Weiner Would Eliminate the Parent Coordinator at Schools

   In a story by Celeste Katz After Job Cut Vow of Parent Coordinator, Union PAC Vows to Take Him Out by splashing Weiner sexting photos. Local 372 of DC 37 of which union parent coordinators belong has begun flashing photos of a topless Weiner, and even has a new website http://stopweiner.com/ with every single article and photo the union could put up on the website. Also are comments from union leaders, a Staten Island Community Education Council 31 member, a couple of NYCPU (New York City Parent Union) members of how great parent coordinators are, and others.

   As a very involved parent leader not only district wide in School District 10, I also represented the district and all the public school children as member of the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council in 2002. That was when there was real parent involvement, and no need for any parent coordinators. CPAC as a whole wound up questioning then Chancellor Joel Klein on many issues such as changing the promotion criteria of the third grade in the middle of the school year. We later found out that was because the children who would do poorly next year on the fourth grade standardized tests were indiscriminately held back so those fourth grade test scores would be higher the next year. 

  When CPAC was asked their opinion of what a parent coordinator position should entail we told the chancellor that the parent coordinator should be able to help students and their parents get any needed help. That meant tutoring, free lunch, better communication with the teacher or supervisor, a bus ride if needed, any counseling that a child or even their parent may need, wellness assistance, and basically anything that a social worker would do. In fact the stand taken of CPAC was if parent coordinators had to hired we wanted them to be social workers giving Chancellor Klein a list of items the PC should be able to handle. What happened was that then Deputy Mayor Ed Skylar went on television (NY1) to announce that the position of parent coordinator was created because principals were to busy to see parents. When CPAC asked for a kob description of the parent coordinator position we were told that is going to be up to the principal. To this date there is no job description of just what the position of parent coordinator does. It was found out that a few principals had hired relatives to be their parent coordinator, while others took their current parent leaders and hired them. The latter lead to a decrease of parent involvement because these new parent coordinators continued to attend meeting as they had as parents, but the new parent leader did not go leaving it up to the new parent coordinator to filter down any information.

  Don't get me wrong there are many good parent coordinator's who have adjusted to the position, but many others still do not know just what is expected of them. Also CPAC fought hard to keep the word District in Community District Education Council which I see has been lost now by those in the position and the unions. Also the NYCPU was started in 2011 less than two years ago, and did not fight the battles that CPAC fought for parents. It is now a much different playing field for parents who for the past ten years have been told by the Bloomberg administration "Get involved, but stay in your own school".

   DC 37 has endorsed current City Comptroller John Liu for Mayor in the Democratic primary.