Sometimes bankruptcy courts can accomplish what no one else can because they can get stakeholders on the same page.
RCSD
Posted inNews & Opinion
City Council grills RCSD officials
At a meeting with Rochester City School District leaders Thursday night, City Councilmembers raised concerns about transparency and a lack of confidence and peppered district officials with questions about the district’s finances. Internal and external investigations are continuing into how the district went from a balanced budget that it presented to City Council in June […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
RCSD financial crisis builds
The Rochester City School District is facing perhaps one of the most serious crises it has had in recent history: Its leaders just learned that it has significantly overspent its 2018-2019 budget and the school board and administration are scrambling to find answers as the district’s critics pile on. Several days have passed since the […]
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[UPDATED] WEEK AHEAD: Events for the week of March 13
Rochester school district officials will present their proposed budget for the 2017-2018 school year in several meetings that are open to the public. Everton Sewell, the district’s chief financial officer, will make the first presentation to the school board on Tuesday, March 14. The board will then hold three review sessions: Thursday, March 30; Tuesday, […]
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Rochester’s big growth area: poverty
While unemployment is down both locally and nationally, the Dow is up, and the economy is clearly improving, Rochester is bucking the trends and sinking deeper into poverty. And the city’s children are suffering the most. Rochester now has the distinction of being the only one of similar-sized cities to have more than 50 percent […]
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ASAR proceeding with no-confidence vote against Vargas
Members of the Association of Supervisors and Administrators of Rochester, the union that represents city school district principals and administrators, will hold a vote of no confidence against Superintendent Bolgen Vargas. Union members voted to pursue the no-confidence vote yesterday afternoon. The ballots will be mailed early next week to ASAR’s nearly 400 members and […]
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Principals may take vote of no confidence against Vargas
Updated at 12:21 p.m. Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester Teachers Association, says that teachers do not share ASAR’s discontent. Teachers are unhappy, but it has to do with wrong-headed policies coming out of the State Education Department, he said. And teachers do not blame Vargas for those policies, Urbanski said. Urbanski said he is […]
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Poverty “excuse” gets a reprieve
The subject of school integration came up several months ago while I was researching a story. The idea of a metro school system, though heralded by many as one of the most promising ways to improve student performance in Rochester’s schools, was simultaneously dismissed by the people I was with. “Impossible,” “Will never happen,” and […]
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Fewer city students will catch transfer buses downtown
New bus passes will greatly restrict the thousands of city school students who have been using the RTS system to travel freely throughout the city, said school and city officials today. Most students will only be allowed to travel to and from school. Beginning this Friday, more city students will be required to use the […]
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Has the city school district hit bottom?
In light of threats from state officials about closing failing schools and taking control of failing districts, many people wonder if the Rochester school district has finally hit bottom. Were the last round of state exams the worst of it? And should we lo ok for student achievement to begin inching upward? That’s been the general […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
School district, City Hall step up truancy reduction efforts
Many Rochesterians strongly supported mayoral control. They didn’t get it, but in an odd turn of events, they may have received something better: a strong working relationship between City Hall and the city school district. That point couldn’t have been clearer at a press conference earlier today. Vargas, flanked by Mayor Tom Richards and United […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Charters show higher suspensions
One of the most common characteristics of charter schools with high test scores, many observers say, is the focus on structure and discipline. The schools often bear a striking resemblance to the Catholic schools of the 1950’s and ‘60’s, with their low tolerance for levity and horseplay. The charters like to call it “no excuses.” […]
