With Deal, Staff at 2 Struggling Schools in Brooklyn Must Reapply for Jobs
By
ELIZABETH A. HARRISNOV. 7
Caster Hall, the president of the PTA at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, on Friday. Credit Michael Appleton for The New York Times
The de Blasio administration said on Friday that it would require the entire staff at two of New York City’s lowest performing schools to reapply for their jobs next year, the result of a deal with the teachers’ and principals’ union that came just before a state deadline.
The plan, affecting two Brooklyn schools — Boys and Girls High School in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Automotive High School in Greenpoint — is a different approach to achieving a familiar goal. During the Bloomberg administration, many low-performing schools were closed and then replaced by smaller schools with new programs, and new staffs. In this case, the existing school remains, but the staff may not.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has been criticized, mainly by
charter school advocates, as being too slow to come up with a plan for failing schools. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s policy of closing schools created space for
charter schools, but Mr. de Blasio has shown little desire to enact such measures.
The deal came just days after Mr. de Blasio announced his own approach to helping 94 persistently low-performing schools, one rooted in the philosophy that schools’ troubles were not a fault of the staff so much as students’ circumstances, and that those circumstances could be ameliorated. That plan includes spending $150 million to add staff members to the schools, extending the academic day by an hour and turning them into so-called community schools that offer mental health, vision care and other social services.
The two Brooklyn schools, which are among the 94, need further measures because they are on a state list of “Out of Time” schools, which have performed so poorly for so long that they require more extensive changes. Only 5 percent of seniors at Boys and Girls were considered “college ready” last year; at Automotive, it was 8 percent.
The de Blasio administration and unions agreed to the plan for the two schools on Thursday, the day before it was due to be submitted to the State
Education Department. The state approved it on Friday, on the condition that the city submit more detailed plans by Dec. 19.
“Instead of dividing school communities, we’re bringing together students, parents, teachers and principals around a new vision and investing the resources needed to turn things around,” Mayor de Blasio said in a statement on Friday. “But we are serious about accountability, and we’ll take whatever steps are needed to give our kids the fresh start they deserve.”
The city said it would watch whether test scores, attendance and graduation rates go up. This week, the mayor said that closing a school remained an option if it did not improve.
There are 130 teachers and administrators now at the two schools, and judging by the reaction on Friday, the plan will not be universally embraced.
“This is their way of weeding through us — harassment, unfairness,” said Tasha Scott, 40, a paraprofessional in the special education department of Boys and Girls who has worked there for 15 years. “We’re all stressed out in there, we’re turning against each other, they’re forcing us to be back stabbers.”
Other staff members said they were less concerned, or at least more resigned. Caster Hall, the president of the Parent-Teachers Association at Boys and Girls and the father of a sophomore, said he supported the plan.
“We have some good teachers in here and some teachers who are not doing their job,” he said. “They’re trying to weed out the bad teachers. It’s good they have to reapply.”
New and returning staff members at the two schools would be required to participate in extra professional development sessions over the summer. Teachers who are not chosen to remain at the schools will still stay on the city payroll.
During the Bloomberg administration, more than 1,000 teachers, many of them from closed schools, were left without permanent positions. The de Blasio administration’s agreement with the unions seeks to avoid that problem by guaranteeing the teachers access to open jobs, though principals will have the power to remove them if they do not work out.
As part of the deal with the unions, teacher hiring decisions will be made by a committee at each school. Teachers’ union representatives and designees, including parents selected by the union, will make up half of the seats. If the committee cannot agree on whether to hire a particular person, the chancellor and union head will make a joint decision, or submit it to an arbitrator.
Jenny Sedlis, the executive director of Students First New York, an advocacy group that was closely aligned with the Bloomberg administration, criticized the composition of the hiring committee, calling the plan “entirely oriented around the needs of adults.”
“That staff need to reapply for their jobs is good, but what kinds of standards are they setting?” Ms. Sedlis said.
City officials said they were confident the parent representatives would represent parents, not union interests. They also said that while the restaffing deal addressed just two schools, it could be a template for others that consistently fail to perform.
“Boys and Girls and Automotive have struggled longer than anyone can remember,” Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña said on Friday. “Today, we’re showing that we can and we will take every step necessary to ensure every child has a great education.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/n...rming-schools-must-reapply-for-jobs.html?_r=0