Chancellor Carranza Visits District 10 Education Council Meeting

  It was billed as a Town Hal;l meeting with Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza. People were given slips of paper in order to write down questions that were prescreened for CEC 10 President Marvin Shelton to ask of the chancellor. At the beginning people were told that every question might not get asked, but to expect an answer from the chancellor in the coming weeks. 

  Chancellor Carranza opened up by talking about the Five-Year Capital Plan the DOE was embarking on. He went into generalities such as $750 million dollars will be spent to make all school ADA complaint, more classroom seats for district 10 (but not how many), and the Bronx Plan to bring an investment to under served schools (but again no figures were given). The Bronx Plan will give teachers an added incentive of $6,000 to $8,000 to teach in under served schools in Bronx schools where teachers have historically refused or transferred out of. Of the dozen teachers in the audience I was able to asked if they would take the added incentive, all replied no. 

  This also seems to be a copy of a previous program years ago where teachers were paid extra money to teach in disadvantaged schools, which failed in its second year. Teachers who signed up for the added incentive program soon transferred out leaving newer teachers in the schools. 

  Questions included class size, why the unproportinal number of certain classes of students are receiving suspensions, the common core, specialized high schools, and school food. On most of the questions Chancellor Carranza was on the parents side, and he did want to mention what he was doing as the chancellor to help solve some of the problems. School kitchens were being modernized for better food appeal, class size was going to be addressed by the five-year plan, he and the mayor were against one test being the sole criteria for getting into certain high schools, and that he wanted to know more from the schools on how suspensions were being handed out. 

  The ninety minutes went fast but the chancellor will do it again in two years as per the education law which states that he must meet with every Community District Education Council every two years.

Chancellor Richard Carranza is seated between School District 10 superintendent Hola, and CFC 10 President Shelton.