Buffalo school parents faced off yesterday with school board members. The session was lengthy, frequently loud, and left many issues unsettled.
The meeting started late because of a committee meeting, started with a fight over the meeting agenda and was ended by another committee meeting with a plan to return on Wednesday, the day after school board elections.
The basic issue comes from the District Parent Coordinating Council that the school administration doesn't pay enough attention to parents, something the State Education Department agrees with.
DPCC President Sam Radford wants the board to force the administration to get parents involved or the group will push to have Albany remove both the board and the administration.
"We ask the State Education Department to fulfill its responsibility under Article 306 of the Commissioner's Regulations and disband the board and administration so that we can come up with a plan to educate all of our children in an environment where they can take advantage of the opportunity of a lifetime, all of our children to be able to go to school on scholarship," Radford said.
That's the Say Yes to Education scholarships which are already pushing up the college application and admission rate for city students who can graduate and meet college eligibility.
The big issue for DPCC members at the City Hall meeting are plans to close and re-open Bennett, merge Harvey Austin and what's called School 115, the former Pinnacle Charter, and put MST and Middle Early College in the same building. Parents and the parent group are upset about Bennett and blame the latest administration there and teachers.
"The quality of teaching is not the only issue at Bennett High School," said Board Member Sharon Belton Cottman.
"In some situations and for the most part, okay, we have received children with one and twos coming into Bennett and they made it through, okay, they graduated. And, that in itself is phenomenal to take a child up to that. So, there are more issues than teaching that exist at Bennett."
The meeting next Wednesday will cover a major reorganization of the district's Special Education program in the proposed budget for next year.
