March 2001

The Nyack administration has proposed scheduling changes to add academic labs for some 9^th graders. It’s also talking about re-scheduling the Middle School for a nine period day.

The goal in both cases is the same: to get more time to teach to the new State tests. The possible trade-off is reducing or eliminating electives such as art and music.

Amazed you’ve never heard of this? Imagine how the district staff felt. Many high school employees added their names to a letter which expressed their unhappiness at having no voice whatsoever in this decision. The proposal – which came out of central office -- even took much of the school board by surprise.

At press time, a final decision on these changes has not been made. But more and more, Nyack’s teachers and parents are uniting in their common frustration at how much the administration is willing to give up for the tests – including open communication and shared decision making.

PIE RECEIVES MAJOR GRANT; IMPLEMENTS DISTRICT-WIDE TUTORING PROGRAM

Nyack Partners in Education (PIE), a grass roots non-profit educational group, has received a grant for more than $10,000 from the Joseph and Claire Flom Foundation.

Along with matching contributions from individuals, the grant is funding a tutoring project which is currently reaching more than sixty children in a variety of innovative programs.

The PIE tutoring project for the 2000-01 school year includes a Saturday Morning reading program designed to reinforce basic reading skills for children K-2. While the children read and write, many of their mothers are taking a PIE-supported tutorial in English. At the same time, PIE is collaborating with the Nyack Middle School in conducting writing workshops for over thirty low-achieving eighth graders. PIE is also providing individual tutors for a number of children in the district, as well as "homework helpers": secondary school students acting as mentors for younger children. All of these programs are free of charge.

The Joseph and Claire Flom Foundation, which awarded PIE funding for this and other projects, is a private, independent grant-making foundation whose goal is "to strengthen the nation’s educational system by stimulating new approaches to learning." The Foundation’s primary focus is on "programs for gifted disadvantaged children and youth, and programs designed to promote tolerance and understanding and counter prejudice among the young."

"The Flom Foundation was interested in PIE’s track record for modeling innovative projects," says Rich Guay, a long-standing member of PIE. "The more data that comes out, the clearer it is that the recent over-emphasis on state tests will disproportionately hurt low income children. Our tutoring programs are trying to provide for these children what the district’s better-off students have always been able to afford. We’re very excited about and grateful for the grant."

PIE’s current tutoring project is reaching many of the families that have been left out under the present system. "With my husband and me both working two jobs, " says Danie Cange, parent of a sixth-grader and a first-grader who are taking part in the PIE program, "we couldn’t provide all the help our children needed. The attention they’re getting through PIE is making a big difference."

PIE hopes its current project can serve as a model to Nyack and other school districts. "If someone doesn’t provide this kind of intensive, individualized tutoring," says the co-ordinator of PIE’s tutoring program, Marta Renzi, "more and more children are going to end up written off. We’re trying to create a web of support with professionals and volunteers helping to connect the school with the home."

AN OPEN LETTER ON SPECIAL EDUCATION

The triennial test scores and other annual achievement test scores must be routinely reviewed, as required by Federal law. Where the numbers prove that a student is falling behind, immediate and substantive action must be taken. We will no longer tolerate students 'getting lost' because no one was paying attention.
In the attempt to integrate LD students into the mainstream, the proven remediations of multi-sensory instruction, one-on-one instruction and small group instruction (six students or less) must not be abandoned. There must be a recognition of the complexity of the task. There is no "one size fits all" solution for the LD child.
The new Regents standards offer a great opportunity to improve the quality of instruction for our LD students. Legally and morally, as a district we cannot refuse to meet the challenge.

SUMMER SCHOOL: IS IT WORKING? … HELLO? HELLO? … IS ANYBODY THERE?

Seven months later, what she had really learned about was the district’s basic resistance to sharing information.

From her initial question to a helpful response took seven months, three letters, and numerous phone calls.

When she finally got the data, it showed that 147 ninth through twelfth graders went to summer school last year. The largest number was in grade eleven where about a quarter of the class attended. Sixty percent of the summer school was students of color. Over a quarter of the students failed their summer courses. The highest enrolled class was Math Regents 1, where there were 37 students, 23 of whom passed.

If you’d like a complete copy of the summer school data, call Nyack PIE. We guarantee we’ll get it to you in less than seven months.

The administration has asked for in-put on next year’s school budget. Because many parents and community members can’t make it to board meetings, we have gathered the following suggestions and offer them here.

There is widespread agreement that the Middle School is the weakest part of our system. Recent horrendous test scores are the symptom, not the disease. The problem is not in the teachers – many of whom are first-class – but in how the Middle School is organized. It makes no sense to have a single guidance counselor for 200 pre-adolescents. The whole idea of Middle School (as opposed to Junior High) is that it should be smaller, more intimate, and more personal: an environment somewhere in the middle between elementary and high school. Nyack Middle School needs teacher-student advisories. That means regular, 40-minute homeroom periods so the kids have at least one adult in the school who knows them well -- and can check on homework, emotional problems, etc. Next year’s budget should include money to institute advisories and make the Middle School age-appropriate.

Two main areas of concern emerged when it came to elementary school reform: One is the disparity between our three schools. Liberty Elementary is regularly the top-scoring school; Upper Nyack is often on the bottom. Beyond test scores, Liberty has for a number of years been the only elementary school with mixed-age classrooms. What else is it doing that the other two schools aren’t? This year’s budget should include money for a parent/teacher district-wide committee to bring best-teaching practices to all three elementary schools.

Secondly, concerned parents are still waiting for an understandable description of the district’s reading program. Why, many have asked us, did the district recently spend the time and money to mail the "English Language Arts Curriculum" to parents? It is unreadable. Most parents have already thrown away this obvious re-hash of State mandates. This year’s budget should include money specifically to implement a reading program that progresses from first through fifth grade, including on-going teacher training and a comp reading program with a qualified staff that reaches all children.

Nyack’s special education department, despite fine teachers, is without qualified leadership and remains confusing and intimidating to most parents. [See Tracy Mann’s letter.] This year’s budget should include money to re-organize special education with an emphasis on new leadership, parent-friendly reports, and the full involvement of teachers in designing a program to answer each child’s needs.

After three sessions of a highly acclaimed program run by the People’s Institute, the administration has quietly let the whole idea drop. The budget should include money for the People’s Institute (not the district) to run its anti-racism workshops until the remaining three-quarters of the staff has had a chance to participate in it.

We look forward to a budget that includes the above items and hope all voters will express their ideas about the budget to the administration and board before the choice is reduced to Yes or No.

PIE THROWS COMMUNITY BASH

What was the occasion? Nothing in particular. PIE let people know about its tutoring program, new friends were made, and old allies re-connected. We’re thinking of doing it again this Spring – maybe outdoors. Want to come?

Unfortunately, starting with our current superintendent, the district has tended to hire a certain kind of educator, over and over again.

Now, the district is in the process of hiring a high school principal. The search firm has recommended eight candidates; the hiring committee has been asked to reduce that to four or five; the superintendent will then recommend three to the school board.

In a district which claims to pride itself on its diversity, the question is whether we can get away from a single, narrow definition of what a "qualified candidate" looks, acts, and thinks like.

It’s as if the district ran a music appreciation class that only listened to Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, and Vic Damone. Our children deserve the full range of educational ideas that are out there, not just what they already know.