On February 9th, 2009 parents of children attending City School District of New Rochelle Schools received a robocall (click to listen to .mp3 audio file) from Board of Education President Sarah Richmond. The call was an invitation to the first ever Board of Education School Budget Community Input Forum. The meeting will take place on Thursday, February 11, 2010 at7:00 P.M. at the New Rochelle High School Library, 265 Clove Road. The call mirrored a letter from Richmond posted to the New Rochelle School District’s web site. The meeting is listed on the City School District of New Rochelle calendar under the tittle: Board of Ed School Budget Community Input Forum
Robert Cox of Talk of the Sound has previously praised the new leadership on the school board — Sara Richmond and Chrisanne Petrone — for taking steps in the direction of openness, transparency and engagement. Jeffrey Hastie, the newest board member, has supported the leadership by taking the highly unusual step of asking tough questions and not accepting pat answers from school administrators.
The latest manifestation of this effort to wrest control of the school board away from the Stalinist clique that has dominated the board for the past decade — including Deidre Polow, Quay Watkins and Cindy Babock-Deutsch – appears to be a well-intentioned effort to get input from the community before the draft budget is released. The more cynical residents of New Rochelle might believe that this is just an attempt to prepare the community for large tax increases but School Board President Richmond was raising this idea of having community input before the budget was drafted long before it even seemed remotely possible that she might become President (see School Board Coup for more on this).
What the forces of light have apparently failed to anticipate is that the forces of darkness who have carried sway in the New Rochelle School District may well attempt to subvert this meeting by raising red herrings, through misdirection, demagoguery and the sort of childish “cheerleading” so evident during the last budget cycle. Who can forget Emery “Suck It Up” Schweig’s maniacal ravings last spring where she repeatedly ridiculed concerns raised by one resident after another about fears over the “Great Recession” and job losses. It was Emery Schweig, then-president of the New Rochelle High School PTA and current member of the New Rochelle Public Library Board of Trustees who dismissed the economic situation “temporary” and emphatically demanding that voters to “suck it up” and approve the budget.
New Rochelle residents have no experience with a Community Input Forum to discuss the school budget because this is an entirely new occurrence. The board has not provided any information or direction on how this forum will be conducted, no agenda or timeline, no announcement on how long people will be allowed speak or how often, what sort of give-and-take might occur, how disruptions or disputes are to be handled. Having no idea how many people might show up, the library could be largely empty or jam packed. Why did the Board of Education choose the New Rochelle High School Library? This space seems rather small for the amount of people that may potentially want to attend.
Also worrisome is the framing of the Community Input Forum.
In her robocall, Richmond said the board wants to hear from the community about “”what you value most in this school district” and “what you want preserved”. This sounds a lot like a set up for the same old Hobson’s Choice offered every year by the district raise taxes to support another budget increase or we will cut the most popular programs FIRST. It apparently precludes winding down programs like Italian CILA that are no longer grant-funded, not going forward with the Mandarin program which is funded by a short-term grant, eliminating the incredibly expensive Full Day Kindergarten program, taking a hard line on overtime for maintenance and grounds workers or getting rid of unneeded positions like full-time locksmiths and full-time glaziers.
About 30% of the children in New Rochelle schools are Latino. Many parents speak little or no English. Yet, parents who are listed as Spanish-speaking households in the district’s files got a phone call from Richmond in English. The Richmond letter is in English. In fact, the entire NRED web site is in English and the entire NRED calendar is in English.
There is not a single meeting that is being held within a reasonable walking distance of the Columbus or Lincoln district where a large number of residents rely on public transportation and would be hard-pressed to go to/from City Hall at night. Why not address this by holding at least a meeting at Albert Leonard Middle School and another at Isaac E. Young Middle School?
The body of the Sara Richmond robocall reads as follows:
We want to hear from you, the community, about what you value most in this school district we want to know what you want preserved as we develop a school budget within a very challenging financial climate. We encourage you to provide input into the entire budget process, a list of budget meetings is on the district web site www.nred.org.
The body of the Sara Richmond letter reads as follows:
On behalf of the Board of Education of the City School District of New Rochelle, I am pleased to invite you to join us at a series of budget discussions with members of the Board and the School District’s Central Administration.
The initial School Budget Community Input Forum will focus on community input regarding the development of the school district’s 2010-2011 annual budget and the financing of the instructional program we offer to children. We are actively seeking your participation in our budget process and we want to help you become as informed as possible.
School Budget Community Input Forum:
Thursday..February 11, 2010..7:00 p.m..New Rochelle High School Library 265 Clove Road, New Rochelle
School Budget Review Sessions – Community Discussion is Invited:Wednesday…March 3, 2010…7:00 p.m…New Rochelle High School Library 265 Clove Road, New Rochelle
Tuesday……March 9, 2010…..7:00 p.m…Board Room
Central Administration, City Hall, 515 North Avenue, New Rochelle
Tuesday……March 16, 2010….7:00 p.m…Board Room
Central Administration, City Hall, 515 North Avenue, New Rochelle
For your information, this schedule will be posted on our district Website, www .nred.org.
As always, we are committed to maintaining the excellence of our school system. At the same time, we remain ever mindful of the significant burden that quality education places upon our local taxpayers.
On an entirely different note, is safe to assume that the Board of Education used the City School District phone database to make the call. Some other questions that linger are regarding this particular robocall:
• Who were included as the general group of recipients of these calls?
• How were recipients chosen or how did they make the list?
• What attempts the Board of Education is making to elicit input from the tens of thousands of other stakeholders who do not have children in the City School District? For example, residents of New Rochelle, we receive important announcements from the Department of Public Works. Maybe the City of New Rochelle could do the Board of Education a favor and make a phone call that reaches a wider audience.
In the past we have seen how the Board of Education only targets voters who are more likely to be friendly to the Budget, but practically ignoring the rest of the voting population. Hence, the low voter turnout every year. Many residents believe that the low voter turnout is due to voter apathy or a general feeling that “things are the way they are and there is nothing anyone can do about it. The very existence of this forum refutes this notion. It is clear that many voters fail to go to the polls because they are unaware of the vote.
You may read about about last year’s outcome here:
New Rochelle School & Library Budget Pass, Hastie & Polow Elected to School Board
Exit Polls: Let us know how you voted on the City School District Budget Vote.
There are plenty more articles on this subject available in the Search option here at New Rochelle Talk of the Sound. We look forward to learning more about this Input Forum its evolution.
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Hable Con La Junta Escolar
Esta noche, en la biblioteca de la High School a las 7PM, comenzara una discusion entre la comunidad y la junta escolar sobre como se debe de utilizar el presupuesto en el 2010-2011. Ustedes que tienen hijos en las escuelas, pueden hacer comentarios utiles que les afecta directamente a ustedes como por ejemplo:
– porque hay tantas clases bilingues y nuestros hijos no avanzan?
– porque hay tan pocos estudiantes latinos en clases superiores categorizadas AP or Honor?
– porque hay tan poca representacion latina en los primeros 100 estudiantes que son sobresaliente?
– porque nuestros hijos no se graduan a tiempo (menos de 60%)?
– porque nuestros hijos en Isaac tiene menos recursos que Albert Leonard?
– queremos sistemas para que nos ayuden a entender mejor el sistema educativo en los EEUU? Queremos que nuestros hijos triunfen.
Vengan con sus preguntas. Si no hay voz pensaran que somos invicibles? La presencia es fuerza! Hacer preguntas trae cambios.
Esta noche, Jueves 11 de febrero a las 7PM en la biblioteca de la high school. Gracias!
Martin Sanchez
proper attribution
thank you new york community pulse for a fine and public spirited article. so used to seeing this sort of good reporting from cox that i skipped right by the byline. really good stuff and i hope you will continue to fill us in on more information on who received the telephonic information and perhaps even advocate for a broader inclusion covering people such as me; a senior citizen, property owner with no children in the district.
that said, glad to see that sara richmond is exploring areas her predecessors haave not and i think she is open to well intended and intelligent comements such as you offered.
warren gross
Board reach Out
Bob, you have written a fair and balanced piece and likely have isolated the greatest issue and that is systematic elimination of a significant part of the voting population by only reachng out to parents. I would like to think that Sara Richmond sought an accessible technology to reach voters, but in many ways, she would be “preaching to the converted” by focusing only on parents. One of the most comment criticisms of school district elections is that (1) most of the members of the board are parents and, much more important, (2) parents have almost a blind spot in evaluating any issue involving a district. It is understandable and a product of a society and system that tends to be very ego-cenric and not properly focused on issues outside of the immediate family. This is NOT CRITICISM — it is simply how things are and if parents are on the other end of the spectrum, they become very agitated as witnessed by the New York City’s Plan to close 19 or so low performing schools. Most of the parents storming the barricades are not focusing on performance but on a lack of participation and input.
So, it should be with New Rochelle voters. We have many people who are childless or senior citizens whose children are aged out of the system. Where is their voice? And, does the board has assurance that the people in their sample group are all taxpayers; many may be renters or people paying no property taxes and so, have a far less vested interest in the process.
I do believe that the new board members are a far sight better than those who have occcupied space and little else for many years. Lets all support them in all responsiblle efforts and encourage them to continue to effect positive change. And, a good start there would be to respond to Bob’s questions or concerns as well as what I raise above.
Oh by the way, you should know that when labor negotiations begin with the union, the school board is not a direct participant in terms of being recognized by NYS PERB as management. It is the Superintendetn and that means Richard Organisiciak. Just something you absolutely need to know and I got verification of this from NYS Department of Civil Service. warren gross
Thanks but credit New Rochelle Community Pulse
If you look at the top of the post, below the headline you will see “Submitted by New Rochelle Co…”
If you click on that you will see this post comes form the folks at New Rochelle Community Pulse.
They did cite me in this post so I can understand the confusion but I do not want to take credit for their work.