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Parents, students, and staff gathered to show support for Legacy

Carolyn Blackette wasn’t thrilled when she first found out her daughter would be attending Legacy High School for Integrated Studies because of its reputation. Blackette’s daughter had been assigned to the school after not getting into any of her high school choices, so Blackette marched down to the Department of Education to protest. A DOE employee convinced her that it was a good school and moving in the right direction under new leadership. Still skeptical, Blackette went to orientation — and fell in love with Legacy.

Within the first four months of school, she has received a personal call from the principal to make sure her daughter was adjusting comfortably, had frequent correspondences with teachers about her daughter’s performance, and witnessed her daughter welcomed into a warm school environment.

“I’ve been through the system before,” Blackette said, having put several other children through public schools. “I’ve never seen them take such interest in a child.”

With such an overwhelmingly positive experience, Blackette was shocked – as were other Legacy parents and students – to hear the school was placed on the chopping block last week when the DOE proposed its phaseout.

On Wednesday night, Thomas Fox, a DOE official that works with a number of schools including Legacy, facilitated a public hearing on Legacy’s proposed phaseout. As soon as parents and students caught wind of the event, they mobilized to rally – painting black and red “Save Legacy” tees, posting fliers around the school, making phone calls to bring in the troops. Approximately 100 staff members, students, and parents filled the cafeteria to hear what Fox would say and to push back.  (more…)

The total number of budget appeals filed by principals are way up this year, confirming our report last month that school leaders were finding their budgets more unworkable.

The Department of Education received 253 official budget appeals from principals last month, a 50 percent spike over last year, according to figures released today.

The surge reflects the fiscal challenges facing many of the city’s public school system, where principals say they are doing more with less.

This year, the DOE trimmed $178 million from its schools budget, its third straight year of cuts. As a result, we wrote last month, some principals were forced to stretch their dollars are far as they could go and were still unable to come up with enough funds for basic needs.

Lisa Siegman, a principal at P.S. 3 in the West Village who publicly lobbied for more money, said she wouldn’t be able open in September because she “couldn’t staff the school” with enough teachers.

The last-ditch effort in the budget process, which ended on July 22, was to an file appeal. An appeal is a formal request that requires principals to propose how much more money they need and to provide a doomsday scenario of what services they would lose if funding weren’t restored.  Principals also have to include any significant changes that affected their latest budget, such as the loss of Title 1 funding and student population changes. (more…)