SWCC Education Committee Minutes 2019-10-23

The Education Committee of the SW Common Council

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

6:00pm – 7:30pm at

Arnett Branch Library, 310 Arnett Boulevard

Here are the meeting notes as a .pdf file:SWCC Education Committee Minutes 2019-10-23.pdf

Attendance:

Joe Baldino School #29 Principal, 490-2245, joseph.baldino@rcsdk12.org

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

Andrea Carvalho Coalition to Prevent Lead Poisoning (CPLP), acarvalho@theleadcoalition.org

Mary Coffey N. Winton Village, marycoffey0@gmail.com

Eleanor Coleman CFC YouthBuild, 224-5119, eleanor.coleman@gmail.com

John Laing 19WCA Schools Comm & Sch #16 Vol, 235-5236, jlaing1@rochester.rr.com

Colleen McCarthy Many Neighbors Building Neighborhoods Education Chair, lock66neighborhood@outlook.com
Monique Silas-Lee Principal, School #19, 328-7454, moniek.silas-lee@rcsdk12.org
Lindsay Swanson Innova Charter School for Girls, 410-0147, lswanson@bes.org

Welcome/Introductions

Review of Budget Overrun Impact on this Year’s Programming

RCSD intends to keep lid on new hiring; keep current programs in place; this outcome impacts hiring the new Community School Coordinators slated for the CET schools.

Lead Coalition Neighborhood Outreach - Andrea Carvalho

Where are we with community lead poisoning at this time? This week is National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week.
Coalition to Prevent Lead Poisoning, CPLP, is an Education & Advocacy group; goal is to eliminate childhood lead poisoning through education and empowering community to know their rights around lead poisoning.
Lead poisoning shows up in soil contamination, water, leaded gasoline, paint in old homes (paint chips or deteriorating old paint that turns into dust); a sugar packet worth of lead dust causes injury.
Lots of progress in Rochester starting with Lead Ordinance passed several years ago. Still have hundreds of children being poisoning every year; 500 new children poisoned county-wide.
Rochester has 55% old housing stock (before 1978 when lead was banned); includes renovation of historic homes.
Lead poisoning causes: irritability, loss of appetite, low IQ, speech & language deficits, ADD
1 and 2-year olds most vulnerable (crawling, lead dust on hands)
Can affect pregnant women; lead absorbed into mother’s bones if she was previously exposed to lead can be released into her blood if calcium deficiency is caused by growing fetus; lead and calcium then is absorbed by developing fetus. Mother should have high calcium diet.
Other impacts of lead poisoning: crime, dropout, dementia
Get your child tested at 1 and 2; NYS law. Need to push health care providers to follow through with lead testing and encourage parents to test their children.
If test positive, doctor must report to Dept of Health; MCDH very thorough to determine the source (home, childcare, etc.). Free blood lead test for a child up to 18 at MCDH.
Lead poisoning affects brain development in a child; adults - connection showing between lead poisoning and dementia (breaking bones can re-release the lead that has been absorbed);
Free home lead inspections 585-428-6520; landlords legally responsible for addressing lead issues in the home.
Rochester City’s local ordinance says all commercial buildings must pass lead inspection; renew every 3 years if rental. Go on City’s website to see when your property was inspected (Google City Property Lead Inspection).
Residents and parents need to know their rights around this issue.
CPLP distributes information, holds forums, etc. – a resource to navigate the system, especially if you find your child has been poisoned.
Remediation is expensive. City can’t force home owner to do remediation but inspection will go on unit’s record and seller must inform a new buyer. City recently got funding to help with lead remediation costs (loan). Go to City of Rochester Lead Poisoning website.
No cure for lead poisoning. Extreme cases can use chelation (flushing lead from body); won’t work for lead in bones.
Calcium deficiency can lead to replacement of lead for calcium.
Ralph Spezio, former principal of School #17, was instrumental in creating the CPLP as a result of learning that there was a direct relationship between kids in special education and lead poisoning.

Community Forum on Education – Sponsored by Rochester Coalition for Public Education, Great Schools for All, and SWCC Education Committee - October 29, 4-6:30pm - Update

To be held at Brockport University Downtown Campus @ 161 Chestnut St.
Plan is to review the document “Recommendations to Ensure that RCSD Students Succeed” point by point. Reps will talk about the 8 topics and then they will divide up into groups to discuss (depending on number of people who attend).
1.5 mile minimum for busing reimbursement law is destroying neighborhood schools because parents choose schools further away so child can be on a bus vs walking in an unsafe neighborhood to local school. Working parents also need options for childcare in the morning.
Study shows – if ¼ of children chose neighborhood school and were bused, you would break even with costs of present 1.5 mile rule. If 75% chose busing to nearby school over $4 million would be saved.
10% of students leave charter schools and go back to public schools.
Seeing a very positive impact of UR taking over East High. Intentionality around literacy is showing strong results. Attitude between students and teachers is very positive.

Community Engagement Team (CET) Updates

We’ve attended 5 CET meetings to date this fall at our 4 SW schools that have gone into Receivership and have chosen to become community schools. (School 10, 16, 19 and Wilson Foundation Academy)
Only one (School 10) has gotten a Community School Coordinator so far.
Our role has been to foster community connection.
One of the parameters is improving student absentee rate which is difficult to attain; approx. 20% of children move from home to home during the school year which impacts attendance. It takes several days for the busing pick-up for the child to be changed.

School Updates

10^th Annual Spelling Bee coming up for 5 SW school; $500 scholarship for winner
School #29
- Keeping up the community garden; have added a fence;
- Reaching out to neighborhood families (door-to-door) to encourage them to attend neighborhood school;
- Have students painting bollards as a way of increasing school visibility;
- Started a before school program starting at 8:15am; paying para-professional extra hour.
- Only have one kindergarten right now; charter schools are taking students from public education.
- Low violence.
- Facility Modernization was to be done in 2020 moved to 2021-22 because of Albany delay in Phase 3 FMP funding. School infrastructure poor.
- Major initiative is enrollment; need to recruit 45 new students.

CFC YouthBuild / Rotary SW – Update

YouthBuild - has another Cohort starting on 11/4; it will be full days, 8 weeks long for curriculum and an additional 4 weeks on-site work experience. For more information, contact the Recruiter, Reg Walton, at (585) 766-7344.
Connecting with City Roots Community Land Trust to explore on-site work experience options; CLT works to provide affordable housing for city residents.
Rotary SW
- Meeting change: 1^st Thursday meetings will now be at 6pm (vs 8am) at Carlson Commons, 40 Coretta Scott Crossing
- Induction Ceremony 12/5, 6pm @ Carlson Commons

Walk-in Items

Innova Collegiate Academy – Lindsay Swanson, Former NYC Computer Science Teacher
- Charter school proposal in the works – girls grades 4-8 focused on STEM; pushing lifelong learning.
- Early planning stages; school wouldn’t open for 2 more years.
- Exploring locations; would like to see a neighborhood school.
- Asking for feedback; what are community needs and community strengths.
- Acknowledging that RCSD does have some successful school models; not looking to pull students from good schools; looking to provide an option
- Charter schools are authorized by the State; are able to access $14,000 per RCSD student