Fight Back Fridays Rally 12/17/10 7:15-8:00 a.m.

Now that we have avoided the possibility of closure, the Dewey community must fight for the "transformation" model that we deserve. Anything less than "transformation" could result in the downsizing of our school and having a new school co-located within our building. This, of course, would be highly disruptive to our students and could possibly rob our school community of the resources that we require to reinvigorate Dewey. We can only prevent this from occurring if we band together, in a concerted effort, to fight for the opportunity to take back our school from the negative forces that have prevented us from moving forward. Now is the time to make our voices heard. The Fight Back Fridays rallies will continue until we are granted the "transformation" model.

http://www.yournabe.com/articles/2010/12/11/brooklyn/courier-yn_brooklyn_front_page-bn_deweysheepsheadsaved_2010_9_12_bk.txt

Directions To Dewey For Fight Back Friday Rally 12/03/10 : 3PM

From Sheepshead Bay HS: Knapp St. to Belt Parkway West. Get off Belt Parkway at exit 6N (Cropsey Ave.& Stillwell Ave.). Do not continue straight ahead but make first right turn onto Ave. Z - Continue on Ave. Z until you reach Stillwell Ave.- Make left turn onto Stillwell Ave.- John Dewey H.S. will be on your left, just after Stillwell Materials and under the elevated D train. Turn into the parking lot and join our rally.





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News 12 Brooklyn coverage of Fight Back Fridays

Dewey Faculty Members Lend Support At Sheepshead Bay High School Rally On Friday, November 19th

SCHOOL CLOSINGS PUSHBACK BEGINS

Let Us Spread The Word To Every School On The PLA List!!!

3rd Fight Back Fridays Rally A Huge Success

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/fighting-closure-of-a-high-school-on-the-brink/

http://www.indypendent.org/2010/11/22/school-closings-pushback-begins/

WE ARE MAD AS HELL AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!

In an effort to thwart the unfair attacks by the New York City Department of Education and the New York State Education Department against our school community, we have chosen to fight back.

JOHN DEWEY HIGH SCHOOL AND JANE ADDAMS HIGH SCHOOL SUFFER SIMILAR ATTACKS

Jane Addams Teacher Chronicles How NYCDOE Destroyed School With Poison Pill

Glenn Tepper gave this testimony at the GEM Oct. 26 meeting on school closings.

With this narrative, I bear witness to how, within the span of a decade, a school can go from being so good as to be a finalist in the national New American High Schoolcompetition, to being named by the New York State Education Department as one of the “Persistently Lowest Achieving” schools in the entire state.

I worked for 36 years, teaching English at Jane Addams High School for Academics and Careers in the South Bronx for the last 21 of those years.  I immersed myself in the life of the school, and had the opportunity to serve as conflict resolution specialist, coordinator of student activities, recruiter, teacher mentor, chair of the school-based management team, professional developer, dean, and HIV/AIDS resource provider, and I was a member of my union’s chapter committee.

Addams is a CTE — Careers and Technical Education — school, what used to be called a Vocational High School.  By state decree, the students all must qualify for the same Regents diploma as students in every other high school in the state.

So how does a school lose so much, so fast?  By a series of deliberate decisions and acts — poison pills— by the New York City Department of Education, to cause the school to fail.

In the Brave New World of the NYC school system, all high schools are in competition with one another for students, especially competent students. As long as a school had something unique to offer, it could compete.  Addams had certification programs for Nurse Assistant and for Cosmetology, and one of the first Virtual Enterprise business programs in the city.  The school also had Advanced Placement, Honors, and remedial programs.  For a decade, I served as the school's recruiter.  Every school year during October, November, and May, I sought out prospective applicants, at high school fairs, and by going to the middle and junior high schools, speaking to students, speaking to their parents — during school, after school, sometimes nights and weekends.

Addams would attract students from throughout the city, looking for a safe school, a school that had a documented track record of graduating its students, prepared for both college and the workplace.

But then the DoE unleveled the playing field, putting Addams at a severe disadvantage.

Addams was a medium-size school.  Under the influence of big money from the Gates Foundation and others, new little schools were created, in the borough and throughout the city, offering programs very similar to those offered at Addams.

The DoE organized so-called “small high school” recruiting events, to which Addams was not invited.

Enticed by real appealing-sounding, yet somewhat misleading names of some of these new schools, and promised the sun, the moon, and the stars, prospective students and their parents were lured into applying to these schools, over Addams.

Then the application process was changed.  Under the former process, half of our students were those who actually indicated a high preference, listing us #1 or #2 on their applications, and the other half were randomly assigned to the school.  It worked.  We had a critical mass of students who were glad to be Addams students, and their enthusiasm rubbed off on many of the others.

But under the new application rules, most of our students turned out to have notchosen to attend Addams; they had been rejected by their schools of choice.  For the last several school years, the DoE has admitted ever-smaller incoming 9^th grade classes to Addams, causing the school’s enrollment to drop.  However, while other so-called “traditional” schools were closing and/or being reorganized, Addams became ade facto dumping ground — the DoE’s place for low-performing, difficult, students.

Down the road, the Addams staff is going wind up as ATRs— day-to-day substitutes at other schools, maybe a different school every day.  Many of them are never going to find permanent jobs with the DoE— Some have licenses that no other school will need, like Cosmetology, and Stenography, and Typing.  And there is nothing the union can — or will be able to — do about that.  In hindsight, these Addams people should have gone for recertification when they had the chance and the time.  

Because for years Addams had a loyal staff in both the academic and the career license areas, many of these veteran teachers will find that they are either too old, or too experienced, or too high up the salary scale, to be attractive to other schools.  One former colleague, with over twenty-five years with the DoE, has resigned herself to spending the last years of her career as an ATR.

The school will probably hang on as a dumping ground for three to five more years, with smaller and smaller enrollments and fewer and fewer staff on board.

And eventually, the DoE, in its infinite wisdom, will install three — or four, or five — new smaller schools where there once was one. Yet, neither individually nor collectively will these schools have the diverse experienced staff and the wide-ranging resources and programs that were the benchmarks of Jane Addams High School for Academics and Careers.

-Glenn Tepper

 Retired, 2009


Borrowed from ednotesonline.blogspot.com