11/19 RCPE Meeting Minutes

Dan Drmacich <dandrmacich123@gmail.com>

To:Sean Smith,Dave Atias,Eileen,Deb Hanmer,David Kurtz     Sat, Nov 20 at 10:10 AM

Present: Connie Flahive, Don Bartalo, Donna LaMura, John Boutet, Joe Simson, Phyllis Moss, 

Lilla Alsherhi, Howie Maffucci, Candace Rubin, Ed Donnelly, Dan Drmacich

Discussion & Decisions:

1. Ed Donnelley was granted approval to proceed with setting up a bank account with ESL, Ed will succeed David Hursh as Coalition Treasurer. Once the account is in place, an email will be sent to all Coalition members requesting a donation of $10 (or more) to support our organization.

2. Dan shared that the Coalition's efforts to create an implementation plan for the RASE Curriculum & Testing Recommendations have received official support from City & County Chief Diversity Officers, Cephas Archie & Candice Lucas. They will send a letter to other city & county organizations/agencies & individuals, asking them to join with our Coalition to collaborate on creating action plans to advance the Curriculum & County Recommendations. We hope to schedule a meeting in December. Drs. Archie & Lucas hope to use this model to assist other RASE Recommendation groups to advance different RASE recommendations.

*Support for "Great Schools for All" Monroe County inter-district, magnet school development by a national law firm was also discussed as a means to that RASE Recommendation forward, as well. Congratulations to Don Pryor & Mark Hare for their leadership on this initiative.

3. Joe will forward all the Monroe County Supt. email addresses to Dan so that our Coalition letter supporting equitable funding for the Urban-Suburban Transfer Program's transportation costs can be sent. We will specify that we have other strong concerns about the Transfer Program that we will address, as well, through other means.

4. Dan shared that he and Don Pryor attended the November 6th RCSD School Violence Forum at Franklin High. Don & Dan agreed that the 2 hour meeting, with approximately 200 attendees, was not organized effectively to meet the goal of generating creative, effective initiatives to address school violence. Dan & Don will send a letter to the forum organizers addressing our concerns.

5. We discussed the RCSD school closings proposal from Supt. Myers-Small & agreed that the Coalition should send a letter to the Supt. & BoE, suggesting alternative uses of space in buildings having low attendance; such as housing social-emotional support staff and smaller class sizes. Dan will develop a draft and send to Coalition members for editing & other recommendations.

6. Dan shared that Regent Wade Norwood encourages our Coalition to meet with Rochester-area Congressional reps to encourage them to lobby for U.S. Dept. of Ed. flexibility for alternatives to current mandates for high-stakes standardized testing. We agreed to wait on scheduling a meeting until we have more collaborative support from other organizations through our RASE Curriculum & Testing initiative.,

7. We discussed our recent survey of Coalition members of color, regarding their lack of attendance & agreed that:

A. The survey prevents us from receiving more in-depth, useful feedback,

B. We should reach-out, as individuals, to individual Coalition members of color to discuss our concerns & obtain more feedback. 

We recognize that this may be somewhat of a difficult conversation, but believe it is necessary for the improvement of the Coalition. Our active members are encouraged to request a personal meeting or telephone conversation with our members of color.

8. Chojy requested feedback from our members on how to use letters from mothers of refugee

students, who plead for continuation of transporting their children to the schools of their choice. We suggested the following:

A. Take the letters in person, to the Supt.'s office & request a meeting to discuss the letters.

B. Bring a supportive refugee mother and other supportive agency member with you as supportive resources.

C. Have the letters posted on the RCSD BoE docs link.

D. Call the D&C's Justin Murphy to suggest the issue & letters be used as an article,

E. Contact WXXI's Evan Dawson to have a radio show devoted to the topic.

9. Dan proposed that we use a recent article by Leonard Pitts on Critical Race Theory (See article, below) as a means to strengthen support for more anti-racist curriculum in county & city schools. We agreed that:

A. We will develop a student survey and try to gain school district support from several school districts to use it with a sample of students on the question of what students think about exploring systemic racism issues. (Dan will share a draft of a possible student survey. See attachment & send feedback for changes.)

B. Joe will contact Shane Wiggens (a local teacher who has the support of several county schools to implement his red-lining curriculum and PD into their school districts) to get his feedback on this initiative.

We'll discuss progress at our next meeting.

10. Shaun Nelms, the East High Supt., has offered to discuss East High progress and RCSD plans to replicate it, at one of our meetings. Should I invite him to our next meeting for a 30 minute discussion?

11. John Strazzabosco has recommended that our members consider participating in a year long program that explores racism through monthly meetings. For more information on this, contact John at his email address, above.

12. We agreed to meet again on Friday, December 3rd, by Zoom, at 4:00 pm.

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