Local education leaders plan to meet Tuesday night with parents from Buffalo's persistently low achieving schools. The city's District Parent Coordinating Council is continuing its effort to help turnaround failing schools.
"What we want to do as parents is be proactive and make sure we are understand everything that is going on, said Sam Radford is vice president of the parent council.
Parents of the low performing schools want to make sure the Buffalo School District does not loss on millions of dollars in federal Race to the Top funding as it did last school year.
Raford said Tuesday night's meeting will be a listening session for parents.
The Parent council is expected to hear from interim schools superintendent Amber Dixon, Buffalo school board member Ralph Hernandez and New York State Regent Robert Bennett. Radford says they've also invited Buffalo Teachers Federation president Phil Rumore.
"As everybody knows, last year we lost $14 million that the city was eligible for through the Race to the Top funds, because at the end of the day, the Board of Education decided to go with the Teachers Federation plan of only submitting applications for Educational Partnership Organizations. So it looks like we are on the same path this year of losing $42 million," said Radford.
Radford noted that the BTF remain staunchly opposed to Race to the Top.
"You know if you look at the October edition of the PROVOCATOR, which is the Teacher's Federation newsletter, they take responsibility for preventing U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan who was suppose to be here September 7th, they take responsibility for preventing him from coming to town," said Radford.
Last May the parent council staged a one day boycott of city schools, but now parents are vowing to work with school leaders to prevent any future demonstrations.
They want to help find the best solutions to improve the schools performances. The parents council said it is imperative that they are on the same page with school officials to ensure Buffalo does not lose needed resources to turnaround persistently low achieving schools.