Transcript: Mayor de Blasio And Chancellor Carmen Fariña Host Press Conference At Port Richmond High School

September 9, 2016

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I want to thank Principal Gannon. There is a lot of Raider spirit. This is my first report to the media today – a lot of Raider spirit in this building. I was very struck by it – a lot of very energetic young people who are very proud of their school. And principal, I think you get a lot of credit for creating that atmosphere, for setting that tone. You have now been at it for 30 years or so, serving the children of Staten Island. I want to thank you. I want to thank you for the energy and focus you bring to this job here.

And Port Richmond High is really doing some amazing work. And I want you to hear about this because we came here on purpose. We wanted to show an example of what a community school means to the children, means to the surrounding community, and how it fits our larger vision of Equity and Excellence.

So let me just give you a quick take on this. Port Richmond High – first of all, it’s a beautiful building. And to all the folks who work here – they do a great job keeping this building beautiful and keeping that spirit high. But look, for example, at the state of the health center. I hope a lot of you were able to go in there. It is a beautiful, modern facility. And the focus is on physical health and mental health. And this is one of the things that typifies community schools. The notion of reaching a child – every part of them, everything they need to excel – that’s what I think of when I think of community schools – engaging the whole family, engaging the community to support that kid.

But also looking at the fact that we know – we know some kids don’t get to learn the way they might because of a physical health challenge or a mental health challenge that goes unaddressed. And in this health clinic, the good news is not only is it a modern facility with a lot of staff ready to serve the kids of this school, but if a young person comes in with a physical health problem, they’re looking out. The professionals in that clinic are looking out to see if there might be other issues as well that need to be addressed. Because a lot of times we find that one problem somehow relates to another one that didn’t get attention, especially with mental health where there’s still a stigma and unwillingness, in so many cases, to talk about it. That very professional staff is looking for an opportunity to see if something else has to be addressed, if that conversation has to be had. And they have the capacity right there. If a young person needs mental health support, it is right there in the same clinic. So that’s extraordinary. Six mentors and four social workers are available in this building. One of the things the principal is saying is how important it is to have enough trained staff to be able to reach all the young people in need. This is the shape of things to come in education, in my opinion – having this kind of capacity in the building so we can reach young people immediately. And one of the things to remember about mental health issues in particular – if they’re caught early in a young person’s life, so much good can be done. If they are missed or if they go unaddressed because of stigma, so much pain can happen later. And right here at Port Richmond, they’re doing it the right way.

I also want to note, and it was really exciting to see a college right here in this high school – to see the presence of Wagner College in such an energetic active way here at Port Richmond. And you know, I talked to some of the young people that have been involved with the program that the College is sponsoring here. And first of all, the first thing that you’ll find out about these young people besides that they’re smart, and they’re energetic, and they’re socially involved, is they all want to go to Wagner College. So that worked – congratulations. But second, they all were getting ready for very bright futures. And they’re very, very focused on what they could achieve. And they assumed they could go to college because they’ve already had an experience with a college that validated their ability to move forward.

So these are examples of what a community school can be. And why it takes the definition of a school and it expands it in ways that really inspire people to do much more. As part of our five borough tour, we focused today on our Equity and Excellence vision. And I want to just make one thing clear about this vision. The technology world – they love the phrase ‘disruptive’. And they mean it in the good sense. In a school setting, disruption can be bad when it means people aren’t following the rules. But in the technology world, they refer to disruption in a sense of creating new models, getting away from things that weren’t working and going in a new and better direction – innovating. Equity and Excellence aims to do that. This is very much of an anti-status quo initiative because the status quo wasn’t working.

I repeat – some of you were here earlier when we were – I should say, not here – some of you with us earlier when we started the day and we talked about the reality when this administration came into office. One of the indicators that I used that really puts a point on the problem – that point, about 30 percent of our kids were reading on grade-level by third grade. Now the educators in the room will tell you that reading on grade-level by third grade is one of the nationally recognized benchmarks for whether a young person will succeed or not. If they are reading on grade level by third grade, there’s a very high chance of future success. If they’re not, it’s an uphill climb.

The City of New York, the biggest city in the United States of America – when I took office, only about 30 percent of our kids were reading on grade level by third grade. This Chancellor and her team have had the courage to say that is fundamentally unacceptable. And the Equity and Excellence plan that we put forward literally established the only goal that we could feel comfortable with – it is an incredibly difficult and ambitious goal. It is a goal of 100 percent. Now educators will tell you also that is extraordinarily ambitious. That is going to take everything we know how to do and then some and a lot of resources. But morally, the only goal we can set for ourselves, and this is over ten years – is to bring our school system up to a point where every child is reading on grade level by third grade.

Now we believe, because we have changed the paradigm fundamentally with pre-K alone that we have given ourselves a much greater chance of achieving that goal. And again, I’m proud to say that this morning we got the figures for how many young people were walking through the doors of pre-K classrooms – we are now at 70,430 – 70,430. I want to tell you this is a number we did not expect today. We’ve said for a while we thought this was a year that we could come up to about 70,000. We did not expect to surpass it on the first day of school. And there’s a good chance that more and more parents will sign up after the first day of school, as they did last year – well into October. Please remind all of your audiences that there’s plenty of pre-K seats. Just by calling 3-1-1 or going online nyc.gov, you can sign up for a pre-K seat for your child. But the extraordinary response to pre-K has given us a foundation that we go at the third grade goal.

We’re also making a huge investment in reading coaches and reading specialists to help our young people, particularly at the second grade level, to set up success at the third grade level. This is one of the passions of the Chancellor and this is something that’s being engineered to again, break the paradigm that existed before – figure out all the things we need to do to help our educators reach this young people.

And that’s all the professional development too, which has been a crucial difference. And this is really a hallmark of Chancellor Fariña’s leadership – the supreme focus on constant, and improving professional development. All of this, we believe, will all up to a very, very different school system.

Now taking Port Richmond as an example, and taking the community schools as an example within that. If you say, okay, to fundamentally change the school system, you had to one, start early, start at the beginning, give every child high-quality, full day pre-K for free, making it something that was totally universal. That was one fundamental change. That focus on third grade reading – in many ways, the most fundamental change.

But you also have to find ways to strengthen each and every school. Because another thing that I consider fundamentally disruptive is we do not accept the notion of “bad schools.” Now every single one of us who looked for a school for our child or grew up in this city or in my case, was a school board member in my local community in District 15, Brooklyn. Everyone used to use the terminology – bad school, good school – and they thought it was normal, and it was just part of life in this city. It was a well-known fact – there were some schools that were really good, no one doubted, they would be happy to send their child there, etcetera, etcetera; and then there were others that people had given up on, that people didn’t want to send their kids to, that there was no sense could turn around.

A lot of schools have been turning around. Some started to turn around in the previous administration and I give them credit for that, and I thank them for that. A lot of other ones have turned around during this administration. There’s a lot more that have to turn around further. But the fact is, it’s been proven now, that a school can fundamentally change. And a school can be brought up to a level that anyone would be proud sending their child there. What you see happening here at Port Richmond is great example. The spirit is not only something that people talk about, it’s something that’s being achieved through real work – that people are feeling proud because they see good things happening in the school. You look at the clinic – how could you not be proud of a large state-of-the-art facility with so many capable people working in it? It immediately communicates – this is a school on the rise. And that’s part of what’s so powerful about the community school model is that it says to everyone involved – the investments are coming in, the changes are coming in because the school is on the rise.

When you see schools, for example, that bring parents in and have parents more involved than you’ve seen in probably any other kinds of schools, it says something is happening, something is changing. When you see community members coming in to volunteer and tutor, when you companies coming in to help – we love talking about the incredible work that’s being done with eyeglasses by Warby Parker. And that there’s young people all over New York City in community schools – in 130 community schools – literally any child who needs eyeglasses is getting them for free in those schools. That’s changing the lives of those children and their families. And I don’t need to even tell you how many times, already, a young person who did not know they had a vision problem or their parents didn’t know they had a vision problem, it was caught in their school – not because they went to the doctor; it was caught in their school. And if this kind of capacity was not available, that child might have gone on for months or years having a problem learning because they didn’t even realize it was actually a physical problem – a vision problem.

So all of these pieces come together in a community school. And that focus when talking here at the high school level – but we’ll see it at the middle school level as well – that focus on young people getting to college. We are communicating something different – we know, everyone in this room knows, that for a long time, there were lots of kids in this city who questioned whether they’d even get out of high school, let alone whether they had a shot in college. And they did not have communicated to them – college can and should be a part of their life if that’s what they choose. One of things that’s different about Equity and Excellence is we put college right in the front of this whole discussion. For example, every middle school child in New York City will go on a tour of a New York City college. It is going to be a mandatory part of all middle school’s programming. It is free to the children and their family members, so they can experience college – even at the middle school level, start to know that they too belong in college.

The fact that Advanced Placement courses – this used to be one of the most indicative realities of a school system that did have equity – talk about a tale of two cities. High schools that for generations had Advanced Placement, and others had never had a single one in their entire history. Advanced Placement courses, college-level courses immediately communicate the notion that the young people have a shot at getting to college and the school is up to the level of teaching those Advanced Placement courses. If you have Advanced Placement courses, something’s moving in the right direction. If you don’t, it’s almost an immediate indicator of a retreat or a belief that the young people in that school don’t actually belong in college. We’ve made a very clear standard – there will be Advanced Placement courses in every high school in New York City, regardless of zip code. This is again how we communicate to everyone that the only standard we will accept in all of our schools is excellence.

So all of these are moving simultaneously, and they have to move simultaneously. And one of the things I came to realize long ago – first as a school board member and a new parent, and then with everything Chiara and Dante experienced in their public school educations. And everything I’ve done in public service – what became clear to me is the public discourse so often missed what we really had to do because we have to do so many things at once.

We have to recruit the best talent at all levels of education. We have to get great people to come into the field of education. We have to get great teachers. We have to constantly train them, not just once them or in a cursory manner, but as Carmen has now made real – we have to constantly train them and improve them and show them a respect for their professionalism by lifting them up, improving them all the time. You have to create real opportunity for those very same talented people to rise up in the school system, become assistant principals, become principals – show that our homegrown talent could be the very best. That was a piece of the equation that was needed.

You have to do early childhood education. You have to create a college-focused culture. You have to do third grade reading level improvement. You have to go at that problem if you’re going to fix everything else.

You have to do all of the above.

And we found that community schools play a crucial role. And we found that going right at the Renewal Schools and actually giving them the tools to become stronger, giving them the extra classroom instruction time, giving them the afterschool, giving them the tools to become stronger – giving them the extra classroom instruction time, giving them the afterschool, giving them the additional professional development. All of those things actually added up to a serious attempt to change a broken status quo. And nothing less than that could possibly change the reality for 1.1 million students. That’s what we’ve been trying to do.

The Chancellor has done an extraordinary job marshalling all these initiatives simultaneously. Deputy Mayor Buery has provided extraordinary leadership, particularly in the areas of pre-K and community schools – two of the cutting-edge elements of this vision. But no one for a moment can rest on their laurels because we understand just how big this mission is – just how tough this mission is.

And I want to reflect – when we thought about third grade, as I mentioned before, it would have been so tempting to set a lower goal. But we knew it would be wrong for New York City. We knew we had to try for the maximum goal. And in everything we do, we’re trying to give numbers, goals that the people of New York City can see. So for example, on graduation rate – we’re at 70.5 percent. We’re at the highest graduation rate we have ever been in New York City. That is not enough. We have dedicated ourselves to reaching 80 percent over the course of the next 10 years. Test scores have continued to improve, most notably in the last year – our English scores improving across all 32 local districts. But they have to improve a lot more.

And all the pieces I described, we believe, will allow us to continue to improve student performance, continue to have more and more schools be the kinds of schools every parent wants to send their child to. That is what Equity and Excellence is about.

Very quickly in Spanish.

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish.]

With that, I want to turn to the architect of all of these great changes, our Chancellor Carmen Fariña.

[Applause]

Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña: Thank you. And thank you Tim for the wonderful work that you’re doing here at Port Richmond.

It takes a great principal, it takes a great superintendent, it takes a great community to create a great school, and teachers of course. And I think it’s really, really important to honor a principal who did not accept the status quo, who came in – I’m coming in and I want to change the image of Port Richmond, and not only with that, but fighting for things that he may not have necessarily have gotten any other way. I like feisty principals. I like principals who say this is what I need for my students. And that’s exactly what you’ve done, and congratulations.

I also want to say there’s a particular model here that I want to see happening more across the city, where a university or now universities have stepped up to the plate. And Wagner could easily have said well send me the students that belong here. But they said something very different. They said we’re going to go to the school. We’re going to have an office in the school. We’re going to make sure that we support the school in as many ways as possible, so when the students come to us, they’re already prepared. And as a result, the two other universities out here on the Island are also stepping up with different schools in the borough. So I think all of that is really, really important. And in a community school, you also have bar none, is the ability to treat the whole child and the whole family. And that’s what this school is doing. They’re not using excuses – “Oh, you’re absent because you suffer from X, Y, and Z.” They’re saying, “Come here, we’ll help you so then you come to school.”

But I just want to do a quick recap of today. To me, Equity and Excellence means level the playing field. And the one thing that I saw in every single stop – and we did five stops – is that in every place we went, we spoke to at least one student with aspirations. And what Equity and Excellence is really all about is saying, no matter what ZIP code, what family come from, whether you’re newly arrived immigrants, or been here all your life you have an equal chance to be successful.

So, one our first stop – the first student, Chyna, that we picked up – she very clearly – she wasn’t at all embarrassed, she wasn’t shy, nothing. I said, “Well, what is your goal?” She says, “I want to be valedictorian.” That is a goal – even the word valedictorian is something every child should have. And I think that’s what part of Equity and Excellence is. It’s about – what are your goals?

The second school we went to, we were talking about what colleges you want to go – the college visits that you’re making. And I thought, for sure, that they were going to say, you know, CUNY [inaudible] Fordham. One student said very clearly, “Stanford.” Just like that – “Stanford.” So, I said, “Well, New York City,” he said, “Nope. Stanford.” And then we started talking about what else we might do in term of preparing his goal, we said we would be paying for students to go visit campuses. He says, “Stanford.” I said, well, I’m not paying for a flight to California, but you’re going have to do it, maybe, digitally.

But the idea is that all the kids, no matter what ZIP code they’re in are talking about their opportunities. [Inaudible] first high school on Staten Island to have a dual-language program is right here at Port Richmond. Talking to the students and asking them what are their opportunities there, and one of the students, “Because I can come in and speak my own language, I feel more comfortable coming into school.”

So, we now have not only programs in place and teachers in place – oh, in one of the schools we went to the 2nd grade literacy. One of the students wanted to carry on the whole class, as in he thought he was the teacher because he’s already at a high level. He was able – he wants to be an N-level in 2nd grade.

We need every student in New York City to dream the impossible dream, and to understand what steps they need to get there so that all our students will have equal opportunity. So, that’s what today is all about. And, now, my job is just to execute it.

[Laughter]

Thank you.

[Applause]

Mayor: To the credit of Carmen Fariña – she takes on the mission every time, and that is part of why we have come so far.

I want to thank, as I said – a real thank you to Deputy Mayor Buery. This is a day you can really be especially proud of because more than 70,000 kids in pre-K – again, this was a dream and we did not think we would get here this quickly. But the people are speaking, as they say, and voting with their feet. And the word-of-mouth and everything else about pre-K has been so strong. So, really a day to be proud.

And to thank some of our partners in this work who are here – Doctor Richard Guarasci of Wagner College who is an exceedingly enthusiastic man and has done great work for Staten Island and great work here at Port Richmond. And I know you felt, as I do, that those young people – it was so exciting to hear their energy, their belief in themselves. And I think it was five out of six who wanted to go to Wagner College. That’s a pretty good batting average.

And Mark Cannizzaro, the Executive Vice President of CSA – thank you for your partnership. We appreciate it deeply.

Shaun Francois, President of the Local-372 at DC-37 – thank you [inaudible] key role that your members play in keeping our kids safe in all the operations of our schools. And we appreciate it deeply.

I want you to hear from another partner, and he has one of the tougher jobs because whenever I talk about people who serve in Albany, New York I like to immediately remind everyone that it is a tough environment to work in, to try to make sure there is fairness for New York City, and particularly for our school children. Mike Cusick has been a crucial ally in making sure that we got what we needed for New York City public school kids. So, Mike, thank you for your great work. And I welcome you – Assemblyman Mike Cusick.

[Applause]

[…]

I think that Mike Cusick has a [inaudible] spirit. I want to give you that. Congratulations.

Questions on education. Questions on education. Yes.

Question: [Inaudible] charter school [inaudible]

Mayor: Yea. I think that number is approximately right. But yes, we’ve said for a long time that the population in charter schools has been growing. The Chancellor has been spent a lot of time working with charter schools all over the city, and working with some of the leaders of the charter school movement. Deputy Mayor Buery has a lot of history working with charter schools and starting – in fact, having helped to start one when he was the head of the Children’s Aid Society. So, our message to the charter school community is of course we want to work with you. This is about all of our children, and what we want to set up is a situation where good ideas and good approaches are shared between charter schools and district schools. 

Now, one thing we will say – because we all believe in the power of our traditional public schools – is that’s a two-way street. And there’s a lot of great ideas in our traditional public schools more and more. And the PROSE schools are a great example where – you know, by agreement with the teacher’s union you have a dynamic where schools can make a decision to cancel their DOE work rules and their union work rules, and innovate and do new things. That’s now in 120 schools, I think.

A lot of innovation’s happening in all different kinds of schools. We want to share it. We want to learn from each other. We want to work together.

We even have extended that idea out to parochial schools. Remember parochial schools played a big role in our pre-K initiative and continued to, and in our afterschool initiative for middle school kids.

So, all of these pieces suggest an atmosphere where we want everyone to feel that they’re working towards the same goal. And I’ll certainly continue to go to different charter schools that we feel are, you know, really giving us good models. We can work [inaudible].

Yes.

Question: Mr. Mayor, [inaudible] student had a gun at [inaudible]. Wanted to get your reaction to that incident and also [inaudible] –

Mayor: [Inaudible] I’ll talk about the incident but I want to make sure there’s no misunderstanding. I think we’ve said it clearly but it bears repeating. There is not a “plan to remove scanners.” There never has been. There is a plan to evaluate in schools where the school community itself thinks that either scanners should be subtracted or added or changed – that that can be evaluated by both the educators and the public safety officials.

Now, in the end that decision can only be made ultimately by School Safety, meaning the NYPD. But the point is there are some schools where there is a different approach to the scanners that’s needed. There are some schools that there’s an argument they do not need scanners anymore. There are some schools that might have not had them and decide that they do need them. We’re going to go through a process in each case with all the stakeholders with a final decision depending on whatever the analysis of the NYPD is. So, that’s just to put that in perspective.

On the incident today, look, it’s really clear. Weapons in our schools are absolutely unacceptable and we will find them and we will take them away and there will be very serious consequences for anybody who brings a weapon into a school. So, that young person, obviously, got caught. That weapon was taken away. It happens very rarely in terms of guns. In the last year or two years, we’re talking fewer than ten guns a year have been impounded in our schools.

So, we’ve brought down the whole situation of this sort of violence in the schools, fundamentally – as a credit to educators, it’s really a credit especially to School Safety. The overall number – as we talked about earlier in the day, this goes across two administrations now – over the last five years, violent crime in our schools has been reduced 35 percent, and that trend continues. School Safety is doing better than ever.

So, I’m very unhappy that that young person did that today. He will certainly suffer the consequences but as per usual what I have found is School Safety will get those weapons and get them away from anybody who has them.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: When I took office it was 30 – I don’t know if it’s exactly 30. We can get you – yes, low 30s. We have now a plan in place that we put into action in the last year to bring that number up. It’s going to take a while for that to be fully felt. But our goal is a very rigorous one that we have to move that number up rapidly over the next years. In this school year, for the first time, we’re going to have those reading specialists in the schools that need them most, and that initiative’s going to ramp up. But we’ll make sure to get you the exact numbers as they are now.

Questions on education.

Question: [Inaudible] looking at Equity and Excellence, can we expect anything in terms of a larger plan [inaudible]?

Mayor: Yes, look, Equity and Excellence is focused on bringing up every school. And I think right there it has some impact unto itself of adding to diversity because it’s going to encourage people to feel free to send their kids to a broader range of schools – people of all backgrounds.

We’ve also said our affordable housing plan we think will have an impact on diversity in schools as well. I’ll have the chancellor speak to what the DOE has started to do. And I said, publicly, we’re going to have a bigger plan we put forward that you will see in the near future that lays out a system wide approach. But the Chancellor certainly can speak about some of the initial efforts that some schools have made that are succeeding that we think give us the foundation for the bigger plan.

Chancellor Fariña: Certainly, one of the most important things in terms of our diversity efforts – and I’ve come to Staten Island several times to talk to many constituents here about this – in making sure that communities’ needs and views are heard. So, some of the things are – in several of our schools, at least ten, we have what we call set-aside seats. And these set-aside seats will be for students who [inaudible] whatever else is in the schools. And these were done in conjunction with the superintendents, the principals, and the parent body. And our intention is to keep going after the community, and certainly there are some districts – and I’ll use one as an example, District 13 in Brooklyn that has done a real major emphasis in involving community members, CEC members. We just opened a school there this past week – the Dock Street School, where the enrollment process for that school is going to part of our integration in diversity [inaudible]. That was done after at least 22 meetings with every member of the community [inaudible] talking to – anyone who wanted to talk, whether they had children in the school or not. And that’s where I think is the process. This is not about a mandate, this is not about looking at a quote, this is about how we get community involved in having these discussions. And I think that’s the best way to ensure that when families send their children to a school that that is a happiness on all sides.

I’ll just give an example, here, one of the things that was done at this school – because, you know, a school gets reputations that sometimes are ten years old or more. [Inaudible] I mean, as a superintendent, I lived with this. So, more open houses, more trips to schools by every member of the community. In this school – and I think it was a touch of genius – it was the superintendent and the principals [inaudible] put the enrollment center, welcome center in this building. So, parents actually have to walk into this building, see the building, and then make decisions. So, when you walk into a building, you see something, you’re much more likely to enroll your student here, than if you haven’t been in this building for ten years, and you still remember whatever happened.

The other thing we’re doing – we’re doing this around the city – we still encourage you to [inaudible] also – we’re doing editorial board meetings, and inviting – and Staten Island was the first place we did this – to do hidden gems. There are many schools in this city that have opportunities and that we really need to put in place the word out there. And Port Richmond was the first school that was chosen for the Advance – Staten Island Advance. We’ve gone out to Queens. We’re going out to other parts of the city.

So, my job is not only to be a cheerleader but make sure when parents start looking at diversity that all parents want to go to all schools. But this is an ongoing process. We will continue to meet with members of the community to have these discussions.

Mayor: Quick, quick addition – first on the point that schools change. And I think this is part of why we believe that we can break this status quo of “good school and bad school” profoundly. Because just as the Chancellor has experienced, I’ve seen such rapid changes in schools. I was today at P.S. 154 in the Bronx, as school that was very troubled just a few years ago, that has had a stunning rate of progress, that has had a whole different culture in the building that has permeated the teaching staff and the parents. And the principal there, I said to her, “What is the limit to this?” It was very inspiring to me. I said, “Where can this go?” She said once the culture changes, and parents start to believe in the school, and the teachers believe the school can get better and kids start [inaudible] communicating better, there is no outer limit. There’s limitless potential for improving the school.

I use an example from my own neighborhood in Brooklyn. When I was a school board member, the next school zone over from our house was P.S. 107. And back then, so this would have been 1999, 2000, 2001 – back then, people living in the surrounding blocks would not send their kids to P.S. 107. It was literally considered a bad school, they would not even consider it. It was down the street, they would not consider it.

A lot started changing in that school starting with a new principal, and – a great principal – and more involvement from parents and a lot of other changes. One day, I was walking down the street not far from the school, this was maybe six or seven years later, and it was the first of many times that someone grabbed me by the arm and said, “Can you help me get to P.S. 107?” The speed with which that school got good and then got great, and then became incredible desirable, and then it became like a competition to get in, was breathtaking. Certainly less than a decade, just a matter of years. So it’s a reminder to us that we cannot be let down by the past. To Carmen’s point, some of this stuff is just stereotype that hangs in the air. If we’re going to work on better schools and work on diversity, some of it comes with breaking down those boundaries. You’ve seen some of the rather intense concerns at the community level when we talk about school rezoning, some of that is based on a lack of information about what the school is doing today versus what might have been happening in the past. It’s our job to get that out, so we’re going to do those things.

I also want to say to the point Carmen mad about how they do ‘set-asides’, that’s based obviously within the law – it’s not based on anything and everything, it’s based on things like geography, it’s based on things like certain economic indicators, for example, if kids happen to be homeless, you know, specific categories of young people who we have found it’s fair and smart to say we should make sure this school has some representation of these kids. That model appears to be working very well, and that’s something we’re going to continue to deepen. Yes?

Question: [inaudible] testing [inaudible] the other schools [inaudible]?

Mayor: I wish that were true. And I think from my memory of the last conversation with the Law Department, it’s not as simple as that. I don’t believe in a single test for admissions to a school. I think we need to a multiple-measures approach for admissions to our specialized high schools. There is an Albany component to that decision-making we have to deal with. That being said, we’re going to make the changes we can make in terms of how we prepare young people and any other ways that we have to broaden the diversity of our specialized schools. I used the case of Stuy, you know, majority of this city – a clear majority of this city is black and Latino. The percentage of black and Latino [inaudible] students at Stuy combined is about 7 percent, and that’s just not acceptable. So I’ll keep working for the change we need in Albany to create a more representative reality in our specialized schools. Whatever we can do in our own power, we’re absolutely going to do.

Question: Do you believe [inaudible] the majority Asian population of Stuy?

Mayor: I am certain that some people will be concerned. But this is a matter of fairness from my point of view, and it doesn’t surprise me that there’ll be some turbulence, but come on. We have to – these are very special institutions in this city. Our specialized schools turn out a disproportionately high number of the leaders of this city in a whole host of fields, and nationally – Eric Holder went to Stuy, David Axelrod rent to Stuy – Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science – I mean these are some of the very best high schools in America. They have to be representative of this city’s population because we’re a representative democracy, we want the leaders of the future in this city to come from all communities. And if it were not for a single test, this would be a very different discussion. But it’s based on an admissions concept – by the way, no Ivy League college would ever accept the notion of choosing their students based on a single test. This is the irony of it, no institution – ‘elite’ institution – would ever make the decision in this country, at least based on that. So it’s wrong on its face, but it’s also wrong because it has created an unrepresentative dynamic. Please.

Chancellor Fariña: One of the other things that we’re focusing on is the DREAM program and the Discovery program. And I want to be very clear, that this is a program that takes students who already are high achieving but may have missed, or would miss by two points getting into a specialized school. So we are increasing our DREAM program this year to start from 6th grade. It means that students have to be able and willing to go to extra classes one day a week and go on Saturdays, and this summer, we also had special programs where they can really do intensive work in their area of specialty. One of the programs we did is Bootcamp For The Arts, 150 students from all over the city who might not have money enough to have prime tutors – in music, in dance, in theater – and Lincoln Center actually prepped them for the auditions. The other thing is we have a new principal at Stuyvesant, Eric Contreras, he’s phenomenal, who is the first in his family to go to college, and he is committed to starting a discovery program at that campus the same way that Brooklyn Tech has. And that means taking students who we know could make the grade and work, and giving them extra support with tutoring and test prep and whatever else they need to be able to succeed. And the teachers from those schools will be teaching those courses also, so they get to know the kids and it will be an easier access for them.

Mayor: I have to tell you, I left out a very important fact, because I didn’t know the very important fact that another great example of a Stuy graduate who turned out good is Deputy Mayor Richard Buery. So I commend you, proud alumnus. Yes?

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor: So, let me do a couple of things. First of all, the current capital plan – there’s $241 million for the creation of new school seats in Staten Island – that would be 2,000 seats. One – so today, I don’t know the details about the school today, maybe our superintendent wants to update us on that – but certainly we’re going to look at, because we’re bringing in a lot more school seats into Staten Island, we’re going to look at what makes sense in terms of locating those seats. As you know, the rezoning that’s being discussed around Bay Street is one of those opportunities to look at communities and see if there’s a school-siting opportunity, so that’s certainly going to be a discussion. But the one thing I can tell you for sure is 2,000 more seats are on the way. And Superintendent, do you want to come up for a second and join us and tell us about what you mentioned about earlier today? And please introduce yourself.

Superintendent for District 31, Anthony Lodico: Good afternoon everyone. I am Anthony Lodico, the Superintendent for District 31. So we did have a new school that opened its doors today right here in the Port Richmond Community, P.S. 68, the old Verizon building on Forrest Avenue opened today. It has a pre-K center that remains the stand alone pre-K center and we brought in three kindergarten classes today and it will grow to be a full pre-K through 5th grade school with about 420 students. We have a lot of overcrowding here in the Port Richmond area. Those of you that know the area – P.S. 20 is overcrowded, P.S. 21. So although we want to alleviate that overcrowding immediately, it will begin to help with overcrowding in this area and as the Mayor said there is also a plan for additional seats. And I know that the City and the DOE are looking at different sites all across the north shore with our City Council people in terms of where would be the best places to open additional seats in the years to come.

Question: In this initiative to improve schools, how are we engaging parents and how have we included the parent-coordinating?

Mayor: Well the parent involvement is – to me – one of the underpinnings of big change in our school system. And, it began within the teacher contract, for example, including every week time for teachers to engage with parents. It included going from two parent-teacher conferences a year to four parent–teacher conferences a year. It’s a host of things to deepen the engagement but then there are community schools. In 130 community schools the level of engagement is much higher. Richard, why don’t you jump in and talk about that a little?

Deputy Mayor Richard Buery:  Sure, just very quickly – now parent engagement communicating can be a central part of community schools in number of ways. One way is that the central strategy is increasing the capacity of the schools to engage community partners including parents in a plan for the schools. But, more specifically, the DOE is doing a tremendous job of really building capacity directed towards going out and engaging students and families directly including hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of home visits at the beginning of the year. And so engaging parents is actually central to the community school strategy of how you build a better and more inclusive school community?.

Chancellor Fariña: Let me be very specific – when I was Deputy Chancellor, one of the groups of people I met with on a regular basis was parent coordinators. Since I’ve become Chancellor, I’ve given that responsibility [inaudible] and Yolanda Torres. She has met once a month with all the parent coordinators in the city. Now, some come, some don’t come. And we have increased the opportunities of parent coordinators to also have career ladders. Today, one of the Single Shepherds that we met in our school was a former parent coordinator. So we expect to see career rise with parent coordinators as well. But also, we’ve asked them to get very much engaged. This past year, in particular, was to get more engaged in the cultural institutions. We gave them workshops on how to take parents to cultural institutions.

We [inaudible] increased more opportunities for parents. We do town hall meetings. I’ve been to Staten Island a lot. The town hall meetings, but also the notion that this September we are going to have Curriculum Night in every school in the city. There’s a different one for elementary, different night for middle, and different night for high school. In the past, that wasn’t part of equity. Some schools did it, teachers came voluntarily or not. It was kind of chance. We have this new contract – this is part of every single school in the city. So that’s also one where you expect parent coordinators.

The first person that greeted me this morning in this building was a parent coordinator. So to me, we expect them to be the public face. The other responsibility we’ve asked them to undertake is to be particularly welcome to parents of English language learners and special needs kids because these are the two parents specifically who when they come to the building may need a little bit more support, a little bit more help.

So I find parent coordinators a crucial part of the work that we’re trying to do. I also find that their training, so they have a career ladder to move forward, is very, very important. And I think we’re doing that, and Yolanda Torres is the point person in getting that done.

Mayor: Okay, last questions on education. Yes, sir?

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Look, I’m a parent, so every parent is concerned about the safety of their child. I’m concerned about the safety of 1.1 million kids. But I have to tell you, I’m very confident in school safety, and I’m very confident in the direction we’re doing in. This has been such a clear trend. And I’m being very clear about saying this began in the previous administration. We’ve shown statistically that we’ve deepened it. But look, school safety is very professional. In fact, we’ve added a lot more training to help school safety do their job well. They’re very diligent. We find that if any young person is planning on doing the wrong thing, we get them. So – and that drop in violent crime – 35 percent in five years is unmistakable. So I am confident that our schools are safe and getting safer. And I’m very confident in our school safety officers.

Last call, yes?

Question: On the topic that Peter was just talking about. What would you tell the kid who’s thinking of bringing a gun to school?

Mayor: You’re going to get caught. It’s very simple. My message to – first of all, it’s wrong in every way. And if someone is giving you a weapon that’s going to take you down a wrong road, if someone tells you to hold a weapon for you – for them – it’s going to take you down a wrong road. There’s just no place for a weapon in the school. On top of that, you’re going to get caught and it’s going to have very serious ramifications for your life. It’s just – this is what I see over and over again – when young people, and it’s a very small minority of young people, when they do they wrong thing, there are real consequences now. There’s a lot more order in our schools and a lot more consequences.

Last call? Okay, thanks everyone.