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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…)

For the first time, the Department of Education’s charter school office is forcing all New York City charters to start parent associations.

The change is a direct result of the new charter cap legislation that Albany passed in May. In addition to doubling the number of charters allowed to open, the legislature amended state education law to say that charter schools located in New York City must establish parent or parent-teacher associations.

What remained unclear over the summer was whether the new provision would be enforced by the city, or by each school’s individual authorizer.

Today, the acting director of the city’s charter school office, Aaron Listhaus, sent a memo to leaders of all of the city’s charter schools — regardless of who authorized them or when — instructing them to start forming parent organizations if they have not done so already.

Listhaus gave the schools an October 1 deadline to check in with his office on their progress starting a parent group. Charter school authorizers have never before had to track whether their schools have parent groups. Hard numbers about how many schools will be affected by the change were not available today. But Listhaus and a spokeswoman from the New York City Charter School Center estimated that a majority of city charter schools currently do have parent organizations.

The full memo from Listhaus to charter school leaders is below: (more…)

Parent-paid teaching assistants may be able to keep their jobs for at least another year under a tentative agreement reached today by parents and city officials.

The proposed solution came from schools chancellor Joel Klein, who recommended that teaching assistants who are hired and paid for by parent associations be renamed “substitute school aides.” Though the change appears to be cosmetic, the new job title allows parents to bypass the citywide hiring freeze and retain their current employees at a similar salary to what they’ve paid for years.

According to Department of Education officials, calling parent-paid support staff “substitute school aides,”  would allow them to work under D.C. 37 union rules, rather than those of the teachers union (though they would not be D.C. 37 members). Under the D.C. 37 contract, substitute school aides are paid about $12 per hour and are not given benefits — conditions that mirror their current work situation. Parent associations can pay them throughout the year, rather than having to collect all the money before school starts, as some had worried. Were these employees to become members of the teachers union, they would have to be paid significantly more and receive benefits, which few parent associations say they can afford to offer. (more…)

Parent leaders and city officials are finally meeting tomorrow to discuss the crackdown on teaching assistants hired by parent associations.

In the weeks since the Department of Education announced it would begin enforcing a long-ignored policy that requires parent associations to employ union members at union salaries, parents have scrambled to come up with ways to keep their school aides. But some have said they’re working in the dark, and without a clear understanding of whether they’ll be able to choose the people they hire or determine how much to pay them.

The meeting, which will be held at 10:30 a.m. at Tweed Courthouse, will include parent association members, elected officials, DOE employees, and a representative from the teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers. It was a complaint from the union that prompted the DOE to begin enforcing its policy.

Patrick Sullivan, co-president of the Parent Teacher Association at the Lower Lab School (P.S. 77), said the meeting had been called so that DOE officials could explain the policy to parent leaders and so parents could offer solutions of their own.

“I think there’s going to be a range of proposals,” Sullivan said, adding that among them would be the suggestion to create new job titles for support staff. (more…)

We don’t know how large voter turnout is so far, but it’s clearly impressive. As Mayor Bloomberg said this morning, “Anybody that thinks that democracy is not working in America just has to look today.”

Will the civic engagement be sustained?

One way for parents to stay engaged, of course, would be to get active in their child’s public school. The teachers union is holding its annual conference Saturday on how to do that. About 3,000 parents are expected to show up, and although formal registration has closed, a person at the union just told me that if parents still want to sign up, they can, by calling 212-598-9025.

At the conference, parents will find workshops on subjects including how to understand new standardized tests and how to deal with gang violence. Maybe parents could also discuss which PTA’s held bake sales and which didn’t.

Another incentive to show up: Philissa, who has attended the conference for the last three years (representing Insidechools.org — she’s not a parent yet!), says that last year Hillary Clinton made an  unannounced appearance. More details after the jump. (more…)