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Funding nightmares across city
Oct 1, 2009 1:58 PM
“Our neediest children are not getting extra help and are going to drown,” said Bob Zuckerberg, UFT District 15 representative.
“Our students who excel are losing the programs that fine-tune their talents, and Advanced Placement classes are getting cut and combined,” said Chapter Leader Erin Flanagan of Flushing HS in Queens.
“Kids who are hitting, kicking and threatening no longer have a place to go because our SAVE room is closing,” said Sameer Ramnani, chapter leader at Brooklyn’s PS 224, where three weapons were confiscated the day before spring vacation last April, and students and staff are nervous in the hallways.
Throughout the city, according to a recent UFT survey on budget cuts, paraprofessionals, Academic Intervention Service teachers and classroom teachers are being excessed.
The newspaper and yearbook are endangered at DeWitt Clinton HS in the Bronx because per-session pay for after-school clubs has been axed.
At Brooklyn’s Secondary School for Journalism, drama club, dance and bands are gone. So is money for the after-school guidance activities.
It’s bad enough when after-school programs — whether aiming for enrichment, or keeping troubled kids off the streets, or both — are the casualties during a budget crunch.
But the slashes are so severe this time as schools absorb $400 million in city budget cuts that even mandates are getting cut off at the knees
Oversized classes abound in every borough.
“Three teachers had to be excessed and class registers in the lower and upper grades have gone from an average of 19 students to 28,” said Chapter Leader Maritza Perez at PS 9 in the Bronx.
At PS/IS 65 in Brooklyn, there are as many as 34 students in the 8th grades, according to Chapter Leader Christopher Krafczek.
On Sept. 24, UFT Vice President for Middle Schools Richard Farkas went to IS 59 in Queens to discover that the principal excessed the only Spanish language teacher, claiming he had no money. (Meanwhile, four assistant principals were retained.)
“This school of 800 students has no other foreign language instruction,” said Farkas, “even though middle schools are required by state law to offer foreign language instruction.”
“We’ve already had to register safety complaints,” said Ramnani about the shuttered SAVE room.
In addition to exceeding contractual class-size caps, his school is not offering required special education services.
An Integrated Co-Teaching class is covered by one general education teacher and a per diem substitute — who is also a general education teacher.
“One of two (English as a second language) teachers left the school last year and another is yet to be hired. So there’s about 20 to 30 kids in K-3 who are not being serviced with ESL,” Ramnani said.
And since the principal did not replace a Special Education Teacher Support Service staffer, the beleaguered school is failing to service about 20 special ed students in need of a resource room.
“We’ve had over 70 complaints since school opened,” said Carmen Alvarez, UFT vice president for special education.
Students awaiting placement as per their Individualized Education Program mandates and abuses to Integrated Co-Teaching “have been in the majority but there are other issues as well and they are coming in every day,” she said.
All throughout the city, AIS teachers are being excessed — even reaching the double digits (while a disproportionate number of APs are still on the payroll) in some Queens high schools, according to UFT Representative James Vasquez.
Classroom teachers are being excessed as well, and the survivors are doubling up in subject areas and are doing without substitutes by combining classes. Many math and English coaches are going back into the classrooms.
At PS 156 in Brooklyn, the AIS team is an asset to classroom teachers by tutoring small groups. The program’s weekly progress reports that teachers find effective are gone: There’s no money to renew the contract with the copy company, reported UFT Brooklyn District 23 Representative Ualin Smith.
In addition, Smith said, funds are too tight to rent buses for class trips. The arts program has taken a hit, along with its annual parents’ reception for viewing artwork. Gone are the dance consultants and gone are some bare-bones basics: There’s not an extra cent for general supplies and nearly everyone’s Teacher’s Choice money is already exhausted.
There are even some schools that are sharing staff and resources.
Brooklyn Academy is “trying to arrange sharing the language and art teachers downstairs at Bedford Stuyvesant HS,” said Fran Miller, the academy’s chapter leader.
The academy’s ESL students go to Boys and Girls HS half a mile away for their ESL classes.
“A major issue with sharing is that our time schedules do not coincide exactly,” Miller said.
“Throughout my whole tenure I’ve heard ‘budget, budget budget,’ every year,” Chapter Leader Flanagan said.
“It affects morale. You have devoted, hard-working teachers who you know will pull through for the kids no matter what, and you don’t want to beat a dead horse, you just want to get on with it,” she said.
But, she added, “this year we have a real budget crisis.”
