While most of the attention during the Democratic primary and in the last weeks leading up to the general election has been on the twists in the mayoral race, thereโs been something equally unexpected about the city school board race. With such dismal performance of city students by almost every standard, the dissatisfaction with school […]
expanded learning
Many choices remain for school board
There are three seats available on the Rochester school board this year, and incumbents Van White, Cynthia Elliott, and Jose Cruz are asking voters to return them to office. Our profiles of the candidates who ran in the September Democratic primary appeared in the August 21 issue. Though all three of the incumbents were able […]
RCSD’s big gamble: longer days
Twenty or 30 years ago, staying after school for anything other than football practice usually meant bad news. And the mere mention of summer school could send chills up your spine. But longer school days and shorter summer vacations, especially in urban districts, are quickly becoming standard ingredients of elementary and secondary public education. Rochester […]
Rochester report
Rochester is in need of fundamental transformation, said Mayor Tom Richards in his State of the City address on Monday night. Refusal to acknowledge that fact or to insist that nips and tucks will do the trick is to condemn the city to failure, he said. | Richards’ speech touched on public safety, education, housing […]
Vargas’s grand plan for the RCSD
Rochester school district Superintendent Bolgen Vargas rarely talks about increasing the district’s graduation rate or raising test scores, the standard promises of most new superintendents. From his first days in office as interim superintendent, Vargas has instead approached the district’s many problems from the outside in: unabashedly declaring that nothing will get fixed if the […]






