah Gotbaum, who is on the District 3 Community Education Council and a parent of three public school children, said the loss of parent coordinators is a significant setback. “One of the only things Bloomberg did right is creating the position of parent coordinator, and now he’s kicking them off,” he said.

Other parents said they were most concerned about how the layoffs would affect their children. “What about  the safety of our children in the lunchroom? In the courtyard? In the hallways? On the buses?” asked Muba Yarofulani, a parent activist who has a chld and the parent of an eighth grader. “Safety is very important and the less school aides we have, the less schools are safe for our children.”

Chancellor Dennis Walcott met with parent coordinators and leaders of Parent Teacher Associations yesterday.

Chancellor Dennis Walcott met the parents last night at a panel session with PTA leaders and parent coordinators that gave him a chance to demonstrate his oft-stated commitment to community outreach.

Walcott also previewed a new survey, called the Chancellor’s Family Feedback Form, that he said will be released later this month.

A flier handed out to parents describes the survey as an opportunity to “Tell us what information about your child is important to you and how you’d like to get it.” The flier advertises a web site for the survey, FamilyFeedback.org, which is not yet live.

Asked for more detailed information, a Department of Education spokeswoman said that the survey is still being developed.

The announcement came as several attendees complained to Walcott about the challenges of getting a response from school officials. “What resources do parents have when principals don’t respond?” one woman said.

“What’s the chain of command here if we have a problem?” asked another attendee. (more…)

Joining 6,400 teachers on the chopping block are 350 parent coordinators whose schools will no longer be required to employ them, Chancellor Joel Klein announced today.

For the first time since the position was created in 2003, high schools will be allowed to go without a parent coordinator, Klein told principals today, saving up to 350 schools just over $40,000 a year each. Parent coordinators whose jobs are eliminated will be at high risk of layoff, according to Department of Education spokeswoman Ann Forte. Elementary and middle schools are still required to keep a parent coordinator on staff.

The instruction is a stark example of how budget cuts could undo some of Mayor Bloomberg’s most ambitious education initiatives. The creation of the parent coordinator position in January 2003 was a central element of Bloomberg and Klein’s early reforms.

Klein also announced today that the Fair Student Funding formula the city devised to fund schools according to their students’ needs no longer covers some schools’ essential costs. (more…)

Raising class sizes by two students per room and making a slew of paid parent coordinators part-time employees are among a slate of options the Independent Budget Office is recommending to City Hall for how to plug the city’s projected $4 billion budget gap.

The IBO list, which went out in a report released this morning, includes 70 ways to cut costs or raise revenue and puts a dollar tag on each option. The city would save $187 million annually by reducing class sizes by two students on average, a change that would require the city to eliminate 2,100 teacher positions, according to the report. Moving parent coordinators who work at schools with fewer than 500 students to part-time status would save $14.9 million, the report says.

The report does not recommend following the options one way or another, instead laying out arguments for and against each one. Those in favor of increasing class sizes, the report says, would argue that research on the costs of marginally larger classes is inconclusive, while opponents would cite research on the benefits of lower class sizes in early grades and the potential risk of driving qualified teachers out of the system. (more…)