On First Day, New School System
Gets A Stalled Start

By Shams Tarek, Azi Paybarah, Aaron Rutkoff
and Reed Albergotti

The dreaded-by-some, anticipated-by-others transition between old and new school systems came and went this week.

While the bottom-line result of the changes that went into effect on July 1 won’t be quantified until next year’s round of test scores, attendance numbers and graduation rates, PRESS team coverage of the transition reveals a shaky start to a complex system.

Of the 13 Learning Support Centers throughout the city that opened on July 1, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein chose one in Long Island City for a Day One visit.

“Today is the first day of the new New York Public School System,” Klein told a crowd of about 20 reporters at the “Learning Support Center” (LSC), or regional headquarters, for Instructional Division 4, which includes Western Queens’ Districts 24 and 30 and Brooklyn’s District 32.

Klein said the opening of the LSCs gives his school system reform plan “real traction,” and told reporters that the main focus of the Department of Education (DOE) this summer is the professional development of teachers, delivery of textbooks and supplies to schools and keeping parents informed of the ongoing changes.

Highlighting the DOE’s interest in contemporary approaches to productivity, Klein pointed out the bullpen office arrangement — in which numerous cubicles are packed together in one large room — at the LSC.  He and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, both veterans of large private corporations, have instituted similar arrangements at the DOE headquarters and City Hall in lower Manhattan.

“The days of private offices are over,” Klein said.

Freshman to the bullpen style of administration is Division 4 Superintendent Reyes Irizarry, who said he liked the new arrangement.

“I feel a sense of camaraderie . . . it works for me,” Irizarry said.  “I have visual contact with so many people at one time.”

One person Irizzary didn’t have visual contact with was Pat Nero, a P.S. 78 parent who was denied access to his LSC during Klein’s visit.

Nero said he came to the office to discuss, among other things, a problem with parking near his children’s school.

Superintendent Reyes Irizarry shown here at the opening day of the Learning Support Center in Long Island City that Schools Chancellor Joel Klein visited. Tribune Photos by Ira Cohen

Nero said despite the DOE’s year-old restructuring efforts, he’s still experiencing impenetrable bureaucracy in the school system.

“When you ask a question, they ask you a question back,” Nero said, noting that a District 30 staff member didn’t even know who Irizarry was during a recent phone call.

Nero isn’t the only one who had trouble reaching entering an LSC or getting info about the new offices.

PRESS reporters visiting other LSCs and district offices — a recent decision by Bloomberg and Klein keeps a three-person district office open in every district without an LSC within its boundaries — just before and after the transition found it nearly impossible to move freely within the public spaces, and sometimes even enter them.

At the Division 3 (Districts 25, 26, 28 and 29) LSC on Linden Place in Flushing (within District 25), a reporter was stopped from entering the building by three uniformed NYPD School Safety Agents.

No one was allowed in the LSC without an appointment to see someone.  There were a lot of new faces at the office on July 1, one of the agents said.  Some employees with badges were waived through while others without badges had to sign in a security log.

One employee, asked by a guard what her new assignment was, responded with dark humor.

“What am I?” the woman asked. “I don’t know.  Am I working for the summer?  Who knows.”

A reporter who visited Division 3’s other LSC, on Sutphin Boulevard within District 28, was also turned away by a security guard.

Each LSC is the main office for its regional superintendent, as well as its future “Parent Engagement Board,” which the DOE hopes will replace existing district-based school boards, pending Department of Justice approval.

Each LSC will also host a “Parent Support Office” and about 10 “Instructional Supervisors,” deputy superintendents of sorts who will help principals and teachers deal with the new system and its curricula.

The Parent Support Offices will each have full-time personnel “trained to handle parent issues that cannot be resolved by parent coordinators at the school level,” according to the DOE, which promises that parents will be able to get the same services at all 13 Centers citywide, no matter what district they live in.

Two of the borough’s Learning Support Centers — at 30-48 Linden Pl. and 28-11 Queens Plaza North — will also house DOE “Operations Centers,” which will provide “back office support” including budgeting, technology, human and transportation resources and administrative functions currently performed at over 80 offices citywide, including each of the existing district offices.

According to Klein, the new system reassigns or lays off about half of district-based administrative staff citywide and puts $240 million back into DOE coffers.

The district offices that haven’t become LSCs will remain open indefinitely. Each will be staffed by a District Parent Support Officer — a kind of parent liaison—a clerical worker and a “local instructional supervisor” — a kind of deputy superintendent — acting as the new local “superintendent,” a position required by New York State law.

The DOE wanted the offices shut down and replaced by the LSCs, but intense pressure from parents and local elected officials forced the concession last month.

Just a day before the new offices and staff members started their first day in operation, school administrators all over the borough were scrambling to get in their last-minute packing and goodbyes.

Southeast Queens’ District 29 office was in complete disarray on June 30.  Boxes were everywhere, and people moved them out of the office on carts all day.

The once-heavily-decorated walls were pocked with picture hangers with no pictures. Faint outlines stood where plaques, photographs, artwork and notices once hung.

Superintendent Michael Johnson, who is leaving the New York City school system to become the superintendent of schools in Albany, declined to be interviewed and wouldn’t allow photographs in his office.

Like most of the sullen-faced people in the office, Johnson was clearly upset.

“It’s all over, man,” he hollered at a reporter as he walked away.  “It’s not important anymore.”

When told that it was an important day in the history of the school system and that the public was eager to know what’s happening, Johnson said, “The people don’t want to hear from me. They already decided that.”

While there was an incessant buzz of activity at District 29’s office, there was only one person in District 24’s office on June 30.

At District 26’s Bayside headquarters, the atmosphere was subdued and somber.  Hugs and goodbyes went all around.

There were also signs of restrained bitterness at the uncertainty engendered by the overhaul of the school system and the perceived heavy-handedness with which personnel decisions were carried out.

“It’s been horrible, it’s been absolutely horrible,” said one District 26 office worker  who declined to give her name.  “People that should have been laid off have jobs in the regional office, and really great people with a lot of experience have been lost.  It shouldn’t have been that way.”

District 26 Director of Operations Dom Giannotta, a man with 31 years of experience in the school system, chose to retire in the face of the recent changes.

“It’s been fairly chaotic, it’s safe to say,” Giannotta said. “And it was handled in a very clandestine fashion. It seems there was a premise at work that you are not to ask questions.”

Giannotta also characterized the centralization process as “very top-down,” noting that “we were used to a more deliberative approach to get things done. I’ve never seen layoffs to the degree we saw in the past year.”

“It’s going to be very, very difficult, at least at first,” Giannotta added. “It’s going to take a lot of energy to reinvent the wheel.”

At District 27’s Ozone Park office, no one offered their name but faces looked mostly glum.

One DOE employee said, “Everything is a mess. Just one big mess. I’ve worked in the system for a long time. It’s never been so poorly organized. There have never been so many loose ends left untied.”

Edna Gaud, who just moved in as part of Division 5 after 31 years in the system, was optimistic about the new system.

“These changes are good,” Gaud said. “I think we will have a very productive year. We know where we have to go. Everybody gets scared when they see change, but these changes are good.”