Community Education Council 24

P.S. 91 Room 119 68-10 Central Avenue

Glendale, New York 11385
Phone: 718.418.8160 / Fax: 718.418.8168/ [email protected]

New York City Department of Education

Visit our website at www.myschoolonline.com/ny/cec24
Nick Comaianni Dmytro Fedkowskyj Dominic Coticchio Ernest Cury Nancy Carbone
President 1St Vice President 2nd Vice President Treasurer Secretary

Council Members Department of Education Region 4 Officials

Lelani Bomani Reyes Irizarry
Cecilia Chavez Regional Superintendent
Marge Kolb Charles Amundsen
JoAnne Scichilone Deputy Superintendent
Catherine M. Powis
Community Superintendent

FINAL BOARD APPROVED MINUTES

Minutes of Calendar Meeting
October 25, 2005
At PS 113, Glendale, New York

1) Call to order and Roll Call -- The Calendar meeting convened at PS 113, at 7:30
PM

• Roll Call – Present

• Nancy Carbone
• Cecilia Chavez
• Nick Comaianni
• Ernest Cury
• Dmytro Fedkowskyj
• Marge Kolb

• Roll Call – Absent

• Lelani Bomani
• Dominic Coticchio
• JoAnne Scichilone

Also in attendance

Community Superintendent Catherine Powis, Regional Instructional Supervisor for

Region 4, Roseanne Napolitano and, Local Instructional Superintendent for Region 4
Robert Klein
2) Approval of Minutes

On motion duly made and seconded, the minutes of the September 27, 2005 meeting
were unanimously approved.

3) Report of the President

Nick Comaianni stated that the CEC will be electing a new member to fill one of the two
vacancies on the council. As far as the extensions for PS 113, 49, 102, 128 and 13 the
completion date has been pushed back one year, instead of 2008 the extensions are now
scheduled for completion in 2007.

The special education issues in this district are disturbing. After going through
various procedures with many parents, Mr. Comaianni stated his disappointment over
how the issues were handled in Region 4. He stated that CEC D24 is the furthest district
from the Region and that parents have to travel too far. It is very hard to reach the
Region. Mr. Comaianni has been pushing the Region to put a special education hub
closer to or in our district. The Region informed him that they could not immediately
entertain that thought because they were too busy. Mr. Comaianni inquired as to why
they were so busy and was informed that they were spending a lot of time with District
30 parents. Mr. Comaianni then pointed out that it is easy for D30 parents to reach the
Region because it is located in their district, and further stated that that leaves District 24
at a disadvantage. He also stated that at Region 4 communication is very bad. Parents
have informed him that they do not receive phone calls back, that answering machines
are full, e-mails not returned. Special education children who need more help should be
able to get it immediately and not be left in limbo.

Mr. Comaianni reported that the Metropolitan Avenue site is still status quo.
Concerning our district the schools that are proposed should be one high school and one
K-8 but we are trying to push for two high schools, which our district desperately needs.
Mr. Comaianni then reported on another school going up in our District, in Ridgewood,
which will be a K-2 early childhood center, as well as a school going up in Woodside,
near PS 199 and another near PS 19 and the extensions at PS 49, 13, 102, 49, 128, 113
and we have another high school which will consist of 2,000 seats in Corona which will
alleviate overcrowding in that neighborhood.

4) Report of the Community Superintendent

Ms. Powis commented on Mr. Comaianni report on high schools by adding that
the Art and Leather building in Long Island City was encumbered via long term lease by
the DOE and it is located on 94th Street in Elmhurst. Three small high schools will be
built within that structure and the opening date is projected for 2008. There will also be
swing space in that building to house students as other structures are being built.

Ms. Powis stated PTA conference dates and report card distribution dates. Ms.
Powis stated that schools will be open on Election Day for professional development but
students will not be in attendance. Ms. Powis then reported on high school admissions
and stated that high school catalogs were sent out to 7th and 8th graders. There are
evening workshops for parents and their children to become familiar with the admissions
process. Ms. Powis then stated the specialized high school test dates. She then
introduced Robert Klein who is the Local Instructional Superintendent in charge of
restructuring and school improvement in our region and Roseanne Napolitano who is the
Director for School Improvement who are hear to explain the District Comprehensive
Educational Plan (DCEP).

Mr. Klein stated that the DCEP in this year is an update year. Every few years the State
revisits the structure of the DCEP. Each section is broken down and we must report to
the state on how we are allocating our funds. This document, because it is a plan is a
living and breathing document. The DCEP incorporates not only the elementary schools
but the middle and high schools as well. We also look at our needs assessment for the
Region and Mr. Klein stated the ways in which they go about it. Nick Comaianni added
that the DCEP is basically the bible of the district. Everything that goes on during the
course of the year throughout the whole district gets recorded in the DCEP. Mr. Klein
then continued on and explained sub groups which appear in the DCEP. The DCEP is
also an indicator to the state as to the performance of our schools. The state looks at how
we implement programs such as English Language Arts and Science programs. Mr.
Klein added that there are two things the state looked at very carefully this year, one
being interventions. The state wants to know what interventions we will be using to
service the needs of students who are in need. Those interventions could be from the
school level or the district level or the regional level or through vendors. Interventions
can come in a variety of ways, either directly to the student or through professional
development. The two most popular intervention programs we use now are Great Leaps
and Wilson. These are programs that work directly with students and teachers and they
deal with literacy and fluency. Great Leaps also offers a math program. Mr. Klein then
went on to speak about different funds and how they are allocated. For example, the state
looks closely at Title 1 schools. The state also looked closely at academic intervention
for the homeless and students living in shelters and how the district is addressing their
needs. Once we look at data and identify measurable progress, the state wants to know
what services we are using and how they are working with in our district to meet the
needs of those students who are in need. We have a variety of ways to go about doing
this, one of the ways that we use is to provide teams with ‘walk-through’s’ with the
vendors that are supplying services but also with the Region and people from various
schools so they can see how we are differentiating professional development for student
teachers to meet the needs of their students achievements. Mr. Klein went on to explain
that if a school does not make adequate yearly progress in year one it is considered a
school in need of improvement. If a school does not make AYP in the second year it
moves to the next level which is SINI or schools in need of improvement. Then in year
three if it still does not make its AYP it is then considered a school in corrective action.
When this happens we look very carefully at what we can change, such as intervention
services. We address these issues in the DCEP and make suggestions as to what we
could do differently. We may turn to our partners at Teachers College which provides
our writing workshops. We have other support as well and went on to describe ‘Aussie’
which provides help in mathematics and literacy. Mr. Klein also discussed the Summer
Program as well as the Saturday Program. He then discussed corrective actions schools
and described what happens after a school is in corrective action and does not come out
the school then goes into restructuring. He then discussed the Middle School Initiative
which focuses on the specific needs of middle school children.

Mr. Klein took questions from the council.

Dmytro Fedkowskyj stated that last year the CEC did a review of the DCEP for the DOE
and gave suggestions of what we thought should be implemented. Mr. Fedkowskyj
inquired as to any whether any of the suggestions made by the council has been
incorporated in the initial draft to which Mr. Klein replied that the initial draft satisfies
the state requirements but we do incorporate some of it in our initial work but normally
that would be considered when we ask the community at large to comment.

Marge Kolb stated that five of our seven middle schools are in need of improvement and
that it would be interesting to her to know how many 8th graders in our district or the
New York City public school system since kindergarten or 1st grade. She further stated
that in our district there is a 14% rise in immigration in the past 3 years. She inquired as
to the percentage of immigrants in the last 5 years stating that if they had come from
somewhere else they may not have had all the benefits of a lot of the programs that we
have had in our elementary schools. Ms. Kolb pointed out that the middle school data
may be skewed. She also pointed out that state wide the 8th grade scores dropped over
the 4th grade scores. That is not unique to New York City or any middle school. The 8th
grade tests is much harder than the 4th grade test to which Mr. Klein stated that she is
correct but that they focus on different things such as literacy and mathematics. Ms.
Kolb then asked if the DOE has any plans to track students to which Mr. Klein replied
that the DOE could take a look at that and extract information from the data already
compiled. Ms. Kolb then inquired as to what choices the students have who are in failing
middle schools to which Mr. Klein replied that there is a list of schools that the parents
can choose from if they so wish. He asked the audience to keep in mind that one sub-
group could be the reason why a school is failing. Ms. Kolb then asked if the parents are
given an explanation as to why a school is failing to which Mr. Klein replied in the
affirmative. He also stated that a letter is sent home asking the parents of a failing school
to attend a meeting to discuss what the school is doing to improve its status.

Cecilia Chavez stated that her daughter was very happy to learn African dance in one of
her classes and thus she felt it was important to have programs like that. She also felt it
would ultimately it would improve academics. Ms. Powis stated that the program
described by Ms. Chavez is most likely a school based decision which is based on
funding and the availability of teacher thus those programs will exist in different schools
at different times.

Marge Kolb then stated that she attended a meeting with Carmen Farina in which the
middle school initiative was discussed. They said that every Region would have a middle
school specialist and inquired as to who it was. Mr. Klein replied that it was him. Ms.
Kolb then asked if he was meeting with primary schools that have a 6th grade to which he
replied that liaisons would meet with all 6th grades. Ms. Kolb also pointed out that at the
meeting Carmen Farina spoke of the need for more guidance counselors but unfortunately
she was told that there were not enough funds. Mr. Klein responded that he would check
that information but under the middle school initiative intervention would be more
proactive.

Nick Comaianni asked if there was something in the draft of the DCEP for special
education. He stated that the Region is grossly understaffed. Ms. Napolitano replied that
the section for special education appears in the RCEP which explains how the needs of
special education students are being met. She further stated that neither she nor Mr.
Klein came prepared to speak about the RCEP but offered to come back and discuss it at
a later date. Mr. Comaianni then stated that before the regions formed there were field
officers; most of these people went out to schools everyday, now they are in the Region
answering phones. The changes, the bureaucracy and red tape are really immense. Mr.
Comaianni then asked who was in charge of the special education DCEP to which Mr.
Klein responded that there is a liaison. Mr. Comaianni then noted that he would like to
have the liaison for District 24 at one of our CEC meetings.

5) Resolutions – None

6) Vote on Appointment of New Member to Fill Vacancy on Council

A roll call was taken regarding the appointment of Daniel Creighton resulting in 5 yes
votes and 1 abstention. Nick Comaianni stated that with a majority of the quorum,
Daniel Creighton is officially a member of Community Education Council District 24 and
congratulated him.

7) Election of Secretary

Dmytro Fedkowskyj nominated Nancy Carbone; Ernest Cury seconded the nomination.
Ms. Carbone accepted the nomination. A roll call was taken resulting in a unanimous
appointment. Nick Comaianni congratulated Nancy Carbone.

8) Report of the Committees

Marge Kolb, Chair of the Curriculum Committee stated that she attended the monthly
meeting at Tweed with Carmen Farina. Chancellor Klein was in attendance and reported
on the 4th grade math results. He did say that the 8th grade results went down 1 _ points.
He also spoke about an outside report which was commissioned on special education
which he summarized by stating that special education is headed in the right direction
although some improvement was needed. Ms. Kolb then spoke about the contract
agreement between the City of New York and the UFT. Ms. Kolb had concerns over the
extra 10 minutes a day that the teachers must teach should they accept the contract and
how those extra minutes would affect the students. Ms. Powis stated that committees of
principals are being set up to discuss the details and implementation. Ms. Kolb then
stated the Carmen Farina informed the public at the meeting that she is living and
breathing the middle school initiative and that K-8 was not a citywide initiative contrary
to what Chancellor Klein had said in the past and that some districts are not anticipating
having any K-8 schools. Carmen Farina also announced that early childhood centers are
a priority. Ms. Kolb also stated that the city is working on a new HIV curriculum and
early pregnancy prevention; other big health issues are asthma and drug use. Carmen
Farina is looking at boys this year because there tends to be an achievement gap between
boys and girls. She also reported that a representative from Health and Family living
would also be available to students to help them with their self-esteem and goal setting
and planning for the future. Ms. Kolb also stated that some children are receiving health
education during their physical education period. Ms. Powis stated that she would have
to look at that on an individual basis because physical education should be a stand alone
program.

Nick Comaianni stated that he was told that the health curriculum would be approved by
the CEC so that the community could have input. He then asked Ms. Powis where we
were at with that to which she replied that she has heard nothing so far. Mr. Comaianni
asked what they are being taught right now to which Ms. Powis replied that the short, 2
week curriculum that must be signed off by the parents is usually done in the spring. Ms.
Powis then informed the CEC that she has asked the DOE if District 24 must continue
with a health curriculum that was voted on by the previous school board or would the
new curriculum take precedence and would the CEC vote on that. She has yet to receive
an answer.

Marge Kolb then finished her report by stating that at the meeting mentioned prior they
did a presentation on high school admissions. The people who gave the presentation said
that they would come to a CEC meeting. Ms. Kolb asked the council to consider them as
guest speakers in the spring. She also stated that the presentation basically informed
parents not to wait until the last minute to decide on which high school your child will
attend. Ms. Kolb added that there are many new high schools all over the city and careful
decision making should be practiced. The people who gave the presentation also
emphasized that the grades a child get is 7th grade are what goes on the high school
applications. Ms. Kolb then stated the due date of the applications.

Nancy Carbone, Chair of the Website Committee stated that there was nothing new to
report.

Nick Comaianni gave a Special Education Committee report on behalf of Joanne

Scichilone and stated that Region 4 is very bad concerning communications and
procedures.

Dmytro Fedkowskyj, Chair of the Building, Zoning and Maintenance Committee

stated that the CEC contacted the Department of Transportation regarding an intersection
at 51st Road and 67th Avenue in Woodside. Currently there is a one way stop sign which
the school community and members of this council feel is inadequate and would like to
replace that stop sign with a four way or all way stop sign. The CEC D24 has asked for a
study to be done to correct signage.

Ernest Cury, Chair of the English Language Learner Committee stated that last year the
DOE announced that they were starting an ELL Teaching Academy for professional
development and we are in the process of finding out if that has been implemented. Also
there was supposed to be $20 million dollars allocated to that program and Mr. Cury
asked Ms. Powis to find out if that money is still earmarked for the ELL Academy and if
so how that money will be spent. Mr. Cury stated that his ELL committee has been
trying to gather information on the development of the ELL Academy but he stated that it
has been very difficult.

9) Old Business

Dmytro Fedkowskyj asked Ms. Powis if the registers were final for each school and Ms.
Powis stated that she had to access the latest registers and would do so and get back to the
council. Ms. Powis stated that Monday, October 31, 2005 is the deadline for schools to
report their register.

Mr. Comaianni announced that the council is still looking to fill a vacancy and asked
anyone interested to call the CEC office for an application.

Mr. Fedkowskyj stated that last June there was talk about two schools in our district
getting the enrichment program model piloted in PS 58, PS 128 and we talked about
funding for these programs. Sandy Brawer informed us there would be monies available
however after looking on the website the budgets of these schools do not reflect these
programs. Mr. Fedkowskyj asked Ms. Powis if there was any decision yet regarding the
piloted programs. Ms. Powis replied that there is a very small pot of money that will be
allotted to the school enrichment programs, according to Cheryl Quatrano.

Marge Kolb asked Ms. Powis if the Gifted and Talented Think Tank met yet to which
Ms. Powis replied that they have met. Ms. Kolb then inquired as to if they discussed a
curriculum for self contained gifted and talented classes. Ms. Powis stated that she would
have a report for the council in the near future. She further stated that she is having
discussions regarding writing our own curriculum based on professional development
that the teachers are going through but that Carmen Farina had set up a task force that
will be writing the gifted and talented curriculum for the city, it should be finished at the
end of the year and the DOE is looking at implemented the curriculum next year.

10) New Business – None

11) Public Agenda Session

The council took various questions from the public.

12) Adjournment
Dmytro Fedkowskyj motioned to adjourn, Nick Comaianni seconded the motion.
Meeting was adjourned at 9:45 PM