The Education Committee of the SW Common Council

Wednesday, April 26, 2023, 6-7:30 pm at

For a Zoom link to future meetings Contact John Boutet at jboutet@frontiernet.net

You can find a PDF of these minutes at:  SWCC Education Committee Minutes 2023-04-26.pdf

Video of the meeting is at:  https://youtu.be/5bSfSobbGJw

Attendance:

John Boutet            SWCC Education Committee Chair, 328-4271, jboutet@frontiernet.net

Mary Coffey            N. Winton Village Co-Chair; Many Neighbors Building Neighborhoods; Public
                                   Safety, marycoffey0@gmail.com

Eleanor Coleman   Rotary SW, CCFCS YouthBuild, 224-5119, eleanor.coleman@gmail.com

Nicolle Haynes     RASE Education CART facilitator, 262-8648, Nicolle.Haynes@rcsdk12.org

Lee Loomis           School #10 Volunteer Tutor, leeloomis46@gmail.com

Josie McClary        Monroe County, josiemcclary@hotmail.com

Phyllis Moss         19th Ward Ed Chair, drphyllismoss@icloud.com

Welcome & Introductions

Quick update of school news

• Three Superintendents have met to talk about safety around the schools, as opposed to in the school. Collaboration with RPD has been positive.

• Why is the theft/violence happening; is data being collected to know WHY the violence/theft is happening. Uptick in car thefts is related to TicToc. Who are the kids - need to know (foster care, juvenile justice, etc.).

Local busing update - an ongoing need, bills are stuck in committee, support Assembly Bill 1276 and Senate Bill 4414

• This committee has been a proponent for short distance busing which was based on the success Ralph Spezio had at School #17 and his effort to establish a neighborhood school that included health services.

• Legislators have spoken their support but it has not transferred to a bill that has been passed. Please consider reminding legislators to pass the bill.

• Short distance busing could have a positive impact on student attendance and safety. It also lends toward having student and parents in the neighborhood know each other.

• John asked that this issue be addressed within the RASE group.

• Not looking to override parent choice.

• The objective is to increase parent choice by adding schools in the 1/2 to 1 1/2 distance area.

Avoiding the standardized test mentality - https://hs.credit/about,
Congressman Lamal Bowman - More Teaching Less Testing Act. Covers some of the issues that need to be taught in school.

• There is High stress associated with standardized testing. Need more teaching, less testing

• Next step is to apply to state to obtain the tests. Focusing on high school students at this time. Link to more information: https://www.nysed.gov/plan-pilot.

Implementing RASE recommendations in our schools - view the April 24th RASE Community Webinar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJObw2GtMSY (particularly facilitator Nicolle Haynes' presentation "RASE Education discussion" which starts at 1:02:19 and ends at 1:09:10). Congressman Lamal Bowman's African American History Act also addresses many of the goals of RASE for education.

• Team wants all the focus areas to be posted and then ask individuals in community to rate which is the most important to them; current ranking system is time consuming as there are 25 focus areas and they want importance listed from 1 to 25. Nicolle is in the process of redesigning the rating system to be more user-friendly. Both rating systems will be voted on at the team meeting because we need movement in the work.

• School of the Arts and Children’s School are already covering diversity and telling history with accuracy. We should not wait for legislation.

• Some teachers have biases and their lack of connection to cultural issues is punitive and excluding for black and brown students. This material is offered by RCSD’s Student Equity & Placement Office.

• Teachers from outside of the City should be required to take recommended training that teaches them about City students. There needs to be mandatory teacher training on implicit bias, culturally responsive curriculum, etc.

• Goal is to not be offensive with the culturally sensitive materials. Need teachers to lean into the education which will ultimately help them be better teachers.

• Would be helpful to get teachers to be involved in the community. St. John Fisher is being intentional in better connecting with communities, i.e., doing asset mapping in the community.

Rochester Coalition for Public Education News (Minutes Index)

Last month's SWCC Ed. Com. Minutes: SWCC Education Committee Meeting on Zoom 2023-03-22

Here is the SWCC Education Committee's complete Minutes Index which goes back to 2012. All the referenced minutes are stored on www.Location19.org , a site I managed. You will probably get a warning when you go to Location19 because there are some certificates I need to update, but the site is safe.