TESTIMONY NYC COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION …

[Pages:5]TESTIMONY

NYC COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION CHAIRMAN, MARK TREYGER

New York City Council Budget and Oversight Hearings on The Fiscal Year 2020 Preliminary Budget Presented on

Wednesday, March 20th, 2019

The Council of School Supervisors and Administrators Mark Cannizzaro, President

Henry Rubio, Executive Vice President Rosemarie Sinclair, 1st Vice President

40 Rector Street, 12th Floor New York, NY 10006 (212) 823-2020 csa-

New York City Council Fiscal Year 2019-2020 Preliminary Budget

Good afternoon, Chairman Treyger and distinguished members of the City Council. I appreciate this opportunity to provide input on the 2019-2020 New York City Preliminary Budget. My name is Mark Cannizzaro, and as the President of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, I speak on behalf of the more than 16,000 education professionals we represent.

FAIR STUDENT FUNDING (FSF)

As school leaders, we have the ultimate responsibility of providing a safe and effective learning environment in a clean and comfortable setting for the more than one-million students we serve. This requires an understanding of the physical, intellectual, social and emotional needs of our students and the strategic allocation of resources to address those needs. All of our students in all of our schools deserve such careful consideration and we must work together to ensure that every school has the fiscal ability to meet the unique requirements of its community.

As in the past several years, one of our top priorities this budget cycle is to again address Fair Student Funding (FSF). We appreciate that the administration and City Council made an additional $125 million annual investment in FSF last year, but we still have a long way to go before all our schools receive adequate funding as determined by the DOE's own formula.

The DOE created a needs-based formula it refers to as "fair," yet it applies this formula in an uneven manner. Some schools receive as little as 90 percent of what the DOE deems "fair" while others receive full funding. In practice, this frequently means that two schools in the same district, and with very similar needs, receive widely divergent amounts of funding. This disparity is clearly antithetical to the DOE's mantra of "Equity and Excellence for All" and its goal of making New York City the "fairest big city in America."

Even the most talented and creative school leaders are limited in what they can accomplish when their funding is insufficient. Ultimately, it is the children of New York City who suffer from the insufficient resources that some schools are provided. On average, Fair Student Funding accounts for two-thirds of a school's funding, sometimes more, and under the existing FSF percentages, many schools are underfunded millions of dollars every school year.

With full funding, schools such as these could increase school safety, improve infrastructure, and provide additional staffing and resources necessary to give every student equitable access to a quality education. School leaders could use this flexible funding to address new challenges that have been growing in communities across this city, including issues surrounding safety, bullying, mental health, overcrowded classrooms and educational opportunity gaps.

Although we have long advocated that schools should be fully funded according to the city's own formula, we have also pointed out that there are considerable flaws in the formula. These flaws also must be addressed.

The FSF formula penalizes schools with fewer than the maximum number of students per class, a condition often dictated by student enrollment and not by the school leader. For example, if a class can accept up to 30 students in a particular grade and 47 students are enrolled, the school is

required to open a second class and pay all the expenses associated with operating two classes. However, the school would only be funded to cover the expenses and provide the needed resources for just over one and one-half classes. This occurs most often in small schools and schools with ICT and self-contained classes for students with special needs. Often, the DOE requires a school to open a specific number of special education classes based on anticipated need. If the DOE's own projections do not pan out, the school is left to foot the bill and students are provided with fewer resources than otherwise would be the case.

There is an additional problem related to teacher salary. The formula funds schools under the assumption that teachers earn the "average" NYC teacher's salary. Therefore, if a school has a majority of highly experienced teachers who earn significantly more than the average, that school's discretionary spending ability can be significantly reduced or even result in a deficit.

Finally, schools that must provide paraprofessionals based on an IEP mandated formula are not funded for the cost of the paraprofessional. In fact, a 12:1:1 special needs class that requires the services of a paraprofessional is funded identically to a 12:1 special needs class that does not require the services of the paraprofessional. Schools with a large number of 12:1:1 classes are especially penalized.

Before addressing the flaws in the FSF formula, the DOE must first commit to fully funding all schools according to it. We were heartened when the City raised the minimum FSF from 82 percent to 87 percent three years ago, with a commitment to move to 100 percent by Fiscal Year 2021. Unfortunately, the move to 90 percent was not made until FY 2019, and the DOE is now noncommittal going forward based on the state budget allocation. CSA urges the DOE to commit to full funding by making cuts elsewhere if the State budget is, as expected, less than adequate.

We are thankful for the Council's past efforts in recognizing the need for our schools to receive adequate funding. This support was evident in last year's approval for bringing all our schools to at least 90 percent of the city's funding formula, and in the establishment of a "Fair Student Funding Task Force" to dive deeper into the shortcomings surrounding inadequate funding and resources for our children.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR SCHOOL LEADERS

CSA has been extremely grateful every year for the City Council's support of our Executive Leadership Institute's (ELI) professional development programs.

ELI is a not-for-profit organization, affiliated with CSA, which provides cutting-edge professional development, offering standards-based, results-driven leadership training for New York City's public-school leaders. Since 2002, through the offerings of ELI, thousands of New York City's principals, assistant principals, education administrators, supervisors, administrators, and directors and assistant directors of Early Childhood Education have enhanced their skills and better served NYC's public education system.

This year we have established several new and innovative professional development programs to keep up with the societal trends and new challenges our members face at their schools every day.

Here is a glimpse into a few of the new programs that we can sustain with an increase in funding from $770,000 to $1.2 million dollars:

Social and Emotional Learning - (SEL): A variety of workshops will provide CSA members with tools and strategies to explore the indicators of emotions, and the impact of emotions on their personal and professional lives and the lives of their students. Participants will be encouraged to develop, implement and monitor plans to establish an SEL culture in their schools. In addition, school leaders will explore the building blocks of resilience, the value of teams developing emotional intelligence, and the impact that emotional literacy programs can have on student achievement.

Creating an LGBTQ Inclusive School ? A Guide for School Leaders: This workshop will offer resources to help administrators develop effective strategies for creating inclusive school settings from grades Pre-K to 12. School leaders will explore various guides, discussion questions, and teaching tips that may be used in an educational setting. The workshop will also include a variety of discussions on topics that include Gender Dysphoria, development of a gender/sexuality/alliance, LGBTQ identity: early grades support and teacher guides, developing a school-wide action plan.

Addressing Bullying and Cyberbullying in the School Community: This workshop is designed to help school leaders understand the nature and impact of school bullying in all forms. Strategies will be developed and discussed for both preventing bullying and dealing with bullying incidents, including Cyber-bullying.

These are just a few of many programs our Executive Leadership Institute offers to our members, to help ensure that our New York City students, teachers, and leaders remain on the cutting edge of educational innovation. We are thankful to the City Council for generously providing ELI with $770,000 in funding for our professional development programs. We respectfully request an increase to $1.2 million to meet the demand of our ever-evolving society and the new challenges presented to our principals on an almost daily basis. It is only with your help that we can sustain and expand our professional development opportunities to establish a stimulating educational environment for the most diverse school population in the world.

Contingent upon a commitment to raise the FSF floor and support our Executive Leadership Institute, I would like to quickly address our support for a few proposals and initiatives:

Physical Education and Athletics in all NYC Public Schools: We fully support providing daily physical education and athletics in all NYC public schools. Physical education promotes lifelong health benefits including enhancing one's self-esteem, motivation, mental health, and academic performance.

Air Conditioning for all Classrooms: CSA fully supports the planned upgrade to provide air conditioning for all New York City classrooms and after school programs. This improvement is overdue and will be enthusiastically welcomed.

Broadband Conversion and Technology Upgrade: To prepare our students for the future, we must ensure they have access to ever faster information systems and funding for tablet and technology upgrades.

I would like to conclude by thanking the committee again for the opportunity to address you today. We are greatly appreciative of the support you have given us in the past, and we look forward to continuing to work with you on providing excellent and equitable learning environments for all our students. Sincerely,

Mark Cannizzaro

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