City says strapped schools can go without parent coordinators
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. To compensate for the outsized cuts at those schools, the department will redistribute money from schools with less lean budgets. While the shift technically does not deconstruct Fair Student Funding, it effectively makes it moot for the time being.
“No school’s FSF budget will be reduced as a result of the shift, and we are, of course, working to ensure it will have only a minimal impact on your schools,” Klein told principals in an email this afternoon.
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. To compensate for the outsized cuts at those schools, the department will redistribute money from schools with less lean budgets. While the shift technically does not deconstruct Fair Student Funding, it effectively makes it moot for the time being.
“No school’s FSF budget will be reduced as a result of the shift, and we are, of course, working to ensure it will have only a minimal impact on your schools,” Klein told principals in an email this afternoon.
Remainders: With less money, fewer choices on the lunch line
- Teachers in withdrawal after last night’s “Lost” finale can try out some lesson plans inspired by the show.
- City Councilman Oliver Koppell showed off a good non-charter school, PS 7, to Mayor Bloomberg today.
- Arguing against seniority layoffs, Chancellor Klein points to Malvola Lewis, a PS 40 teacher who’s at risk.
- Budget cuts could eliminate school choice guides and choices in the cafeteria line for city students.
- The DOE spruced up its homepage a little bit today. Don’t see a difference? Look for the Twitter icons.
- An overview of the myriad reports the DOE puts out about its schools, by a school-searching Mommy.
- Politics, not school quality, appear to have put SUNY in jeopardy as a charter school authorizer.
- New Utrecht HS (which my grandparents attended!) is planning ahead for its 100th birthday in 2015.
- A pro-charter school group reports that unions have long opposed charter schools.
- A Washington Post reporter double-checked some of the data in Steven Brill’s Race to the Top article.
- Randi Weingarten is accusing Brill of fabricating a quote from her. Brill is mystified by the charge.
- Folks who don’t win Race to the Top can at least win Race to High-Quality Research funding.
- Flypaper blogger and USDOE aide Andy Smarick will be New Jersey’s deputy education commissioner.
- PS 29 mom Claiborne Williams Milde reports on celebrity chef Rachel Ray’s visit to the school’s garden.
- Massachusetts, which has tough standards, kind of has to agree to new standards sight unseen. Crazy!
- The coming common standards don’t say anything about English language learners.
- Bad news for the MySpaceTwitterChatroulette generation: Multitasking isn’t good for kids’ brains.