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Minutes from EPP's Education Budget Summit
on 11/21/02 -- DRAFT --

Welcome and Introductions

EPP Chairperson Marilyn Bravemen opened EPP's Education Budget Summit by welcoming the scheduled speakers, the Panel member delegates and the guests. Panel representatives and attendees from outside organizations introduced themselves.

Background

EPP Executive Director Noreen Connell distributed a list that divided the Mayor's proposed $200 million in cuts into those that could potentially impact children and those that were mostly administrative. Cuts to charter schools and Universal Pre-Kindergarten could be viewed as administrative because they merely reflect a drop in enrollment. (For more on this see Discussion section at end.) In contrast, the most serious cuts, although they appear at first glance to be merely administrative, are the ones that use more federal (including Title I) and state categorical funds for overhead and for pension contributions. They are the most serious because the result will be less money left over for instruction and services.

Noreen commented that when she is asked whether cuts of $200 million are "too large" she replies:

(1) EPP saw cuts of $600-$700 million to the school system in the early to mid-1990's, so cuts of $200 million are seemingly not large (especially since the DOE budget has doubled since then). But the large cuts in the last decade always began with an early-in-the-year cut of $200-$300, but grew as the year progressed. The November 2002 plan cuts could very well follow this trend.

(2) $200 million is only the newest and most visible cut. Last school year, the Board of Education received $405 million in cuts, of which $290 are recurring ($180 of which are cuts to the districts). Then there is $120 million in self-imposed "savings plans." Therefore the $200 million in cuts in the November plan must be seen as an addition to reductions of $410 million ($290 million + $120 million) from these recurring cuts and savings plans. In other words, cuts to the school system are now roughly $600 million.

(3) Finally, despite all the cuts to the districts last year, at the end of the fiscal year they under spent by $109 million ("accruals"). The school districts are allowed to roll their accruals over into the following year (unlike other city agencies). EPP's position on this policy is that we do not favor it - we support a "spend it or lose it" policy. "Spend it or lose it" is often deemed wasteful because it can encourage over-spending in the last month of the fiscal year (so as not to "lose it"). However, EPP's view is that allowing districts to rollover accruals actually encourages districts to under spend by denying services to children. It also means that districts impose their own cuts in order to store up money for the following year. In bad budget times, school district officials become concerned about their funding for the next school year and will try every mechanism to build up their accruals. The upshot last year was that while the districts were cut by $180 million last year, they self-imposed an additional reduction of $109 million. This year the same thing will occur. So while the central office (DOE) may intend to limit instructional and program reductions at the school level, districts may be shearing these programs on their own to hoard their accruals. EPP has gotten anecdotal reports from EPP member organizations which serve children in special education that community school districts are denying services to special education and other high need students.

Community School District Perspective:
Dorothy Wilner of CSB 30 and Roni Wattman, President of CSB 3

Ms. Wilner reported that a primary impact of the budget cuts in CSB 30 is the hiring freeze, because those who retire or leave are not being replaced, and she gave a number of specifics. The district's administrative budget is $4.5 million, and they have been asked to cut 10% or $450,000. The Superintendent feels that this is just the beginning of the cuts.

• District 30 has 8 clerical vacancies on the Committee for Special Education. Six will not be filled. (The Committee makes the decisions about which children should receive special education services. In order for this to happen, many meetings must occur between parents, teachers, social workers, and other professionals. The clerical staff may set up appointments, take notes on the evaluators' decisions, send letters home to the parents, etc.) Now all of this paperwork will be delayed.
• The Director and Assistant Director of Reimbursables, who are charged with overseeing the allocation of the $57 million district-wide Title 1 budget to all 31 schools, are retiring and will not be replaced. The job of Director of Reimbursables will now be shared by 2 full-time people: the District Business Manager, and another District 30 staffer who already has 3 full-time jobs: he is the Director of Technology, the grant writer, and the Coordinator of "No Child Left Behind," which has many new federally-imposed requirements. The position of Assistant Director of Reimbursables is not being filled.
• The Bilingual Director is not being replaced, instead the Assistant to the Bilingual Director will be doing both jobs.
• The Director of Operations is retiring and he may not be replaced.

In conclusion Ms. Wilner stated that other professionals, who may not be qualified and who already have 1 or more full-time jobs, are being assigned the tasks that the retirees had performed. This will likely result in an overall decline in quality of the work.

Ms. Wattman stated that she has been in the field of education since the 1960's and that these are some of the worst cuts she has ever seen. She did a "quick and dirty" survey of schools and the result is that there may be a difference in effects from large to small schools. One principal of a new small school stated that her concern that her calls to the superintendent's office are bounced around and she may have to make several additional calls to track down needed information. This is because the people who had the pertinent knowledge have left. Ms. Wattman also visited two elementary schools. One of the principals has lost her Assistant Principal (A.P.). Now the principal must take on all of the roles of the A.P. in addition to her own -- she is the staff developer, she must do all of the teaching observations and write-ups, and she is the only one the teachers can get help from since there is also a lack of support from the district office. She also lost her paraprofessionals ("paras") who did a lot of the paperwork, and so she must do these tasks as well. Ms. Wattman commented that the creation of so many difficult conditions could spark more talented personnel to leave the system. In contrast, when she called two large middle schools, both reported that the budget cuts had not effected them.

Parent Advocate Perspective:
Jan Atwell, Program Director of United Parents Associations; and
Ellen McHugh, Regional Coordinator of Parent to Parent New York State

Jan Atwell reported that in spite of the administration's claim that cuts are not impacting the classroom, the United Parents Associations is seeing many ways that the cuts are impacting students negatively. Vacancies for other than classroom teachers are not being filled. When vacancies arise, the following has been happening. Some staff developer positions have been lost as those professionals were moved back into the classroom. Guidance counselor positions lost through attrition are not replaced, therefore the remaining counselors must cover more schools and will have either fewer days at each school (elementary and middle) or they will have more students (high school). School aides and paraprofessionals hours are being cut, and some positions have been lost. After-school programs such as Project Read and test preparation classes are being cut. As the budgets for classroom supplies are cut, teachers are having to spend more and more money out-of-pocket. Just copying materials for their classes has become a huge ordeal: teachers are having to get permission from principals for any material they want to copy, principals then determine which materials are "worthy" of being reproduced. An earlier round of cuts eliminated the Resolving Conflicts Creatively Program which helped prevent violence. This program is less expensive than metal detectors. Funding for the professional development for parents and school leadership teams has also been reduced -- 3 districts have already eliminated it altogether.

Ellen McHugh of Parent-to-Parent New York, an organization that facilitates support and information for parents of children with disabilities, began by stating that children with disabilities are already in deficit mode and that budget cuts often impact them more directly than other children. At a recent conference 60 parents in attendance reported that their child was eligible for speech and language services, but only 7 parents reported that their child was actually receiving the services. Since children with disabilities do need additional services at cost to the system, principals may see them as taking away from the regular population. Cuts deemed minor or administrative, such as delaying the repair on an elevator, can impact special education students by making them continually late for their classes. The federal legislation "IDEA" was enacted with the promise that Washington would pick up 40% of the states' special education costs. To date it has not been funded above 12%, leaving the remaining 88% of the costs for state and local government. In NYC approximately 130,000 students are described as having disabilities; 17,000 are described as severely disabled. Often when schools are reorganized or restructured, children with disabilities are moved out of the building. A recent example of this type of move occurred in District 1 when a program of five classes of students with disabilities was moved out of an underutilized building to make room for an academy for general education children only. These types of moves are not only disruptive but costly.

Teachers' and Administrators' perspectives:
Maria Neira, Assistant to the President on Educational Issues, UFT; and
Joanne Frank, Assistant Director of CSA and former Principal of Norman Thomas HS

Ms. Neira from the United Federation of Teachers agreed with the statements the speakers had made thus far, and emphasized the following. There have been cuts in paraprofessionals in non-mandated classrooms. In spite of the Chancellor's request that cuts not effect classrooms, and in spite of claims to that effect, the cuts will impact classrooms because there will be a domino effect. There is starting to be a real shortage in classroom supplies, so that teachers will be forced to buy even more supplies out of pocket in order to protect their students from being effected. Cuts in the capital budget for new school buildings will impact on class sizes, and as more staff developers are moved back into the classroom, there will be fewer mentors, and this in turn will impact teacher retention. Leadership teams are being defunded and non-mandated paraprofessionals are being removed from the classroom. The UFT will be focusing primarily on increasing revenue as a way of limiting cuts to education.

Ms. Frank of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators concurred with Ms. Neira and others. She outlined problems that the budget cuts are causing and suggested one or two solutions. Class sizes will not continue to be reduced, in fact, there are reports that they are swelling again. Students will receive downgraded MetroCards (no longer for a full week) which means that many students who most need additional academic services will be unable to attend the Saturday programs. School aides, who oversaw lunchrooms, locker rooms, and performed secretarial duties for teachers, are having their hours cut, which means that teachers will have less time to spend on instruction-related tasks. All of these cuts mean that academic achievement could drop, and schools could have greater difficulty meeting the state standards. From principals' and superintendents' viewpoints, it is the opposite of what should be occurring - there should be additional funds to enable children to meet the standards. Also they feel it is not as fair to hold them accountable to the same standards while the budget will make the conditions for teaching and learning more difficult. Another strategy districts are employing to raise standards is holding district-wide professional development workshops. Unfortunately, this means that teachers are pulled out of class - which disrupts the instructional day. This happens as often as 2-5 times a month. Also, costs for substitute teachers are incurred. The CSA suggests that professional development be school-site based, and delivered by a "Master Teacher." (See CSA resolution, May 2001). The Master Teacher would also have classroom duties and their classroom would be like a lab -- and it would be open for other teachers to come and observe. Another cost savings area is the amount of duplicated information received by administrators, such as mail, faxes and e-mails that all say the same thing. Since there is a requirement that administrators check their e-mail at least once a day, why waste time and money duplicating all that information? Finally, the number of entrepreneurial duties carried out by principals, such as writing grants, comes at a direct cost to the principals' roles as instructional leaders.

Discussion

Participants raised additional issues about the cuts, including the impact of the cuts on the arts, the discrepancy between the OMB's claim that enrollment has dropped for the Universal Pre-Kindergarten program and the fact that 2,000 applicants were turned away this fall, and the exacerbation of the problem in hard-to-license areas when the State Commissioner's deadline regarding uncertified teachers takes effect in September 2003. The issue of supporting proposals to increase revenue was raised. Noreen reminded the audience that the actors to focus on are the City Council. Ellen Raider of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice asked whether there was anyone with subpoena power, such as the Public Advocate, who could be relied on to represent the interests of parents and advocates with respect to the Chancellor and the Unions. She also asked whether the privatization of custodians had ever saved the system any money. Finally, Martine Guerrier reported that the State Assembly leadership may not be nearly as much help as they have in been in past years. Participants expressed interest in a possible follow-up meeting, perhaps in early December, on the issue of revenue.

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