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Thread: The beginning of a NEW school board Era.

  1. #31
    Member andreahaxton's Avatar
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    Thumbs down Really?

    Quote Originally Posted by youcangohome View Post
    you know nothing about me. no, you know less than nothing.
    Oh really?
    I know enough.....and am glad I do not associate with you.

    BTW:...........YOU told us ALL about YOU through your posts! And have contributed only negativity toward me.
    Just a waste of our time.

    DUH!

  2. #32
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    Post Why Re-Invent the Wheel.......

    Distinguished Educator Judy Elliott has issued a painful but honest look at long-standing problems in the Buffalo public schools. (Harry Scull Jr. photo/ Buffalo News)

    Published: 10/12/2012, 12:01 AM

    Scathing report on Buffalo schools has hopeful note


    The new report on the Buffalo Public Schools is a painful but honest look at the long-standing problems that are holding back students, and, in that, it is also a hopeful document. You can’t fix what’s wrong if you don’t know what’s wrong.

    The report was prepared by distinguished educator Judy L. Elliott, who was appointed by the state to help turn around Buffalo’s lowest-performing schools. She spent her first six weeks on the job visiting those schools (evidently a novel concept in Buffalo), speaking with central office administrators and exchanging information with the district’s new superintendent, Pamela C. Brown.

    Her conclusions were depressing, if not entirely surprising. What she found was that central office administrators had isolated themselves from the schools, ignoring requests for help or failing to respond adequately. All decision-making is concentrated in City Hall, not in the schools.

    “Buffalo City School District is a centralized system that provides little school autonomy,” Elliott wrote. “The structure of governance has historically yielded poor student outcomes. Priority school principals uniformly voice that they are disconnected, unguided and unsupported due to a lack of service and support from the central office.”

    That’s not a finding, it’s an indictment.

    Other findings include failure to schedule principal meetings in 2011-12, little evidence of support and supervision of classroom instruction and high rates of student absenteeism, among other issues.

    Brown collaborated on the report with Elliott, who came to many of the same conclusions, a heartening sign that they are on the right track. State Education Commissioner John B. King Jr., who appointed Elliott, approved the report, which included 39 steps meant to address the problems it details. Its recommendations mainly deal with providing training, reviewing data and providing written communications regarding specific issues.

    Now it is up to Brown and the School Board to implement the solutions. The board is not required to follow Elliott’s prescriptions, but it is required by the end of this month to submit a comprehensive improvement plan that is expected to incorporate those recommendations. If it doesn’t, district officials will have to explain why. Parents, taxpayers and voters would be interested to hear those explanations.

    The report is, by inference, a harsh criticism of the administration of former Superintendent James A. Williams and his predecessors. They concentrated authority in their offices and squelched the talents, creativity and passion of principals and teachers who are the boots on the ground.

    But the report also stands as a condemnation of the School Board, itself, which left the superintendents it hired to administer the district in that oppressive way. Suffocation of talent does not qualify as strong leadership, and if the board didn’t know its superintendents were pursuing that strategy, it should have.

    The board has also been unwilling to do what good leaders do: set policy and expect administrators to implement it. In some sense, the central office was only following the example set in City Hall.

    Fortunately, nearly anyone can learn from mistakes. Things have been so dysfunctional in this district for so long that insiders may not know the culture needs changing, let alone how to go about doing it. The School Board now has a golden opportunity to redeem itself and help lead the way toward improved education for Buffalo’s children.

    That work has begun. Brown has told principals they will become involved in filling teaching and administrative positions in their schools – a significant development – and plans are under way to hold principal meetings.

    It’s a start, but there is a long way to go. Elliott’s initial contribution shows a way forward.

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    So............What's up, second from the bottom?!
    Give US an update of YOUR plan, please.

  3. #33
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    Post Any progress on the drop-out rate, etc.?

    A line of people waited to speak at an advisory board hearing on school suspensions in the Buffalo Public Schools at Merriweather Library in January. (Charles Lewis / Buffalo News file photo)

    School district is on the right track on suspensions


    Published: October 19, 2012, 12:01 AM

    Updated: October 19, 2012, 03:08 AM


    In the cascade of troubling news surrounding the Buffalo Public Schools of late, this is a bright spot: The district is working on a long-term solution to what, by any measure, is a too-high rate of suspensions, especially among black and Latino students.
    More than 1,000 students receive an out-of-school suspension every month in the Buffalo Public Schools, and a high proportion of them are black males. Nearly one in five students receives an out-of-school suspension each year, compared to the statewide average of one in 20.
    It’s a problem recognized by the administration and education activists. The district has been undergoing a profound shift with regard to student discipline, a process begun in 2009. It started by updating district disciplinary policies to require principals to consider using a parental conference in lieu of suspension. District officials said that move reduced suspensions by about 20 percent. It is, therefore, important that long-range planning on reforms around suspension also consider suggestions offered by educational advocacy groups.
    The Just and Fair Schools Campaign has a list of steps it would like to see taken by the School Board to reduce the number of school suspensions further, an action that should help increase the district’s dismal 50 percent graduation rate.
    The campaign has been launched by Citizen Action and the Alliance for Quality Education, which acknowledge the long-term work being done by the district. But time is of the essence as more and more students are suspended and sent home, some for minor infractions such as wearing inappropriate attire to school, talking back to the teacher or wandering the halls. Discouraging this type of behavior is important, but so is an understanding of the root cause of the behavior and applying the appropriate level of discipline.
    The district has been working on revising the student Code of Conduct, a process that has involved wide community input, including Citizen Action and AQE. The revised code will have a lot of the same material, because most of the document is controlled by state education law. But how the code is implemented will be key. A progressive and intervention-rich school environment that draws on restorative justice exercises for students and peer mediation has a good chance of keeping students in school and learning.
    The Just and Fair Schools Campaign urges, for example, that the regulation that says “the option of a parental conference in lieu of suspension must be considered by the principal” should instead read that a parent conference in lieu of suspension must be offered in grades one through six.
    The groups also would like to see an end to out-of-school suspension for prekindergarten and kindergarten students. The district position is that such suspensions are imposed on a case-by-case basis. But the campaign suggests that the infraction would be better addressed by using a tiered approach that would dictate specific action, such as talking to the student to find out the source of the problem, rather than simply sending the child home.
    There has been a lot of dialogue on the issue, and district officials understand that they must take much more robust action.
    The new Code of Conduct is expected to set specific standards for students and guide how discipline is to be imposed. In the end, no one should be able to say the school doesn’t know what to do with a child.
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    In the words of my 2 yr. old Grandchild........

    Let's GO Lackawanna, LET'S GO!

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