South Queens Democrats Honor Local Leaders - Queens Chronicle

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For the 42nd year in a row, the South Queens Democratic Club will hold its annual Dinner Dance on Oct. 20 at Russo’s on the Bay in Howard Beach.

The event, allows the club to honor residents who have given back to their communities, according to District Leader Frank Gulluscio.

This year, the club has chosen to honor five community leaders — people who “build and strengthen the community in every way shape and form,” according to Gulluscio.

All of this year’s honorees are residents of Howard Beach, but their leadership has extended to neighborhing communities.

John Engler
St. Barnabas Boy Scouts

Throughout his 34 years as Cubmaster of Cub Scout Pack 237, John Engler has received many service-related awards, including The Queens Federation of Churches’ Shepherd Emblem and the Boy Scouts of America’s District Award of Merit and Silver Beaver.

Engler has served as the treasurer of Boy Scout Troop 237 for 29 years and as the vice president of the Saint Barnabas Church congregation for 15 years. The church is Engler’s second home.

One of his proudest Scouting accompishments was serving on the committee that commissioned Boy Scouting to allow Cub Scouts to camp. A pilot program was established in Queens and camping for Cub Scouts was eventually adopted nationwide.

Anthony Battaglia
Rockwood Park Basketball League

At the age of 15, Anthony Battaglia and his family moved from Park Slope, Brooklyn to Ozone Park. He brought with him his love of sports.

After serving as a New York City school bus driver for 25 years, Battaglia moved with his wife and two children to Howard Beach in 1989. Soon after arriving in the community, he was invited by former P.S. 207 Principal Guy Rossiello to organize a boys and girls basketball league.

He created the Rockwood Park Summer Basketball League, which is sponsored by the Police Athletic League. More than 500 children, ages 9 through 18, play in the league, which will begin its 20th year next summer.

Pamela Baumann
New York Families for Autistic Children

Pamela Baumann describes herself as a tireless advocate on behalf of her community and her three children.

She has served as P.T.A. president for P.S. 232 and on the board of M.S. 202’s P.T.A., and has been part of the School Leadership Team at both.

Baumann has also served as president of the District Council P.T.A. Presidents. She won the “Woman of Distinction” award for her work with children with disabilities.

She was honored by the New York City Council, Queens Borough President, New York State Senate and Assembly, and U.S. Congress for her work as the Director of Operations at New York Families for Autistic Children, which she founded with her husband, Andrew, in 1998.

Andrew Baumann
New York Families for Autistic Children

Andrew Baumann has been in the human services field for 25 years. He is the president and CEO of New York Families of Autistic Children, which he and his wife, Pamela, founded in 1998.

Baumann is an adjunct Professor of Psychology at Queens College. He serves on Gov. David Paterson’s Task Force for Autism and is a charter member of the World Autism Organization, which represents 26 countries. Baumann also sits on the Best Practices in Special Education committee of the city Department of Education.

He is also the president of the District 27 Community Education Council District and an Executive Board Member of the Howard Beach Civic Association.

In 2000 he founded the Autism Coalition of Empire State, which serves more than 50 thousand families. He has also served as chairman of the NYC Autism Task Force.

Peter Marino
Howard Beach Civic Forum

Peter Marino has been involved with the Howard Beach community since he became part of it in 1972.

Immediately after moving into the neighborhood, Marino and his wife, Irene, became involved in St. Helen R. C. Church, where he serves as the director of hospitality.

Marino is a member of the men’s prayer group and has been a member of the Holy Name Society for 26 years: he was president four times and a board member for 14 years. Marino is also a Eucharististic minister.

For the last nine years, Marino has been the chairperson for the Long Island Blood Drive.

Marino has been an active member of the Howard Beach Civic Forum since its inception. He was appointed to the board of directors for four years.

©Queens Chronicle 2008

Mayoral Control Meets Opposition by Ralph Mancini - (Ridgewood) Times Newsweekly

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City Council Member Joseph Addabbo (pictured standing) hosted a town hall meeting this past Monday to give parents an opportunity to offer their views of mayoral control of city schools. Also pictured are (from left to right): Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer, State Sen. Shirley Huntley, CEC 27 President Andrew Baumann and Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan. Photo Ralph Mancini

Education advocates were given an opportunity to weigh in on mayoral control of education in New York City at a community input session, held Monday, Oct. 6, in which a panel of elected officials listened to numerous parents calling for change.

Most of the audience at St. Barnabas Lutheran Church in Howard Beach expressed frustration with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's authority over the city's education system, citing the need for more parent and community involvement in several decisions that are reportedly being made without public input.

Community Board 10 Chairperson Elizabeth Braton acknowledged some of the benefits of having one individual oversee education in the city, but wasn't satisfied with Bloomberg's direction.

"There are pluses, but it's not a dictatorship. There needs to be some sort of accountability on the mayoral level," she pointed out.

Braton didn't agree with how other city agencies are held to different standards as far as their requirement to report their work to the community boards in the city and the public, while the mayor and the Department of Education "thumb their noses" at the commu- nity.

She called for a "structure" in place where people could issue their insight on how schools are being governed.

"We need structure that's going to function no matter who the mayor is," said the former 34-year educator, who believes that Bloomberg has added too much of his own managerial style to how the DOE communicates and interacts with community stakeholders.

Shortly after taking office in 2001, Bloomberg asked for control of the school system to rehabilitate the city's ailing school system, formerly under the control of the Board of Education.

One of the ways he sought to accomplish this feat was by placing more accountability on the part of principals and their schools.

Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer promised that changes will be in the offing for the current rule.

She assured parents that many more hearings will take place in which they will be invited to offer their input.

"Our suggestions were much different than the actual legislation," she said in reference to the original bill that was signed into law on May 21, 2002.

"We knew we wanted much more parent participation," she Pheffer.

City Council Member Joseph Addabbo and State Sen. Shirley Huntley echoed Pheffer's sentiments. Huntley revealed that she's spearheading a movement to garner public feedback in an effort to revise mayoral control.

"We've had five hearings with many more on the way. This is something I would not like to do again. We want a good plan. We don't agree with the mayor in how things are planned." she said. "We want legislation to give rights to parents and continue the dialogue. There's going to be a mandate with a watchdog group to make sure this law is carried out."

Community Education Council District 27 President Andrew Baumann bashed the way Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein have been doing business.

Klein and the entire DOE, according to the CEC leader, have systematically shunned him and other CEC representatives through- out scheduled bi-monthly meetings.

"We've been met with disregard," he stated. "They talk at you, not with you. It's a dictatorship, not a collaboration. Parents complain to us across the city. Mayoral control the way it is now isn't good for us. It's not working."

P.S. 207 (Howard Beach) Parent Association President Andrea Mercatante called out the Bloomberg Administration for issuing too much power to individual principals, who are instructing their teachers to avoid her group.

Due to the lack of participation, rights and access afforded to her association, many parents have decided not to get involved in PA activities and meetings. Many of them are reportedly opting to use 311 or report directly to the district office.

Her PA, she continued, is just being looked at as a "cash cow" that brings in money through fundraisers, while being restricted from entering P.S. 207 premises before 8:30 a.m. and after 2:30 p.m.

"We are not allowed to communicate with teachers. Tell me what can I do. You put cones in the schoolyard to ward off parents. Every little thing adds up. The PA is not a forum for parents anymore— we have no power," she concluded.

Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan told attendees about her plan to create a five-borough education system with Queens having its own set of leaders and advisors.

Local parent David M. Quintana was on hand to deride the mayor's "failed" six-year experiment with control of the DOE.

"Many speak of tweaking the system, but I think it's in need of a massive overhaul to make it more responsive to the concerns and needs of their primary stakeholders, parents, teachers and students," he began.

"Mayoral control of the New York City Department of Education has not achieved improved student performance," he added. "According to the most recent NAEP (National Association of Educational Progress) for NYC [report], test stores are stagnant. There have been no significant gains in scores during this period."

Quintana also called for the elimination of massive NYPD presence in school buildings, which in his estimation creates a "prisonlike" atmosphere.

In addition, he urged that educators be put back in the "Tweed Courthouse" and not corporate "media spin doctors" who misinform the citizenry of the conditions in schools.

Under the current setup, said Addabbo, there's no limit to how many times a mayor can come in and change the rules, even if it means modifying school policies in the middle of a school year.

"I'll check it out with our legal counsel in City Hall to see if we can implement structure," said the Council member.

DOE Officials Boycott School Control Hearing - by Ben Hogwood - Queens Chronicle

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Councilman Joe Addabbo Jr. (D-Howard Beach) hoped to assemble a collection of politicians, parents and Department of Education officials for an in-depth conversation about the mayor’s grasp on the city’s school system.

[Photo caption: Shown, from left, are Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer, state Sen. Shirley Huntley, CEC 27 president Andrew Bauman, Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan and Councilman Joseph Addabbo Jr. (photo by Ben Hogwood)

Instead, only a handful of Democratic legislators came out to a meeting Addabbo staged at St. Barnabas Church, in Howard Beach, on Monday to address a similarly small group of moms and dads.

According to Addabbo, not only did the DOE instruct representatives not to attend, but it also blocked the councilman from holding the meeting in any of the public schools, because it was more about politics than education.

Addabbo is running against state Sen. Serphin Maltese (R-Glendale) for the District 15 seat and said he invited all Queens delegates to attend the meeting on mayoral control. “We were looking for a good conversation,” Addabbo said. However, he pointed out that he was notified earlier in the day that DOE told principals, parent coordinators and regional heads not to show up. “For the DOE to deem this political I thought was wrong. It’s a wrong focus they had.”

A DOE spokesperson said Addabbo could not use public school facilities to hold the meeting because he is involved in an election. The chancellor’s regulations do not allow candidates to use a school for a meeting within 60 days of an election.

Incidentally, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the head of the school system, has endorsed Maltese in the race.

Maltese said he did not receive an invitation to the meeting, but would have attended if he had. “If he’s holding a meeting on mayoral control, since it is the legislature that acts and only the legislature that can act, the fact is we should have been there,” he said.

And while an e-mail notifying reporters of the meeting used Addabbo’s campaign literature, the councilman said all invitations to guests were on his council letterhead and advertisements in newspapers were funded with city money.

Despite the conflict, the discussion, generally, focused on the topic at hand. Complaints ranged from the lack of communication parents have with DOE to little checks and balances involved with decisions being made in schools.

The legislature handed Bloomberg the reins of the school system after years of dissatisfaction with the former system, where 32 community school boards ran each school district. The law will sunset, and schools will revert back to the old system, unless the state legislature addresses it by June.

Betty Braton, chairperson of Community Board 10, said the DOE does not present its budget to community boards like every other city agency. “This is our city, our schools, our tax dollars,” she said.

However, Addabbo said that under the old system, when school boards ran the schools, there was no accountability and no transparency. “The boards were an entity to themselves,” he said. “Their windows were opaque. You couldn’t see in.”

With the DOE, he added, at least the public can see where the money is being spent, as it is part of the city budget.

But Andrew Baumann, the president of Community Education Council 27, said the windows into the DOE are just as dark now. Principals get to run the schools without public input and if a principal isn’t friendly, too bad, he said.

State Sen. Shirley Huntley (D-Jamaica), who is co-chairperson of the Senate’s School Governance Task Force, said principals are too often coming from the New York City Leadership Academy, with little or no experience in the education system. As a result, they have very little interaction with parents.

Members of PTAs were exasperated with mayoral control and recited a list of concerns they had with the mayor and the policy. Andrea Mercatante, the president of P.S. 207 PTA, in Howard Beach, said in five years, there will no longer be a PTA because the system completely shuts out parents.

Though she is president, she is not allowed to go into the school before 8:30 a.m. to get her mail and cannot be there past 2:35 p.m. “We’re seen as a distraction,” she said. The PTA previously sponsored a 10-week after-school program, paying teachers $30 an hour, but Mercatante could not go on to the property to make sure the teachers were present.

“We’re not allowed to do bake sales. Why? Because the chancellor says bake sales are not healthy for students.”

Others called for a return to community schools, as too many students have to be sent out of the area due to overcrowding. “You live near a school, that’s the school you go to. Somewhere along the line we’ve lost that,” Addabbo said.

Complaints aired included the mayor shaking up the system three times in six years and the fact that when a new mayor is elected, that person could reorganize the system yet again.

“You’re always going back to the start,” said Tracy Schnepf, a vice president of the parent association at P.S. 47, in Broad Channel.

But some remembered the way things ran when school boards were in control and didn’t want to go back. Barbara Brumberg, a former educator from Howard Beach, said she was sorry parents felt left out, but believed mayoral control would be easier to improve than the school board system.

“There was so much feather bedding, so much waste that nothing got done,” she said of the previous system.

Pam Baumann, wife of Andrew Baumann, disagreed and said she much preferred the school boards. “If you couldn’t get help from the principal, you could go up the food chain,” she said. “Now there’s no food chain.”

©Queens Chronicle 2008