DOE Names New Director - Ojeda Hall - for Family Engagement by Pamela Wheaton - Insideschools.org :: Blogs

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Ojeda Hall, a community organizer and youth minister, was named today as the director for family engagement and advocacy at the Department of Education, effective Aug. 2. She replaces Martine Guerrier who left  in June to become a senior policy advisory in the mayor’s office.

Hall will work with parent associations, Community Education Councils, and oversee the family engagement office’s outreach efforts to parents.  Unlike the former “chief mom,” as the chancellor liked to call Guerrier, Hall is not a parent.

As a “citizens’ organizer” for East Brooklyn Congregations (EBC) and Empowered Queens United in Action and Leadership (EQUAL), her work involves “parent and safety issues at large-scale traditional public schools, small schools founded by EBC, and charter schools,” according to today’s announcement.

She organized local church leaders to support the founding of a new charter school in southeast Queens, the Rochdale Early Advantage Charter School. The school, which will be housed in the New Jerusalem Baptist Church, will open in September with a kindergarten and 1st grade and will grow to include a 5th grade.

“The transition from supporting families in the community, to serving as an advocate for families at the Department of Education, will be seamless for Ojeda,” Chancellor Klein said in a statement. “With her experience working with troubled students and their families, Ojeda will bring an important perspective to debates over school policy.”

EBC, a community organization in Brooklyn, was instrumental in founding several small high schools including the EBC High School for Public Service, and the Bushwick Leaders High School for Academic Excellence. A third school, the EBC/East New York High School for Public Safety and Law is being closed for poor performance. On its website, the organization states its support of  “Mayoral Control and Accountability, which has been critical to many of the improvements in the school system over the last seven years.”

In addition to her work as a community organizer, Hall, a graduate of Harvard College and Drew University Theological  School, is actively involved in the Bethany Baptist Church in Jamaica, Queens as a youth pastor, mentor, and teacher. She talked about her experiences there in a New York Times “One in 8 Million”  profile last August.

Prior to her work in the non-profit sector, Hall worked as a manager as J.P. Morgan and Salomon Smith Barney (now Citigroup).

Click here to read the press release with today’s announcement.

Parents Groups Playing Hooky by Jess Wisloski

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Education advocates have long warned that the diminishing role for parents in schools will eventually kill off parent involvement altogether.

Now, the city's own findings on the efficacy of two avenues available for parents to weigh in on their childrens' schools back up Mayor Bloomberg's critics.

Out of 100 schools, 78% of parent coordinators - the on-staff liaisons between parents and the school - could not be reached on their city-provided cell phones, according to a survey by Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum.

And the Department of Education's own parent engagement office found that only 51% of the schools it has looked at so far has a functioning School Leadership Team (SLT).

The news may be no surprise to parents, who have bemoaned many of the administration's reforms - including disbanding local school boards.

But for educators, whose jobs are to engage parents, recent tallies are worrisome.

"It's really embarrassing to say our district's Presidents Council is not even in effect right now," Michelle Lloyd-Bey, the community superintendent of Queens District 27, said at a community meeting in March. A Presidents Council represents all the PTAs in a district.

She added that SLTs - a body of teachers and parents that help in school decision-making - "are not sending documentation as they're supposed to, not keeping records, and in some cases they're not even functioning."

Martine Guerrier, the city's chief of parent engagement, said her office is working to fix the problems. "SLTs have always been an issue," she said. Her office began looking into SLTs recently and found that many only existed on paper. But in district surveys, 83% of schools claimed they had SLTs.

Guerrier's office was created last year to address some of these complaints. "We just started, so there's no way to tell right now, but I'm encouraged by what I've seen," she said of the city's progress.

But William McDonald, a parent in Queens District 29 who also heads the citywide Chancellor's Parent Advisory Committee, said the effect of Bloomberg's initiatives on parent involvement has been "a mess."

"It's to the point now where SLTs don't function at all," he said, noting the problem began in 2003 when the city eliminated SLT budgets. The city instead hired "SLT coordinators" - a job that was dissolved last year.

And with the PTAs also disappearing or growing less active, McDonald sees a dim future.

"As I see it, in three years, parent involvement probably won't even exist," he said.

jwisloski@nydailynews.com

'Chief Mom' Gets Mixed Report Card by Carrie Melago - NY Daily News

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When Martine Guerrier was named "chief mom" by Mayor Bloomberg last year, relations between parents and education officials were at a frosty standstill.

A year into the job, Guerrier believes she has opened avenues of communication and parent participation - but critics maintain friction still runs deep.

"I think she's trying, but she's attached to the word DOE [Department of Education]. She's getting the backlash," said Brooklyn parent and activist Zakiyah Ansari.

Some parents say they believe Guerrier has abandoned her watchdog role and instead walks in lockstep with the administration.

"It's a difficult situation to serve two masters. Part of her wants very much to be an advocate for parents, but at the same time, she is a staffer for the Department of Education," said James Devor, a Brooklyn parent.

Guerrier was a surprising choice for the newly created $150,000-a-year chief family engagement officer slot, having repeatedly butted heads with Chancellor Joel Klein as a member of his Panel for Education Policy.

Her charge was to harness support from public school parents by bringing them under the umbrella of the new Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy, which has a budget of $15.5 million a year.

She quickly became a highly visible official, hosting a series of "Ask Martine" public meetings in every borough and creating an e-mail address of the same name so parents could easily remember it.

But the increased attention brought scrutiny.

Parent guidebooks weren't available for the first few weeks of school. Guerrier was responsible for proposing changes to school leadership teams that critics say stripped power from parents and gave it to principals. And on her watch, a citywide parents group pulled their support from the department's lobby day in Albany, and her office's Web site is still not up and running.

Guerrier told the Daily News that she was prepared for friction. "I didn't walk in believing that it would be a cakewalk, and I certainly didn't believe that it would be a giant lovefest either," she said. "There was a lot of work to be done."

She acknowledges bumps in the road but believes her office has made tangible changes, particularly in providing translation services and holding training sessions for parent leaders.

Vacancies are down from a year ago on the city's 34 Community Education Councils, all of which now have quorums, she said. And, according to the mayor's management report, more than 660,000 parent-teacher conferences were held last October, compared with about 485,000 a year earlier.

"There are days where we are wildly successful helping people with their individual issues, and I look forward to those days," she said. "And there are days when we didn't get people the answers they wanted."

Klein clearly believes that the office has been a success, telling a City Council hearing last week that he wished he had created Guerrier's position sooner. And some parents easily tick off instances where Guerrier intervened on their behalf.

"There is a definite difference because now there's a point person for the parent," said Dmytro Fedkowskyj, a parent from Middle Village and vice president of Community Education Council 24.

NY Daily News - Education Job Titles Stump Parents by Erin Einhorn

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Once upon a time, educators had easy-to-understand jobs: teacher, principal, superintendent.

Not anymore.

Five years into the tenure of Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, a major administrative restructuring of the city schools has brought the wacky culture of corporate job titles to the Tweed Courthouse.

There, among the ranks of top school officials working for Klein is a chief accountability officer making $196,000, a chief knowledge officer making $177,000, a chief talent officer making $172,000 and a chief portfolio officer making $162,000.

There's also a chief equality officer, but he's working for free this year.

Then there are all the corporate titles, in spades. Several divisions each have a chief executive officer, there's a product manager for knowledge management, a demand research manager, a director of virtual enterprise and dozens of senior achievement facilitators.

There was someone called the director of restructuring and human capital, but he's now the senior director of sustainability, at $123,000.

Parents say it's enough to make them dizzy.

"It's a whole mess," said Anastatia Davis-John, the parent association president at Brooklyn's Public School 135.

"It's totally confusing. They switched from districts to regions and now they've switched back, and half the titles you don't know what they mean. ... It's especially difficult for parents who can't speak English. They don't know who is representing what and who is doing what."

Teachers are still called teachers, of course. And principals are still principals - though under a new system that gives principals more autonomy and Klein often calls them "school CEOs."

During the previous restructuring, superintendents were redubbed regional instructional specialists. Now they're back to more familiar titles - superintendents - though they have less authority.

"They keep changing jobs and changing titles, and to me it doesn't make sense. Why don't they stick with what works?" asked Thea Schatzle, a Queens parent leader with kids in three schools.

Schools spokeswoman Debra Wexler said the titles "reflect the job responsibilities of the individual holding a particular position."

Chief Accountability Officer Jim Liebman, for example, heads Klein's accountability initiative to measure the success of schools. He spearheaded the new A-F school grading system.

Asked to guess what he does, though, most parent leaders interviewed by the Daily News were stumped.

"Does he make sure all the chancellor's [regulations] are in order?" asked Carlton Richardson, an elected parent leader.

"Is that the person that everybody else reports to?" Davis-John asked.

Chief Portfolio Officer Garth Harries once led the department's Office of New Schools, but his title changed when his office expanded its scope to include a portfolio of "school choice" options.

Asked what he does, most parents said they couldn't even guess.

"I have no idea," Schatzle said. "If people knew what they were doing, then they could be held accountable [to parents]."

eeinhorn@nydailynews.com

Chiefly confusing

Deputy Chancellor for Organizational Strategy, Human Capital and External Affairs / Chris Cerf $196,575 / Oversees administration, personnel, lobbying and communications

Chief Accountability Officer/ Jim Liebman $196,575 / Oversees school measurement including quality reviews and A-F letter grades

Chief Knowledge Officer / Photeine Anagnostopoulos $177,114 / Oversees development of a system for schools to share ideas about teaching

Chief Talent Officer / Amy McIntosh $172,247 / in charge of recruiting, evaluating and retaining good teachers and principals

Chief Portfolio Officer / Garth Harries $162,000 / Creates new small schools, charter schools and other student options

Chief Family Engagement Officer / Martine Guerrier $150,000 / Oversees outreach to parents and families

Chief Equality Officer / Roland Fryer $0 this school year, up to $195,000 next year / Develops strategies to better distribute resources throughout the school system

Mayor Bloomberg Holds "A Reception in Honor of the Parent Leaders of the New York City's Public Schools" at Gracie Mansion on October 17, 2007...

View from back porch of Gracie Mansion

Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Mayor Mike Bloomberg hosted a reception for NYC Public School Parents at Gracie Mansion...

Chancellor of Schools Joel Klein

Both the Mayor and Chancellor of Schools Joel Klein gave brief speeches lauding the accomplishments of the school system to the very people who know best...at least, all the parents attending were polite enough not to call them on their (mis) statements..

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Martine Guerrier

Martine Guerrier (which rhymes with Perrier, the Mayor said), Chief Family Engagement Officer, spoke next and urged parents to stay involved in their children's education and their schools...

Susan Shiroma and Mayor Mike Bloomberg

Last but not least, the final speaker, Susan Shiroma of the High School Presidents Council was the crowd's favorite speaker, her enthusiasm, intelligence and wit are second to none...

Martine Guerrier and William McDonald

Cathy, Suzanne Windland and Susan Shiroma

Syed and Family

Susan Shiroma & the Mayor's still checking the speech he just got done reading...

Chancellor Joel Klein's still talking...

Mayor Mike told the crowd that he has never spent a night at Gracie Mansion and even though his girlfriend wants to spend one night, he thinks it will be a better story if he never sleeps there during his entire eight years in office...

Lovely Linda and Corinna Lindenberg

Martine and Me

[where: queens, ny] [where: new york, ny] [where: brooklyn, ny] [where: staten island, ny] [where: bronx, ny] [where: manhattan, ny] [place: gracie mansion]

NY1: City Holds First Town Hall In Series On How To Spend Education Money by Michael Meehan...

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In September, city schools are going to get a lot more state money, after Albany agreed it's been shortchanging city schools for a long time, but agreement's in short supply when it comes to how the Department of Education should spend the new cash.

NY1 Education reporter Michael Meenan filed the following story.

Monday night in the Bronx was the first in a series of town hall meetings to get the public’s input on how the city should spend up to a billion new public education dollars – $700 million from the state and $300 million from the city.

"Smaller classes very important,” said public school parent Jennifer Fray. “I think, 30, 30-something kids in a classroom is ridiculous."

Class size reduction is at the heart of a political tug of war on how to spend this new billion dollars. The money is the result of a 14-year legal battle, called the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, or CFE, that forces the state to make up for decades shortchanging city schools.

"Ultimately, ultimately after teacher quality, lowering class size is the second most important factor in helping children,” said United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten.

The state law, which allowed this new city school money, requires the DOE to come up with a five-year plan to reduce class sizes. Robert Jackson, who helped spearhead the original lawsuit, now chairs the City Council Education Committee. He says the DOE plan he was briefed on gives principals too much choice about whether or not to reduce class sizes at their schools.

"We're not saying, ‘do it all in one year.’ Five years is a long time in a child's education,” said Jackson.

But the Department of Education says it does have a good plan to spend the new money and class size reduction is at the heart of it.

In fact, one DOE official said high schools on average have 25 students per teacher.

"We're building buildings that will bring the class size down, working with schools with larger classes to lower class sizes,” said Garth Harries of the DOE.

The DOE says its first priority is getting competent teachers in classrooms before ordering smaller classes.

"We want to be sure we do this in a smart way, that's aligned with the priorities,” said Martine Guerrier of the DOE.

Times-Newsweekly: CEC 27 Welcomes New DOE Official by Ralph Mancini...

Can you believe this..?

Martine Guerrier says that everything the Department of Education does starts with the parents...

Thats probably why Chancellor Joel Klein kept parents and CPAC off the reorganization task force...

And why they waited until for the summer when school was over to convene their hearings on the "Contract for Excellence"...

We all know how much they listened to all our concerns when they put together their bogus parent survey forms...when parents overwhelming said we wanted accountability at Tweed and smaller class sizes for our children...

It's also probably why cellphones are allowed in the schools for the safety of our children in these post 9-11 times...and why class size reduction is first and foremost in DOE's plans...

And why they plan to lease out Randall's Island to wealthy private schools when our children have no open spaces for physical education and gym classes...

What a joke...and whats even funnier is how the press buys their feeble responses...instead of calling them on it...

I guess more parents need to "rant" then...as they characterized my simple, forthright and direct questions to Ms. Guerrier...

For the record. I simply proposed that there possibly should be some outside steering committee possibly under the auspices of the Public Advocate Office that would oversee how Tweed spends our tax money...and that parents (tax-payers) help set priorities in the public school system instead of only outside consultants and non-educators at Tweed...

But why would Tweed include parents in any decision-making role when they can pay millions for outside contractors like high-priced consulting firm Alvarez and Marsal who did such a fabulous job with their school bus fiasco...leaving our elementary school children out on street corners in the dead of winter...for school buses that never arrived...

I guess my proposal was such a radical concept for Tweed and the press evidently - to allow the primary stake-holders to have a seat at the table or to have a role in the decision making process for our children...

Can you imagine asking Tweed to allow the public have some say in how the Public Schools operate...??

CEC 27 Welcomes New DOE Official

story and photo by Ralph Mancini
Bridging the gap between parents and schools topped the list of objectives set by the Department of Education’s new Chief Executive Officer of Parent Engagement at the Monday, June 18 Community Education Council District 27 meeting held at P.S. 225 in Rockaway Beach.

New Parent Engagement CEO
“We want to make parents feel more respected in schools,” said the recently-appointed Martine Guerrier, who didn’t see why parents had to live in a particular district to get updated on specific school matters including how district schools are rated.

The Department of Education’s new Chief Executive Officer of Parent Engagement, Martine Guerrier, talks about a variety of strategies aimed at getting families school-related information.

Planning to bring groups, such as Community Education Councils, together to get information out to everyone at the same time, she said, would leave very little room for error.

Guerrier—who prior to accepting her new position served as a parent volunteer for eight years, in addition to being a school board member and lobbyist—also called for School Leadership Teams to become more viable in their planning and decision making.

Composed of a collection of administrators, parents, teachers and school staff members, School Leadership Teams are a DOE vehicle that analyzes individual schools and identifies the underlying dynamics and needs within their student population.

She also expressed the necessity of fortifying school district staffs in order for them to work in concert with borough personnel in reaching out to families and focus on student needs.

“It will take a long road to get there,” said Guerrier even if everyone is on the same page in regard to student learning.

“Goodwill will not be enough,” she continued, determining that the correct procedures be selected to ultimately ensure that an increased number of schoolchildren become “tax paying and law abiding” citizens.

When asked by CEC 30 President Andrew Baumann why CEC Council members have been “banned” from serving on School Leadership teams, Guerrier brought up existing conflicts prohibiting CEC members to join. However, she did state that Baumann and the rest of his group are welcome to attend School Leadership meetings as observers and provide oversight.

CEC 27 Council member Cynthia Dell’ Italia, on the other hand, asked the newly appointed DOE officer to fill the Council in on initiatives to foster parent interaction within schools.

Guerrier said that a District Family Day will be held on a monthly basis as a way to invite parents inside schools.

A number of grievances were issued by Community Board 10 member David M. Quintana, who claimed that school principals are discouraging learning leaders because “they don’t want parents in schools.”

Quintana continued his rant by proposing that an outside independent body be formed under the auspices of Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum to have more say over how city funds are spent within the education system instead of having Schools Chancellor Joel Klein “dictating from the mountain.”

Guerrier brushed off Quintana’s allegations by stating that all changes made within the DOE start with the parents and not Chancellor Klein.

Student performance
M.S. 226 (South Ozone Park) Parent Coordinator Claudia Bethea commented on one parent’s gripe that her 11-year-old doesn’t know how many degrees there are in a circle, telling meeting attendees that it’s unfair to drag schools down when overwhelming crime and violence are preventing children from getting the most out of their education.

“I’ve told every parent ... I speak to that every child that enters New York City public schools, enters with baggage,” she said. “As staff members, we don’t know what type of baggage they carry. Every child across America ... has to face everyday gun violence and drug dealing. It’s incredible that these people are on the corner watching your babies go to school. We need somebody from the community to say, ‘This has to stop.’ “

Bethea decried a lack of police presence, pointing out that children from nearby schools are being followed home by strangers.

“They can’t learn because they have to face what’s out there on the street. First and foremost, we as a community have to deal with cleaning up the streets first,” she told the body. “I don’t care how many great teachers you put in, our children will never learn. If our children are living in a household where daddy’s beating mommy, where are our children going to learn? We just can’t blame everything on the education system.”

Student assessments
District 27 Superintendent Michele Lloyd-Bey touched on a number of periodic student assessments that will be issued beginning in September.

Children will reportedly be taking two predictive assessments measuring their performance levels during the course of the school year.

They will also be given three instructionally-targeted assessments to give the DOE “a sense of what’s going on in the schools “and also give them an idea of what each school’s tests look like.

A calendar listing all assessment dates, according to Lloyd-Bey, should be made available to parents and students by parent coordinators.

District 27 schools recognized
Lloyd-Bey read off a list of five District 27 schools recognized among the 226 rapidly improving schools from the DOE and the State Education Department, which were: P.S./M.S. 43 (Far Rockaway), P.S. 45 (South Ozone Park), P.S. 104 (Far Rockaway), P.S. 105 (Far Rockaway) and P.S. 215 (Far Rockaway).

The local schools on the list of 589 non-title one high performing gap closing schools were: P.S. 47 (Broad Channel), P.S. 114 (Belle Harbor), P.S. 146 (Howard Beach) and P.S. 232 (Lindenwood).

Stoplight request
P.S. 124 Parent-Teacher Association Co-President Debbie Capuano asked Baumann what would be required in order to have a traffic light installed at the intersection of 130th Street and 150th Avenue.

The CEC 27 Council president suggested that she put her appeal in writing and forward it to Council Member Thomas White and Lloyd-Bey.

Community Education Council District 27’s summer meetings will be held at district headquarters located at 82-01 Rockaway Boulevard (Room 302B) in Ozone Park.