SWCC Education Committee Minutes for Wednesday June 18, 2014 Meeting at the Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence

SW Common Council Education Committee

At the Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence

929 S Plymouth Avenue

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

The Meeting convened at 6:40 pm.

Participants: John Boutet (19^th Ward Resident, SWCC Education Committee Chair, Location19.org manager), Dan Carver (PLEX Resident, per diem teacher in district), Howard Eagle (Former RCSD social studies teacher - 23yrs, Adjunct Lecturer S.U.N.Y. Brockport, School Board candidate, Education Management, Jennifer Lenio (Librarian in charge of 5 Southern Branches), Dean Schove (19^th Ward parent), Tamara Schove (19^th Ward parent, SW YMCA),

FR=EE (Facing Race, Embracing Equity)

After introductions we started the discussion of FR=EE. At this point all those of us present had taken part in the FR=EE Race and Education workshop at our March 26th SWCC Education Committee meeting. Dan Carver and I had also attended the FR=EE Summit on May 31st and participated in its Race and Education breakout session. Non of us had attended the June 11th meeting.

At our March workshop we had basically discussed three goals FR=EE had identified:

Every Rochester student will be able to read, write and do math at or above grade level, or to the best of his or her individual potential.
RCSD will increase the number of educators of color, and in partnership with FR=EE's Race and Education Workgroup, develop a comprehensive ongoing professional development process for all RCSD employees.
Authentic opportunities will be created for parents, guardians and caretakers to plarticipate equitably in all major decision making processes at the school and central office levels.

They had been reviewing these at many workshops with many city groups and brought the results back to their Race and Education Workgroup which compiled these into six goals. Those six goals were presented at the May 31^st FR=EE Summit education breakout session and two priority goals were selected to focus on:

The RCSD will develop comprehensive, ongoing, mandatory, anti-racist, culturally responsive professional development training for all RCSD employees.
Development of an Anchor School which would embody everything we believe a school should have. (This School would serves as the center of activity for their neighborhood providing opportunities for parents to connect and build coalitions and to learn how to access available resources for personal and community enhancement.)

At this point Howard Eagle arrived. He had attended the June 11 Race and Education Meeting and reviewed some FR=EE background and the takeaways from that June 11 meeting as well as one on the 10^th. Over the past 2 years around 200 people have come and gone attending some of the meetings and there is a core group of about 9 regulars. Twenty-seven people who had not previously been involved with FR=EE attended that meeting on the 11th. At that meeting all 6 goals including the 2 priority goals were reviewed. The day before, June 10^th, the core group from had met with representatives of all the RCSD unions, Van White and members of the administration. They agreed to stay involved and agreed on most of the goals reviewed with them. There was one sticking point on the question of making sensitivity training mandatory. Results of the june 10^th meeting were discussed on the 11^th. On the 2^nd priority goal with the Anchor School FR=EE had contacted School 19 as a possible school to use as the Anchor School. They had not heard back from them for several week but just heard back that they would discuss this further once their preoccupation with testing subsides. One new goal was proposed meeting for having FR=EE endorse one of two School Board candidates in the next election since support from the board is crucial to effective implementation of the FR=EE goals. The June 11 meeting was at 550 East main street at the ABC building. The next Race and Education meeting will be at the same location on June 25^th at 7:00pm.

A video of the FR=EE Review and Discussion is at: http://youtu.be/zfChvIQGgC4

Vision Quest Update

John Boutet presented an update of Vision Quest developments over the past several months. Howard was not familiar with Vision Quest so this served to introduce their efforts to him. The Vision Quest objective is to be a teacher/parent/community led school which selects its own administrator/principal. The program would focus heavily on the arts and the teaching style would be project based. They are talking about Vision Quest being partly a neighborhood school with about 50% neighborhood students and also being a city wide magnet school of the arts. They would like to have a selection process for their students that encourages parents coming in to the school for the selection process. They are favoring having the school somewhere in the SW quadrant. They have had their eye on School 16 in the 19^th Ward as an attractive site but are flexible on a site. They would prefer a school that is starting from scratch but are resigned that they may have to take on a troubled school.

They have made several presentations to the SWCC Education Committee. They also made a presentation to the School Board's ESA (Excellence in Student Achievement) Committee and to the Superintendent. The ESA presentation was well received and the presentation to Dr. Vargas resulted in his voicing support but requesting they do much more work in defining their funding, governance and performance accountability. They then had a meeting with Caterina Leone Mannino, Director of Office of School Innovation, to pursue some of the details requested. I accompanied them to these meetings as a community representative. On May 6^th they met with the 19WCA Schools Committee to present their interest in finding a school in the 19^th Ward. The major question that remains with the Schools Committee is how Vision can structure themselves to be a neighborhood elementary school that embraces all local children and also an arts magnet that has a selection process for applicants.

Discussion of student selection and parent involvement led Dean and Tamara Schove to discussed some of their observations with the charter school their son attends. One concern voiced is that the tightly regimented environment of the charter school may not be preparing the student for managing their own time as they move into 8^th grade and beyond.

John reviewed the Prosper Rochester/PLEX CAMPUS Aquaponics Initiative which sought to provide reentry jobs for students returning from Industry. The PLEX CAMPUS project was focused on working with School 19 which already has a hydroponics project as part of their STEM program, the Flint Street Neighborhood Center which provides community involvement and support and to add to that the Aquaponics Facility as a neighborhood jobs project which can also serve as an educational opportunity to School 19 students.

A video of the Vision Quest update, charter discussion and aquaponics review can be found at: http://youtu.be/vk_jpVTocZo

Phase 2 FMP news

The state of the Phase 2 Facilities Modernization Plan funding as of this meeting was discussed. The last minute objections that Mayor Warren brought up concerning the Phase 2 FMP bills in Albany have been addressed through changes which add some oversight safeguards. She is now supporting the passing of the modified legislation. David Gantt is still opposing the legislation. It looks like it is likely to pass. The Committee has been Advocating for people contacting their NYS senators and Assembly people to pass the funding as can be read in: We can't stand for more delays for School 16 renovations.

Short Distance Busing Discussion

We discussed the importance of getting a bill like S5227B through the Senate and Assembly. It would allow students to be bused if they live more than 0.5 miles from their school of choice. Currently only students 1.5 or more miles from a chosen school can be bused. For safety reasons parents want to bus their kids and many send them to other than their neighborhood school because of the 1.5 mile requirement. This hurts the interaction parents can have with their child's school, particularly if they don't have a car. Short distance busing would promote a return to neighborhood schools and having more neighborhood parents participating in their children's schools would help improve the schools.

Summer Reading Program
Jennifer Lenio covered the various summer reading efforts that the Rochester library branches are participating in this summer. The RCSD provided the Library Branches with funding to assist in this summer reading effort.

A video of Phase 2 FMP, Short Distance Busing & Summer Reading discussion can be seen at: http://youtu.be/6GN2V4UB6A0

The meeting adjourned at 8:10 pm.

Minutes submitted John Boutet

Past meeting minutes can be found in www.Location19.org in the SW Education Forum located at http://www.location19.org/group/sw-education-forum