New York City will double its funding for teacher training beginning this June, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said.

Officials have set aside about $100 million to help prepare students for new Common Core standards that were introduced this spring, The Daily News reports.

The city spent about $50 million on teacher training last year.

Principals will have access to the funds starting next month, Walcott said earlier this week. They can choose how to spend the money as long as it helps students prepare for the tougher academic standards. Some ways to spend the money include adding teacher training sessions or buying new classroom materials.

“Doubling down like this is a significant step,” said Walcott. “It will build the strength and capacity of our teachers to deliver everything we expect of them.”

A portion of the funds will also help schools prepare for the new teacher evaluation system that the state will impose on city schools June 1.

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New York City public school principals were notified by Department of Education Chancellor Dennis Walcott in a weekly online message that starting next school year, all schools will be required to conduct two yearly soft lockdown drills.

The program, projected for the 2013-2014 school year, is part of the DOE’s work on emergency readiness, said DOE spokeswoman Marge Feinberg.

Feinberg said many schools have already been conducting such drills.

The program Walcott announced will also involve training for school officials.

“To ensure that all principals are trained to appropriately implement these drills and procedures as well as effectively respond to emergencies, the Office of Safety and Youth Development is providing a two-hour mandatory training focused on emergency readiness during this summer,” Feinberg reported.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Thousands of New York City middle school students will have more than two hours added to their school days come this fall.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced a pilot program that will extend the school day for high-needs students at 20 middle schools.

“Improving our city’s middle schools is vital to helping close the achievement gap and putting kids on a better track toward educational success,” Quinn said.

The program is a part of the expansion of the Middle School Quality Initiative. Selected schools will be able to offer students an additional 12 hours per week and offer literacy-focused training during the extra hours, according to the city’s Department of Education. An estimated 2,000 students each year over the next three years will participate.

Schools will be randomly selected for the program from a pool of applicants. The $6.2 million effort is being funded by the Robin Hood Foundation, the New York City Council and the DOE.

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The Panel for Educational Policy voted on Monday night to approve the closing of 22 city schools, The New York Times reports.

Twenty schools in the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan will be phased out over the next few years. Two schools–M.S. 45 in Manhattan and Freedom Academy High School in Brooklyn–will be shut down this June, instead of being phased out. 

The panel, which consists of five members appointed by the borough presidents and eight members appointed by the mayor, rejected a proposal to stop the school closings. The proposal would have also placed a moratorium on the issue, which some of the mayoral candidates have rallied for.

The schools were selected for closure based on low-performance ratings.

“The goal is to have more quality choices for our students and we cannot just sit on our hands and allow poor performing schools to just exist for the emotional sake,” Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott told reporters on Monday.

Devon Puglia at the Department of Education told Metro, “Our policy is working.”

“Across the city, new schools are delivering resounding results, graduating students at roughly 20 points high than the schools they replaced,” Puglia said. “Families deserve great schools — and we’re delivering.”

According to Puglia, in 2006, all of the high schools that were phased out had a graduation rate of 38 percent. In 2011, all new high schools had a graduation rate of 70 percent, he said.

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Beginning this fall, students at 20 New York City middle and high schools will have the chance to add courses such as web design, 3-D printing and animation to their class schedules.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced on Monday the names of the schools selected to receive a comprehensive computer science and software engineering curriculum. First introduced in the mayor’s State of the City address earlier this month, the Software Engineering Pilot program is a part of the city’s efforts to prepare more students for careers in the growing technology sector.

“The tech industry in New York City continues to expand significantly under Mayor Bloomberg’s leadership, and our public schools are rising to meet the challenge,” said Walcott. “The Software Engineering Pilot will provide students with the foundational skills they need to compete for high-paying, career track jobs in a variety of professional fields.”

The announcement was made at the High School of Telecommunication Arts and Technology in Brooklyn, one of the selected schools. One thousand students are expected to participate this fall. By 2016, the program will grow to 3,500 students.

The program will give students grades 6 through 12 access to courses covering topics such as computer programming, embedded electronics, web design and program, e-textiles, robotics and mobile computing.

The pilot also provides teacher training and ensures school have access to technology resources to support the courses.

The schools were chosen after a competitive application process. They are:

• High School of Telecommunication Arts and Technology
• Brooklyn Technical High School
• The Bronx Compass High School
• The Renaissance Charter High School for Innovation
• Urban Assembly Gateway School for Technology
• Queens Vocational & Technical High School
• Cambria Heights Academy
• Ralph McKee High School
• New Dorp High School
• Ditmas Intermediate School 62
• I.S. 30 Mary White Ovington
• Mark Twain I.S. 239 for the Gifted and Talented
• Bronx Park Middle School
• M.S. 223 The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology
• Tompkins Square Middle School
• Nathaniel Hawthorne Middle School 74
• J.H.S. 185 Edward Bleeker
• Pathways College Preparatory School
• J.H.S. 157 Stephen A. Halsey
• Eagle Academy for Young Men

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School buses will be back on the roads when students return to school from winter break on Wednesday, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said on Monday.

After a month-long strike that began on Jan. 16, drivers and matrons of Local 1181 of Amalgamated Transit Union return to work on Wednesday. Parents of more than 150,000 students who were affected by the strike no longer have to worry about how to get their children to school.

Walcott said parents and students should expect some normal delays on Wednesday, similar to the first day of school, DNAinfo.com reported.

The city spent more than $20 million as a result of the strike–reimbursing parents for transportation costs and providing free MetroCards–but it still saved nearly $60 million.

The city has received 65 bids to run the 1,100 bus routes for special needs students.

The DOE estimates the new contracts may save the city more than $100 million over the next five years, DNAinfo.com reports.

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The Finance and Education Committees of the City Council held a hearing Friday morning with Chancellor Dennis Walcott of the Department of Education on the cost of student transportation, in light of the on-going bus driver strike over the city’s request for bids on school bus contracts. The strike is now in its fourth week.

Councilman Robert Jackson, as chair of the Education Committee, largely led the hearing, during which he repeatedly accused the Bloomberg administration of attempted union-busting.

Jackson scolded Bloomberg and Walcott for misrepresenting statistics, pointing out that the given cost of transit per pupil — which Bloomberg and Walcott have reported as nearly $7,000 —  is actually averaged between the cost for special needs students, which is $15,000 “due to the need for escorts and other requirements,” and the cost for general education students, which is about $2,600, according to Jackson.

The bus contracts in question are for the bus routes for special needs students.

As for the mayor and chancellor’s complaints that the city pays more for busing than cities in other states do, Jackson scoffed, “I don’t know why anyone would be surprised by that.”

“Don’t we spend more for everything here?” Jackson asked, noting the higher cost of living in general.

Other speakers at the hearing included parents of special needs children, as well as a special needs bus matron of eight years, who broke down crying as she spoke of her charges.

“We love those kids,” she said “It’s not only about the money, it’s about those precious kids.”

Chancellor Walcott noted that the bids for bus contracts are due today, Monday February 11, and will be opened tomorrow.

Department of Education spokesperson Marge Feinberg told Metro the bids “will be reviewed and then awarded to the lowest responsible bidders.”

Why are they striking?

The bus drivers’ union is demanding that an Employee Protection Provision be included in the new request for bids, so that current drivers will maintain their positions and salaries regardless of new management. The union alleges that EPPs would assure that the drivers and matrons be trained to care for special needs children.

One mother of an autistic child talked about the bus matron on her child’s bus, “a wonderful woman named Maria.”

“The idea that she would make even less than she’s making now horrifies me,” she said.

Walcott said repeatedly that the city is maintaining a rigorous training program for all bus drivers, but Jackson argued that the request for bids only asks that the company have 20 months of prior management experience, and does not include requirements for bus driver experience.
Support from city falls short

The city has provided MetroCards for parents and promised reimbursement for those who need to take car services or taxis during the school bus strike, but the parents at the hearing said that nobody has been reimbursed yet, and that the city-provided list of car services is useless.

One mother reportedly had to call 20 different services off the list, and was denied service by all of them.

“Twenty different services said we shouldn’t be on that list or we’re not doing that anymore,” reported Maggie Moroff, Special Education Policy Coordinate at Advocates for Children. Moroff also noted that until recently, the city was not reimbursing parents for their trips back home after dropping their child off, or back to school to pick their child up, only covering the trips for which the child was actually present. Some students have reportedly been asked to attend different schools for locational convenience.

Moroff and Councilman Jackson both emphasized that special needs students who cannot make it to school are not only missing classes, but also critical services including behavioral, occupational, speech and physical therapy.

One of the mothers present read a statement from another mother who reported that her autistic child was so exhausted by the over-stimulation of a two and a half hour bus ride to and from school that he had already missed three days over the course of the 12 day strike.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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