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/ Cec24@nycboe.net
New York City Department of Education
Visit our website at www.myschoolonline.com/ny/cec24
Nick Comaianni Dmytro Fedkowskyj Nancy Carbone Ernest Cury Bill Kregler
President 1St Vice President 2nd Vice President Treasurer Secretary

Council Members: Reyes Irizarry

Dominic Coticchio Regional Superintendent
Marge Kolb Charles Amundsen
Joe Pahl Deputy Superintendent
Marcellino Rodriquez Catherine M. Powis
Joanne Scichilone Community Superintendent

FINAL BOARD APPROVED MINUTES

Minutes of Calendar Meeting
May 24, 2005
At P.S. 89, Elmhurst, New York

1) Call to order and Roll Call -- The meeting convened at P.S. 89, Elmhurst, NY at 7:00 PM

• Roll Call – Present

• Nancy Carbone
• Nick Comaianni
• Dominic Coticchio
• Ernest Cury
• Dmytro Fedkowskyj
• William Kregler
• Joe Pahl
• Marcellino Rodriguez
• Joanne Scichilone
• Katelyn Ranzie, CEC High School Member

Roll Call – Absent

• Marge Kolb

Also in attendance:

Community Superintendent, Catherine Powis; Director of Operations Regions 4 and 5,

Sandy Brawer; and Deputy Director of Operations Regions 4 and 5, Magda Dekki.

2) Approval of Minutes
On motion duly made and seconded the minutes of the April 19, 2005 meeting were
unanimously approved.

3) Report of the President

• Nick Comaianni stated that a meeting with the School Construction Authority took
place to discuss additions and new schools. P.S. 245 is a new school which will
alleviate overcrowding at P.S. 81 in Ridgewood. P.S. 245 will be an early
childhood center (K-2) and P.S. 81 will hold grades 3-5. Also being built is P.S.
260, across the street from P.S. 19 which will have the capacity to become a K-8.
Feasibility studies are on-going at P.S. 13, 102, 128, 113 and 49 in order to
construct additions and possibly make these schools a K- 8. The SCA informed us
that at the Metropolitan Avenue site they are only building one high school (1000
seats). Many people want two high schools on the site to alleviate overcrowding in
high schools around our district. In Mr. Comaianni’s opinion it is early and the
School Construction Authority can still change their plans but we need to get people
together to show their support for another high school. To build a high school with
500 seats for District 24 does not even put a dent in what we need. All the schools
mentioned prior that are under-going feasibility studies and will hopefully become
K- 8 schools are in the immediate area of the Metropolitan Avenue site so in this
context it would make much more sense to build another high school. Mr.
Comaianni closed his report by stating that the SCA is also very involved with
buying or leasing property from the Archdiocese of Brooklyn to make into public
school space.

4) Report of the Community Superintendent

• Ms. Powis stated that all 3rd and 5th grade students who score in Level 1 on the
April English Language Arts, the Math test, or both will go through a review
process by their teachers. Classroom teachers will use standard criteria to assess the
students and a portfolio of work will be assembled. Principals will review these
portfolios and then send them to the LIS’s and then to the Community
Superintendent for review. If the student meets all the necessary benchmarks (as
outlined in the Promotion Appeals Manuals) and their portfolio shows evidence of
work comparable to a High Level 2, that student will be promoted in June. Students
who do not meet the benchmarks are encouraged to attend summer school and will
have an opportunity to re-test in August, at which time they will be re-assessed.
Ms. Powis also stated that Chancellor Klein announced a comprehensive expansion
of translation and interpretation services, earmarking $7.5 million in additional
support for the Department of Education’s continuing efforts to engage non-English
speaking parents further in their children’s education, bringing the total
expenditures to over $10 million. The expansion will be led by the Department’s
Translation and Interpretation Unit and will provide increased translation and
interpretation services for regional offices and schools across the City. Ms. Powis
also stated that applications for elected High School Juniors interested in joining
Community Education Council’s or the Citywide Council on High Schools for a
 one year term beginning July 1, 2005 through June 30, 2006 are available. Ms.
Powis stated the eligibility requirements. Ms. Powis ended her report by stating
that the applications are due by June 27, 2005.

5) Guest Speaker, Sandy Brawer, Director of Operations, Regions 4 and 5 and

Deputy Director of Operations, Regions, 4 and 5, Magda Dekki

• Mr. Brawer stated that school budgets can be found on the website of the New York
City Department of Education. He further stated that budgets are early this year and
have never before appeared in May. This means that schools can prepare their
budgets and know what their funding is early so that they can develop staff with
confidence and make the proper staffing commitments. This is the third year
allocations have gone directly to schools. Last year, special education was
allocated based on the number of students and schools wound up getting penalized
if they had less than full classes. It is now based on the number of classes, not
students. No schools will be receiving cuts this year; they will be getting the same
amount of money as last year. Mr. Brawer then went on to explain all the different
allocation lines that appear in the budget. He stated that every school must put
together a comprehensive education plan along with its School Leadership Team.
This plan looks at how the school is performing and what it is doing right or wrong.
The CEP is not a direct relation of the budget but the budget is a direct relation to
the CEP. Items can be on the CEP that are not on the budget but there cannot be
anything on the budget that is not on the CEP.

Mr. Brawer and Ms. Dekki gave a presentation on the school based budget for fiscal
years 2005-2006.

Mr. Brawer took questions form the Council.

• Dmytro Fedkowskyj asked how much is the additional funding from the state for
education? Mr. Brawer stated that it is roughly $500 million. He also stated that
much of the money went towards already determined costs and gave busing as an
example. Mr. Fedkowskyj stated that it didn’t seem like any school’s operating
budget increased, yet there is _ billion dollars more and further stated his concern
that not enough of the money made it to the classrooms. Mr. Brawer replied that he
does know what was done with the additional money but he did not have the
information with him; he would be happy to pass it on at a later date. He stated that
he knew it went mostly to required costs and will provide a list of how the money
was spent. Mr. Fedkowskyj then inquired as to where the money comes from for
after school programs for at-risk children to which Mr. Brawer replied that Title I is
a good source as well as AIS. The demographics of the student population generate
the funding. Non-Title I schools that are high performing will have less money
available than other schools. Mr. Fedkowskyj replied that he is not sure why some
of the money was not allocated for schools that are not Title I to provide services
for their at-risk children. Mr. Brawer stated that most of the _ billion went towards
 required funding, he further stated that he could not correlate the money that was
given by the state to funding for programs in schools.

• Mr. Comaianni stated that at a meeting at Tweed, Carmen Farina stated that the
DOE had additional funding that would possibly be divided among the districts or
the regions for at-risk children. He wondered if that money goes through Mr.
Brawer for Regions 4 and 5 and then he distributes it throughout the districts. Mr.
Brawer replied that there are some programs that go through the region, for the
most part the Region does what it can on a per-capita basis based upon need and
there are other programmatic allocations that go directly to schools. An example of
that would be the Grade 3 Program which was implemented this year. Those were
additional supplemental funds given directly to schools.

• Dmytro Fedkowskyj asked what a school should do if there is a significant change

in the register after October 31st and the school is in need of additional funds. Mr.
Brawer replied that for the most part, that doesn’t happen. The option is there for
the school to get more money but it is not a widely used option and there has to be
significant growth for the school to be granted additional funding. Registers will
fluctuate, but after October 31st it’s pretty much settled. Mr. Fedkowskyj then
asked if a school needs a program that was put into the CEP but was not funded or
budgeted for, what can it do? Mr. Brawer replied that they always will help schools
via grants, but the pot of dollars is what it is and unfortunately, not more. Mr.
Fedkowskyj asked how the needs of schools will be met for next fiscal year if they
were not met this year. Mr. Brawer replied that if a school has a particular urgent
situation they will bring it to the region -- last year there were a few schools that
fell into this category and we were able to secure additional dollars. The Region’s
assumption is that every school is able to get through this year in a satisfactory
manner. Mr. Fedkowskyj then asked if Mr. Brawer would happen to know if
District 24 had a surplus and what was the amount they were able to roll-over? Mr.
Brawer replied that the amount was $1, 550,000. (Instead of having a use it or lose
it mentality) schools were given the option to identify funds for roll-over. Mr.
Fedkowskyj asked how can schools save this kind of money? What didn’t they
spend it on that they were allowed to spend it on? Mr. Brawer replied that maybe
the register was a bit higher than expected and the dollars that they got back may
have been a little bit more than they had expected. Maybe some schools had their
staff turned over at some point, so it’s not that they were saving towards this, it just
happened to be money left over. Mr. Fedkowskyj inquired as to how many schools
filed appeals for additional funding to which Mr. Brawer replied that the absolute
number was escaping him at that moment but that it was between 5 and 7 schools.
An appeal process is done based on what allocations occurred the summer before
and a formula is followed. Mr. Fedkowskyj asked if there was any kind of special
funding for schools that operate out of two buildings to which Mr. Brawer replied
no, there is no allocation methodology to follow regarding one school in two
buildings.
• Ernest Cury asked how projected student enrollment is derived? It’s curious to him
that in every school enrollment is projected to drop. Mr. Brawer replied that there
are two facets to projecting enrollment, the first being a web-based system that
gives information on the last three years enrollment, grade by grade, i.e. historical
data. The challenge with that is that each region is given a cap overall. The cap is
based on birth rates and is pretty much on target.

• Nick Comaianni reiterated the question Mr. Cury posed prior, stating that every
school lost a number of students, by looking at the amount of people moving into
our district, the birth rates and kids coming of age it seems as if the numbers don’t
add up, you would think there would be more kids applying to these schools. Did
the Region come up with these numbers based on what the schools reported or
based on a projection? Mr. Brawer replied that it’s a combination of working with
schools and the historical data.

• Dominic Coticchio stated that with all the construction of multi family homes and
new apartment buildings happening in our district it must be a projection because
there is no way to find actual numbers without taking into consideration all the new
housing.

• Nick Comaianni asked how accurate the numbers are? Mr. Brawer replied that for
instance with elementary schools we could see how many students are registered
now and by the end of the month we could see all the children that moved out to
upper grades and so the picture then becomes a bit clearer.

• Mr. Comaianni asked Mr. Brawer how much money is spent in District 24 on
busing to which Mr. Brawer replied that he did not have an exact figure but stated
that every bus used in any school district costs about $70,000 per bus per year. It is
a very large cost.

Mr. Brawer took questions from the audience.

6) Resolutions

On motion duly made and seconded, the following resolution was approved, 8 yes, 1
abstention:

Resolution #7, Community Superintendent Evaluation

Be it resolved that the Community Education Council District 24 approves the State
mandated CEC evaluation of our District Superintendent; Catherine Powis, and our two
Local Instructional Superintendents; Lillian Druck and Diane Kay.

Be it further resolved that the Community Education Council District 24 recommends

to the Department of Education that our Community Superintendent; Mrs. Catherine
Powis and Local Instructional Superintendents; Lillian Druck and Diane Kay remain in
place for the academic school year 2005-2006.

On motion duly made and seconded, the following resolution was unanimously
approved by members that were present:

Resolution # 8, Renaming P.S. 87

Be it resolved that the Community Education Council District 24 approves the

renaming of Public School 87 in Middle Village, New York to PS/IS, The Middle
Village School.

7) Report of the Committees

Joanne Scichilone, Chair of the Special Education Committee stated that a Special
Education Committee meeting was held on May 12th at PS 58. Invited was Brittney
Maier, an autistic, mentally challenged pianist who performed and brought tears to
many eyes. We thank her and her family. Ms. Scichilone stated that she brought hard
copies of the changes to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and
proceeded to read some key changes.

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

stated the feasibility studies in D 24 should be done by the first week in June and he
will hopefully be able to report on the results at our June 20th meeting. We are
expressing concern that high school seats are needed as opposed to K-8 seats at the
Metropolitan Avenue site. And finally, regarding the Galaxy budget, his committee
drafted a questionnaire for Principals and School Leadership Teams. The CEC must
comment on the Galaxy budget by June 6th and hopefully everyone will return it by
then.

Ernest Cury, Chair of the English Language Learners Committee stated that
unfortunately that there is nothing to report, however he also stated that his committee
has been attending meetings and meeting with experts in the ELL field.

Joe Pahl, Chair of the Website Committee stated that we have had 1, 063 hits on our
website and stated the address as being www.myschoolonline.com/ny/cec24. He also
announced the CEC’s
new webmaster, Nancy Carbone.

8) Old Business – None

9) New Business – Concern of the Metropolitan Avenue Site

Mr. Fedkowskyj stated that if we don’t react quickly enough to this situation (of
building only one high school) we will not have any say in September.
10) Public Agenda Session

The Council took questions from the public.

11) Adjournment

Nick Comaianni motioned to adjourn, Dmytro Fedkowskyj seconded, meeting

adjourned at 10:10 pm.