Today is election day for the three candidates running for two school board seats. By default, the winners should be challengers Lianne Merchant and Valerie Orellana.
Incumbent Jerome Smith, who no longer has a primary residence in New Rochelle, is ineligible to serve on the board but refused to withdraw from the race after Talk of the Sound disclosed Smith’s failure to meet the district residency requirement.
If ever the school budget were to be defeated this would be the year. There has been a noticeable absence of lawn signs supporting any of the school board candidates and just a sprinkling of “vote yes on the budget” signs. Many parochial and private school voters, upset over the proposed service cuts for 6th graders, have organized to oppose the budget including a “vote no on the budget” online petition.
As usual, unless you are 150 feet from a public school you will have virtually no way to know that the school board elections are going on today. The District, which is legally charged with running the election, does only the bare minimum required to advertise the election to people who do not directly benefit from the schools. Meanwhile, the schools will be holding the usual election day art shows and spring concerts in a transparent attempt to manipulate parents into voting for the budget. Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak was caught sending emails to the Co-Presidents of the PTA Council illegally urging them to spread the word about the opposition of some parochial school parents to the school budget. Organisciak’s email urged the pair to inform their “various constituencies” about the drive to defeat the budget. Valerie Orellana, one of the PTA Co-Presidents, is a school board candidate and Martin Daly, the second PTA Co-President, is the head of F.U.S.E., the teachers union.
Regardless of who wins the two school board seats, the result will be to continue the disproportionate representation on the school board with 8 of the 9 board members coming from the three predominantly white “North End” elementary school districts of Ward, Davis and Webster. Meanwhile, two of the three predominantly Latino “South End” elementary school districts (Jefferson, Columbus) will once again have no representation. Board Vice President Chrisanne Petrone lives in the “South End” Trinity School district. As has been the case for many years, Lincoln, the one predominantly black district will have no representation on the school board, a fitting tribute to New Rochelle at the advent of the 50th Anniversary of the Lincoln School Desegregation Case.
The predominantly white, almost entirely North End Board of Education has hired an almost exclusively white leadership team in a district that is two-thirds minority students. Every member of the Superintendent’s office is white. Every post-elementary school principal in New Rochelle is white (IYEMS=Anthony Bongo, ALMS=Bill Evans, NRHS=Don Conetta). The vast majority of elementary school principals and department heads are also white.
Not surprisingly, the most expensive non-classified education program in New Rochelle, the PAVE Performing Arts Program, is reserved almost entirely for white, North End students.
Meanwhile, the on-time graduation rates for Black (55%) and Latino (51%) students at New Rochelle High School is among the lowest in Westchester County. New Rochelle trails only Mount Vernon and Yonkers.
As usual the district has packed a fistful of lies and deceptions into the campaign propaganda, in what has generally been successful attempts to dupe voters into believing all is well in New Rochelle.
One of my favorites this year is the claim:
New Rochelle High ranks in the Top 10% of high schools in the nation (Newsweek ranking)
During the previous school year, the Board of Education approved a recommendation by Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak that New Rochelle refuse to participate in the annual Newsweek survey after the District dropped precipitously in the rankings. Organisciak stated that he felt using “one number” was unfair and the Newsweek ranking was not representtive of the work of the school district. In other words, they liked the Newsweek survey since it was founded in 1998, right up until the district began getting low marks on Organisciak’s watch. New Rochelle ended up ranked by Newsweek in 2009 and 2010 anyway because the authors of the survey gathered the data without the district’s cooperation.
As to the claim that New Rochelle ranking in the “Top 10%”, let’s take a look at the too. According to the Newsweek FAQ
Newsweek ranks schools based on the so-called “Challenge Index” which is calculated by taking the total number of Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge tests given at a school in May, and divide by the number of seniors graduating in May or June. All public schools that achieve a ratio of at least 1.000, are put on the list on the NEWSWEEK Web site. A school can reach that level if only half of its students take one AP, IB or Cambridge test in their junior year and one in their senior year. In the 2010 survey, less than 6 percent of the approximately 27,000 U.S. public high schools managed to reach that standard and be placed on the NEWSWEEK list.
So, by virtue of what Newsweek calls a modest standard — a 1.000 ratio — New Rochelle is included on the list.
New Rochelle has dropped in the Index every year since Organisciak became Schools Superintendent and currently stands at its lowest level since the ranking was created in 1998.
Year Index
2005 1.608
2006 1.703
2007 1.769
2008 1.475
2009 1.259
New Rochelle has dropped in the Rank every year since Organisciak became Schools Superintendent and currently stands at its lowest level since the ranking was created in 1998.
Year Rank
2005 466
2006 528
2007 589
2008 897
2009 1,292
While it is no surprise that Organisciak advised the board of his intention to stop cooperating with Newsweek in producing the ranking (one of just a handful of schools in the United States to refuse to cooperate), it is just another example of the hypocrisy endemic to his administration that he would cite the Newsweek ranking as an “accomplishment” of the district.
NOTE: The original headline stated that the polls closed at 8 PM; that has been changed to the correct time of 9 PM.
VOTE NO!!
Vote NO on the Library and School Budgets! Enough is enough!
PAVE
Over 80% of the PAVE students are from Albert Leonard school. Last year, less than 15% of the students chosen were from IYMS; despite incredible recommendations from their music & art teachers at IYMS. Go figure.
My son was denied a PAVE spot
While at Issac Young, my son played drums in the school band, played drums for the school play (rather than the professional drummer they hired every year), won a national award for an original drum piece he recorded, and was recommended highly by his music teacher and school music teacher, yet he was not accepted into the pave program, which no one could understand. Now it’s clear what the criteria is.
Voting Hours
I believe the hours are til 9:00pm tonight.
I went this morning and turnout was really light. I was the only voter signing in.
Polls close at 9 PM
Thanks for pointing out the error — fixed.
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