Results tagged “publicschool”

While in Washington D.C. yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg said the city will start to use students' test scores when evaluating teacher tenure. The NY Times called the proposal one "that has been bitterly opposed by the teachers’ union and criticized as putting too much weight on standardized exams."

Now it turns out that one of the public school students given the swine flu vaccine without parental consent had to go to the emergency room after getting sick. Six-year-old Nikiyah Torres, who suffers from epilepsy (her parents had been waiting to see what their family doctor said about the swine flu vaccine) told WCBS 2, "He just gave me the needle, without asking me what is my name."

The NYC Health department is starting its swine flu vaccine program at 128 elementary schools today. According to WCBS 2, 40,000 doses were set aside for the students: "School nurses at those sites will administer the nasal spray vaccine starting Wednesday to students whose parents have signed consent forms. Nurses expect to vaccinate 15 to 25 kids per day, per school."

While the NY Times' story on a Harlem charter school's kindergarten visit to the Queens County Farm Museum might just seem like a human interest story, there's actually a serious reason behind it: The state's English and math tests seem biased towards kids with knowledge of farms. There are "several questions each year about livestock, crops and the other staples of the rural experience that some educators say flummox city children, whose knowledge of nature might begin and end at Central Park. On the state English test this year, for instance, third graders were asked questions relating to chickens and eggs. In math, they had to count sheep and horses." Oh no!!!

After school principals howled over a new deal between the city and teachers union that allowed teachers to return to school on the same day as students, the city has announced that the 2009-2010 will start on September 9 (a Wednesday), instead of September 8, the Tuesday after Labor Day. The school year will also end a day later. Mayor Bloomberg said, "This agreement will allow us keep the school year intact with kids in the classroom for the same number of days, while providing teachers and principals an administrative day to prepare for the arrival of students." Principals, who had complained teachers were missing the chance to organize their classrooms and that the first day of school would be chaotic, are pleased, though there previously were two administrative days before school's start. Ernest Logan, president of the principals union, said, "Common sense prevails."

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chanceller Joel Klein happily announced that New York City elementary and middle school students "made significant gains at every grade level on the State’s annual math test, substantially narrowing the achievement gap with students in the rest of New York State." Now, 81.8% of city student are at or above their grade-level math standards, compared to 88.9% statewide. of students in the rest of the State.

Zany teens, what will they think of next? The NY Times has a front page article about how today's teens greet each other with hugs. A Montvale NJ high school junior says, "We’re not afraid, we just get in and hug. The guy friends, we don’t care. You just get right in there and jump in," while a San Francisco alternative middle schooler puts it, "We like to get cozy. The high-five is, like, boring.” And if you don't hug? Pffft-a freshman at Laguardia High in Manhattan explains, "If somebody were to not hug someone, to never hug anybody, people might be just a little wary of them and think they are weird or peculiar." Question: Do the goth kids hug? Apparently some sociologists think this is a result of "growing up in an era of organized play dates and close parental supervision," but one warns, "Without question, the boundaries of touch have changed in American culture. We display bodies more readily, there are fewer rules governing body touch and a lot more permissible access to other people’s bodies." Which is why some high schools, like Hillsdale High in NJ, ban hugs. Related: The Today show on the scourge of high school hugging.

The NY Times reports, "A parent council in Manhattan and the city’s teachers’ union sued the Department of Education on Monday, contending that the department had not adequately consulted with the council in deciding which schools to close and in altering school boundaries." While the community education councils—which include parents of students—are supposed to be have power over school zoning, District 2's council (representing the East Side and Lower Manhattan; there are 32 districts total) contends that the DOE has been unresponsive to their concerns. Council president Rebecca Daniels tells the Times, "We were trying very hard and we just weren’t getting the kind of communication we needed. The reporting to parents and hearing their feedback was just not happening." She blames mayoral control for squeezing parents out of the equation—and leaving them and their children helpless when schools close. The state is in the process of determining whether to continue mayoral control; a Times editorial backed continuing mayoral control of schools, but noted, "Some fine-tuning aimed at giving parents and communities more access is in order."

With the city facing enacting a grim budget, the economic downturn is hitting all agencies The NY Times reports that, last week, the Department of Education "ordered principals to fill vacancies with internal candidates only...in an effort to cut costs and avoid teacher layoffs." Which means teaching school graduates, as well as teachers from Teach for America and the Teaching Fellows program, are now looking for work at private schools, charter schools or outside the city. Last year, the DOE hired 5,725 new teachers—about a third from Teach for America and the Teaching fellows programs, about two-thirds were from teaching schools. This year, aside from specialized positions like speech therapy, "principals can fill spots only with internal candidates, including teachers from a reserve pool made up of those whose jobs have been eliminated and many who have earned unsatisfactory ratings." A woman who left a non-teaching field to pursue an education degree at St. John's aid, "The stability in teaching was something that was I looking for. That has been turned on its head."

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein faced a tough crowd in Albany yesterday, as state lawmakers grilled him about mayoral control of the public school system. State Sen. Bill Perkins (D-Harlem) said, "Mayoral control has been a disaster for parents. It has not gotten better... In communities of color, parents are fleeing their schools." To which Klein replied, "Truly, I see it so differently from you. When you create options for parents, what you're doing is giving them a lifeline for their children. The politics of it is very different from the reality." State Sen. Micah Kellner (D-East Side) said, "I think we’re all fed up that the Education Department spends a lot of time and money on spin doctoring what we know are problems." Some lawmakers suggest that the mayor appoint fewer members of Panel for Educational Policy (the PEP replaced the Board of Ed. and Bloomberg appoints eight of 13 members and fire them whenever he wants) and/or that the members are given terms so they can't be fired as easily.

Hundreds of Junior High School students, parents and teachers gathered for an angry protest outside JHS 8 in South Jamaica, Queens yesterday morning to call for the removal of controversial principal Dr. John Murphy (not pictured). Since taking over in 2005, Murphy has improved the school's rating from a D to a B, and the school just came off the state's list of failing schools. But yesterday protesters declared Murphy's management style abusive and intolerable. Music teacher David Butler tells Channel 7 News, "His office is used as a place of intimidation, where teachers come out crying and bang on walls. I've experienced that myself."

Yesterday afternoon, a 16-year-old boy was stabbed by another student on the third floor of I.S. 49, which is on Graham Avenue in Williamsburg. The school was on lockdown for over 2 hours and a suspect was arrested. NY1 reports, "After parents were allowed to pick up their children, they still remained concerned about their long-term safety in the school, claiming that the school lacks basic security measures like metal detectors." However, the school tried to reassure them, with a letter stating, "I want to assure you that this was an isolated incident. Fights and altercations of similar nature rarely occur." The victim, who attends the Green School for Environmental Careers located inside I.S. 49, is in stable condition at Bellevue.

With more focus being put on public schools improving standardized test scores, should we be surprised that a high school administrator is accused of falsifying answers? Department of Education investigators say that High School for Contemporary Arts Assistant Principal Ruth Ralston "brazenly erased 1,000 wrong answers on her students' algebra Regents exams and swapped them for the correct responses," according to the Post." The NY Times reports someone noticed that "1,013 multiple-choice answers had been erased and changed — in 94 percent of the cases, from incorrect to correct." Suspicion fell on Ralston, who held the uncorrected exams after students took them and before they were graded. She had also been told her $109K/year job might be eliminated due to budget cuts--"while a high passing rate on the exam might not save her job, 'it could help her search for a new position.'" (The Post says she's still working there three days a week.)

The 10th grade schoolteacher who was fired for calling his students "filthy animals who belonged in a f---ing zoo" has opened up to the Daily News. Last week Steven Clarke's lawsuit against against the Education Department was thrown out, with Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Shafer ruling that the principal at the Global Enterprise Academy was justified in terminating Clarke because "he had verbally abused students."

Tenth grade teacher and proud Cornell alum Steven Clarke (not pictured) lost his lawsuit against the Education Department yesterday. Clarke had been fired from his teaching fellowship at the Global Enterprise Academy in the Bronx after he told another teacher, in the presence of students, that, "My parents did not sacrifice for me to go to Cornell so I could take care of a bunch of animals." He then went on to describe the 10th-graders as "filthy animals who belonged in a f- - -ing zoo." Called on the carpet by the school's principal, Clarke refused to apologize, explaining that he was not speaking to the students directly, and that he was merely responding to one student's instruction to "get the f- - - out of my face." Supreme Court Justice Marilyn Shafer ruled that Clarke's termination was permissible because "he had verbally abused students."

The NYC public school system, the largest in the country, is way too crowded, according to the Daily News. Some of the statistics: One school in the Bronx is "at 200% capacity"--kindergarten students are bused to other schools, the halls are used for tutoring-- while another school "was built for 800 students, but enrollment is currently 1,147." An Upper East school is "supposed to have 433 students but has 647," and Tribeca's coveted PS 234 "is a 501-seat school that houses 748 students," thanks to the surge in residential development downtown. A group called A Better Capital Plan will be rallying for the city to build schools based on what the neighborhood needs, versus looking at the whole district. And overcrowding is not a new issue.

In a world where lawsuits against coffee spillers have been filed and settled for considerable sums, you'd have to wonder what the parents of a 4-year-old pre-K student in Brooklyn are thinking, after their son was scalded when a teacher spilled hot coffee on his head.

The Department of Eduction confirmed that there is a case of tuberculosis at P.S. 25 in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Apparently a paraprofessional (like a teacher's aide) was diagnosed and students are being tested "as a precautionary measure." The school is not being closed.

Concerns about school overcrowding dovetailed into condominium construction plans at 331 East 91st Street, where a crane collapse this morning left at least one person dead.

A 16-year-old student at James Madison High School was arrested after a teacher discovered a note outlining a murderous plot. Apparently Badrakh Byambadorj was planning on both blowing up the school and killing three people-- according to the NY Times, "a teacher, a student and an employee at the McDonald’s across the street"--as well as others at an intersection.

Some tardy students at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn tell the Post they aren't being allowed inside the school when they arrive late. And since they can't get into the school, many decide to skip out the whole day.

Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum announced findings of a new report that reveal public school students are getting much, much less physical education than they should be. Based on data from 100 randomly selected schools, only 4% of third graders and only 12% of fourth graders participated in daily mandated P.E. classes.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an officer shot on Vandalia Ave & Ardlsey Loop in Brooklyn, a gas leak at Dongan Pl. off Broadway in Manhattan, and an aircraft emergency at JFK in Queens.
• The City's investigating whether its artificial turf fields are poisonous.
• The Brooklyn Paper finds Obama did get votes in many Brooklyn districts (here's the congressional district breakdown for all of NYC).
• Blogging by athletes at the summer Olympics in China will be allowed. Blogging about the summer Olympics by athletes will be highly restricted.
• The father of the three children murdered by their mother is suing Nassau County for $60 million.
• Rupert Murdoch's ownership of Dow Jones is practically unnoticeable, unless one is longtime Wall Street Journal First Amendement lawyer Stuart Karle. He's fired.
• St. Saviour's demolition was halted by the Department of Environmental Protection.
• This time arguing over a grade worked: The City will revise public school report cards issued last year, after feedback from pretty much everyone.

In a few days the city will begin its promised crackdown on the glut of parking placards issued to civil servants. But according to Uncivil Servants, a website that documents illegally parked cars displaying city permits, employees of Park East, an Upper East Side synagogue, have been using bogus DIY parking placards for years. And since they don’t even work for the city, their privileges won’t be affected by the new rules.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Livingston St. in Brooklyn, another bank robbery on 2nd Ave. in Manhattan, and a third bank robbery on 71-41 Main St. in Queens.
• Even diamonds can get family members riled up and stabbing this way and that.
• Something Into Plowshares: behold the transformed Park Slope Armory.
• Toys in Babeland coming to family-friendly Park Slope. The Pink Pussycat Boutique, which operates across the street from a public school soldiers on.
• A NJ woman was arrested after the death of an ex-police officer who died while undergoing plastic surgery by an unlicensed surgeon.
• The touch, the feel, of cotton handed out to passersby in NYC.
• The body of a man discovered dead with his mouth covered in duct tape in a Best Western Hotel has been deemed suspicious by the cops.
• Barry Feinstein, a long-time member of the MTA board of directors, is stepping down after a fruitful run.

They may have grown up privileged and prepped for success from birth, but a record number of four-year-olds are facing rejection from New York's top kindergarten programs. Fortunately, the parents of the doomed children are probably still young enough to procreate again and hope for better chances with their younger progeny.

A UPS delivery man saw the body of a retired police sergeant, shot in the torso, on the floor of a Howard Beach home and called 911. The police arrested the sergeant's wife and charged her with murder.

Everyone wants the subway to be cheaper - some are just a little more desperate about it. Michael Garetano decided to get crafty and rubber cemented a student fare MetroCard magnetic strip to a regular Metrocard.

The fight over the right for school children to bear cell phones in schools moved to the Appellate Court, where lawyers for NYC and public school students' parents appeared before a five-judge panel. This comes after the City Council passed a bill allowing cell phones in schools, which the Mayor vetoed.

A 17-year-old student at Massapequa High School died of bacterial meningitis yesterday. Michael Gruber had gone to bed with flu-like symptoms on Wednesday and on Thursday morning his parents were unable to wake him up. He died at New Island Hospital.