Rochester school board members held their noses and voted in favor tonight of a one-year deal with RTS to bus city students this coming school year. The vote was 6-1, with board president Van White opposed.Â
None of the board members seem happy with the deal — Commissioner Mary Adams called it “unconscionable” — but said they felt pressured because of the short time remaining before school re-opens. Adams, White, and other board members also urged the district to immediately begin shopping for an alternative to RTS for the 2016-2017 school year.Â
Some board members are particularly galled that the district will pay more for busing under the new contract, but fewer students will be bused. (They have to find another firm to transport the students that RTS will not.) They also appeared uncomfortable with the uncertainty over where the additional money — more than $10 million — will come from.Â
Superintendent Bolgen Vargas is, according to White, trying to get the state to put up the money. But board members worried openly that staff and services would suffer if the state doesn’t come through. Vargas tried to allay their concerns by saying that there would be no layoffs or service cuts as a result of the transportation issue.Â
White wanted the board to reject the RTS deal and put the busing back out to bid, but it’s clear that the majority of the board thought the issue too urgent to delay any longer.Â
“Given the time that we have, there’s little else we can do,” board member Willa Powell said. “I’m convinced that there was bad faith on both sides.”Â
RTS said earlier this year that it would no longer bus city school students because of problems with youth violence at the downtown transit center. RTS and the city school district were able to quickly hammer out a deal for summer school busing, but transportation for the full school year beginning in September remained up in the air.Â
RTS released a statement immediately following tonight’s school board vote.Â
“Working together, RTS and RCSD have designed a solution that achieves our mutual goals,” it reads, in part.Â
Prior to this new deal, RTS and RCSD had already worked out a plan that significantly reduced the number of city school students that have to transfer through the downtown center.Â
This article appears in Jul 1-7, 2015.
The answer to all our problems, especially those associated with the urban education scene, is MONEY. It just takes money and if you don’t get that money,…well that’s not all bad because now you have a finger you can point with and too, whomever, for the failure of urban education. There is no “continuity of leadership” in education within the RCSD. The lack of continuity in care within a hospital causes failure and can be fatal. It’s no different for the RCSD. The current management lacks that continuity and it will continue to fail. Is it without hope? Nope, just leadership for the moment.
Dutch:
There is indeed “continuity” of leadership. The length of stay of RCSD superintendents is considerably longer than most urban districts. Moreover (even though many urban Board’s of Education don’t often insert themselves into the decision making processes as often as they should) in many urban districts there is continuity of leadership when you look at their boards of education. In the RCSD the average tenure of board member is about 5 years.
While I realize some would say this type of incumbency hasn’t helped much, there is some recent evidence that outcomes are improving. For example, in 2007 only 39% of our students graduated within 4 years of entering high school. By comparison we expect that when final numbers are in for this year nearly 60% of our graduates will be on time graduates. That’s nowhere near where it needs to be but a far cry from where we were. Once the University of Rochester’s plan at East High gets on line I expect that number will go up substantially by the time we start celebrating the graduation of the members of the class of 2016. This is the kind of “hope” that comes from consistently effective leadership.
Mr. White,
No one is buying it. Things are worse than ever and everyone knows it. Everyone.
Dutch: And?
Gotta Say It:
From 39% graduation rate to nearly 60 % graduation rate. Given this data it’s unclear to me why you’ve concluded that “things are as worse than ever”????? At some point Gotta Say It you’re “gonna have to say” that’s progress.
Van
The city spends over $10 million dollars a year to transport students. The solution? Use that $10 million dollars to build small neighborhood schools…built by the community, maintained by the community….with grades K-12 in each with a maximum capacity of 150 people. Five teachers each with more social service professionals when needed. Our school system has grown like the banks…too big to fail.
OK, just tried to edit my response,.be aware when you push that option it wipes out your writing efforts.
Kate, if you meant now what” with your “and”? here it is.
As Van white knows, I have been on a one person crusade to address the RCSD graduation crisis for over three years now. You would be surprised at just how well those who are in charge have the ability to ignore you. You don’t even get the courtesy of a response. So for you Kate, I will give it another try.
The goal appears to be a statistical one, that of graduation. While that satisfies the NYS requirements and is a start, what does the graduate do with that diploma? The academic achievement should include relevancy to a profession/career. That is called POST HIGH SCHOOL SUCCESS. First of all the kids drop out because of sheer boredom. Why not show them WHY they need those academics. Give them a relevant education so that they are in a position to make a decision as to what they would like to do. This will give them a clear pathway to a profession/career and will give them the opportunity to acquire a living wage that will give them the freedom to work, play and live where they want to. That is what addresses poverty. Education is the only way out of the poverty cycle.
I have outlined a possible way that this can be accomplished. I have even gone through the effort to have a professor at Johns Hopkins to review it. It was well received and recommended as an enhancement to the academic effort.
I sent it out electronically, via snail mail and delivered it by hand. Zip, nada, no response.
So what makes me think that I know something about this education crisis? Well it’s mostly personal experience. I stepped off the plane at age 12 not knowing a word of English. I moved to Minnesota Street just a few blocks from East High School. I went to Edison Technical and Industrial High School on Clifford Ave. That school was the “crown jewel’ of the RCSD. It has systematically been destroyed. I owe everything to that school. It gave me the required academics and relevant education in a trade. It was not till age 50, to prove a point, that I earned my college degree from Roberts Wesleyan College.
Continuity in education may be there in some ones viewpoint, but that is like saying that the “operation was a success, but the patient died”. Van, you may feel that the East High transformation will be the success, at last, but are you willing to sit back for the next 7 years to watch that happen? What about all those kids, you know the 400 students that will be associated with the reduction proposed? It appears that the goal will be statistical, but what will be the post high school success?
All I want for Christmas is a 90% graduation rate, a level plying field, a relevant education that will provide a clear pathway to a profession/career, post high school success, which includes an eventual supporting wage that will allow our future generation to work where they want to work, play where they want to play and live where they want to live. That’s freedom. The urban kids have the talent, I know they have the talent, they just need to be given the opportunity to develop that talent. They need a different approach to allow them to excel. A little out of the box thinking blended with some ingenuity.
I hope that answers the “and”? Kate.
Van, willing to be open minded?
Kate:
I’m waiting for your response. I don’t just complain about the education issue, I point out the problems and follow it up with possible solutions. I hope that didn’t disappoint you.
I believe in the urban student, especially early on, when we can influence them and guide them in the direction of opportunity. I am challenging the SOSDD attitude. I say lets inject the “cool factor” into school. Make it exciting. Use some out of the box thinking and a little old fashioned ingenuity to keep those kids in school.
That can be done, but it requires a bit more effort than most of our educational leaders are willing to invest. That means you work beyond your normal time. You show the kids that you give a hoot. It has to be a passion and has to go well beyond a 40 hour workweek. I have committed, in writing, to help implement what I have suggested. I committed to a 7 year effort. What do I want in return? Post high school success and you can keep your dime.
De groeten uit Fairport,
JJP.
The cost of misbehaving students is $10 million. Parents who can’t or won’t even teach their kids the basic rules of society are to blame. From here the costs only rise; the kids eventually end up in the criminal justice system, having babies that they can’t support and end up on welfare. Ten million bucks is just the start.
The RST is only too happy to charge the RCSD $10 million more to transport the little darlings. Can’t blame them.
Dutch, sorry to keep you waiting. I think your ideas have merit. Certainly they worked back in the day when you and I went to school. The current school issues are so deep, though, that it would be hard to implement your plan. Kids are taught that everyone can and should go to college, which makes the whole trade school option feel like a step down and not an educational goal. Plus, the trades don’t offer the same numbers of jobs as they did 60 years ago. But college degrees don’t offer many job options these days either. At a time when McDs is becoming even more automated, what kinds of jobs are we going to toss out as careers to aim for?
Mr. White, I would like to see the source you’ve used to cite a 60% graduation rate. I also think that the board owes its community the data on: extended day, All City to name a few.
Scorse93
As I indicated in my original post, the numbers for the most recent graduating class (2015) are projections. All the numbers are being gathered now and of course we must wait for summer school graduates – which the NYS also counts as 4 year graduates. Accordingly, we expect final numbers by the end of August or early September. But I should tell you that projections like this weren’t even possible several years ago as Central Office information and tracking systems weren’t structured so as to provide this information in real time. All that has changed in the last five years or so with the Board of Education and successive Superintendents focusing on improving our data management systems. Now months/a academic year in advance we can track a student’s progress torward graduation. Tragically that kind of monitoring of student progress was happening for decades. But, as I said, it’s gotten much better. So much so that I believe that we will come close to the projections which I described in my earlier post. Finally, it’s important to remember that there is a reason that our progress has been flat over the last few years – after I ugly rising from 2006 to 2007 by 4% points. Those truly close to what is happening in the classroom know that since 2006 NYS has increased (every year) the number of Regents exams that a graduate must pass. It’s now five!!! (Last year the NYS Board of Regents changed the rules so that the fifth Regents exam can be waived with the passing of a CTE course.) The bottom line here is there is no more local diploma. So the diploma that our students’ parents earned is not (by any stretch of the imagination) the more challenging Regents diploma that the present day RCSD student must earn. However, the good news is that because we have had time to adjust to the phase in of the Regents diploma our numbers will now begin to increase again. I am confident that our June and August numbers will reflect that.
Van
Mr. White
I think that 60% figure is very aggressive especially since last year ( after summer school) the grad rate was 51%. If the graduation rate increases 9% this year, that would be awesome. With the rigorous regents qualifications that increaseing the grad rate would be a feat indeed.
My concern is the lack of data that is absent from other alternative programs that the RCSD has experiment with. We should be knowledgable with said programs that are working and give those programs the resources that they need to continue ( ex: All City). Parents should be aware of these programs so that they can set their kids up for success.