*New Video* February First Rally

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February 9th is a big day, much bigger than February First. The Panel for Educational Puppets will vote on this day, whether to close 25 schools (including Legacy School for Integrated Studies). We are working very hard to get our school off the list but that of course is a slim to none chance. The PEP has closed well over 117 schools a big percent of them, new schools under Bloomberg's administration.

The PEP consists of 13 members 8 of which are hand picked by the mayor himself. Just by that you can tell that corruption is present. We need support we will be having a press conference before the pep meeting at 4:30 in front of Brooklyn Tech.

Join us and bring a friend!!!

Legacy Conducting Their Own Investigation

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Legacy students are hard at work looking for new data to present to the public. The DOE has hid behind the numbers for years but we are going to use it against them. We have asked the DOE to do an investigation in legacy's past statistics and see if they are actually accurate. We do believe some things are false. We are also conducting a peer-index investigation. The DOE messed with the wrong school this time around! The Save Legacy Coalition is going to give them a run for their money.

The Journey Hearing Edit

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com The Presentation Was Shown at Our Joint Hearing. Created by Justin Watson, President of The Save Legacy Coalition.

New York State and New York City Elected Officials Defend Legacy

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com We Thank Them Some Much for Taking The Time to Write A letter for Us!!!

The Journey!!! Walk Out Feb 1st!!!

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com [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg-vAxY_xgw]

Community Impact

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com Community Impact

 

The reality is that 21% of Legacy students receive ICT or SC services; 28% of Legacy students have an IEP, 8% are English Language Learners and 95% of Legacy students are eligible for free or reduced lunch according to the Educational Impact Statement.  We will be highly affected by this phase-out and closure.  As stated by the Educational Impact Statement: as total enrollment at the school declines throughout the course of the phase-out, the school will likely need to scale back its elective course offerings.  Our course electives are already dwindling and it is likely that we will have less choice as the school phases out.  [How will this make the educational program better? How would this improve our learning?]

 

In the Educational Impact Statement, the Department of Education included a list of schools that offer similar programming as Legacy and state that they are giving individuals a choice over their education.  Since it is likely that if a school receives a C, D, or F that they could be proposed for closure if conditions persist, incoming students would narrow their choices to schools that received an A or a B in their progress report.   From a list of 54 options, this is narrowed to 23 schools.  Only 43% of schools that are similar to Legacy are receiving an A or a B on their progress report.  From a historical viewpoint, students who have gone to Legacy have always been students with some of the highest needs in the city.  If this trend persists, it will be unlikely for them to get into a school that screens.  Therefore, from a list of 23, it goes down to 6 possible options.  From those 6 options, 3 of them (Unity Center for Urban Tech, High School for Environmental Studies and The Facing History School) are over capacity and will make it more difficult for students to enroll.  The three schools (Essex Street Academy, Pace High School and Vanguard) that remain already have percentages close to the citywide averages of special education and English Language Learners.  Therefore, it is likely that more high-needs students will be funneled to those schools and that these schools will meet the same fate as schools that have been phased-out.  From a list of 54 possible options, students that would have gone to Legacy only get 3 real choices.

 

 

The New York Times. Leaders of 4 'F' Schools Are Now Up for Bonuses:  Gootman, Elissa. New York Times [New York, N.Y] 06 June 2008: B.

Student Performance and Student Progress

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com Student Performance and Student Progress

The Intersection between graduation rate and credit-accumulation rate

 According to the Educational Impact Statement, Legacy is being proposed for phase-out and closure due to the declining graduation rate.  For the year 2009-2010, our four-year graduation rate was 59% and then it decreased to 43% during Ms. Mosely’s first year.  However, Ms. Mosely’s 6-year graduation increased to 64% compared to 44% from the previous year.  Additionally, the students who were graduating with a Regent’s Diploma increased from 19% to 33%.  For the year 2009-2010, only 28% of students in the Class of 2010 (students who entered high school four years earlier) enrolled in a two- or four-year college by December 31, 2010.  If you include the citywide statistic that only 13% of Black and Latino students are college-ready, we begin to see a different picture.  It looks like more students were graduating under the previous administration, but that they were not necessarily prepared for college as so few of them actually graduated with a Regent’s Diploma. Additionally, teachers and students were surprised to see certain students graduate for the school year 2009-2010.  With reports from students and parents that academic rigor has increased under Ms. Mosely’s leadership and the data-driven nature of the administration, we can’t help but question the previous administration’s graduation and credit-accumulation rates.

We are calling on an investigation of the graduation rate and credit-accumulation rate.  Evidence shows that the past administration was not fully equipped to change this school and that they were not data-driven.  In the Quality Review of 2009-2010, many of items that Legacy needed to improve primarily focused on the principal and his capacity to be data-driven.  The chart below demonstrates the areas of improvement as stated by the Quality Review and categories.

Area of Improvement as stated in Quality Review 2009-2010	Categories
Consistently examine student achievement data to identify trends and subgroup needs in order to apply strategic curricular and instructional adjustments across classrooms.	Data and curriculum
Develop focused goals with specific actions in long-term planning, and a strategy for measuring progress, so that the school community can fully understand and support work toward interim and long-term goals.	Data and short-term and long-term goals
Promote greater consistency in using data to differentiate instruction so that lesson planning reflects purposeful groupings, tasks accommodate different learning styles and questioning extends thinking, thereby maximizing learning.	Data and differentiation
Refine action planning by developing interim goals and benchmarks for all plans so that progress can be measured, adjustments made, and success evaluated.	Data and assessments
Implement a professional development plan, aligned with whole school and teacher goals, develop leadership potential, and ensure that rigorous monitoring procedures are introduced to evaluate the impact of actions on achievement.	Data and professional development

In comparison, in the Quality Review of 2010-2011, the first item under what the school does well was:



“A highly strategic new principal builds school-wide coherence through the development of data driven, multi-year goals with action plans, clearly linked to accelerating student learning.”



While there are areas that we need to improve, we believe that Ms. Mosely is deeply committed to data and correctly documenting it.  Therefore, if we are being closed because of data, it should be ACCURATE data.

In conclusion, we are calling on an investigation of the graduation rates and credit-accumulation rates under the past administration.  At the same time, we are not blaming the past administration exclusively for what happened at Legacy.  In fact, we believe that the blame should be placed on the Department of Education.  The past administration came from the Leadership Academy, a pilot program started under the Bloomberg Administration.  Though some analyses found that schools run by the program’s graduates underperformed those led by principals who had more experience or more traditional backgrounds, the city expanded the program, which began with private funds, and incorporated it into the budget.[1] Our past administration was a principal who underperformed.  In 2009-2010, the current administration did not meet expectations as set by the Superintendent according to NY1 Report on Principal Ratings, obtained from the DOE through a Freedom of Information Request. [2]  He was demoted and removed from Legacy.  He remains in the system as an assistant principal at John Bowne.  We are skeptical and call for an investigation as this same past administration was also up for a bonus the year before he left according to the New York Times and the website of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. [3]

Without an investigation and full disclosure of findings to the public, the Department of Education has no case for closing Legacy.

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/nyregion/from-bloombergs-laboratory-experiments-in-government.html

[2] http://www.ny1.com/content/news_beats/education/137442/fewer-principals-meet-city-expectations--report-indicates/

[3] The New York Times. Leaders of 4 'F' Schools Are Now Up for Bonuses:  Gootman, Elissa. New York Times [New York, N.Y] 06 June 2008: B.

School Environment

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com School Environment

School Survey

As noted, there wasn’t that much of a numerical change between 2009-2010 school year to the 2010-2011, but upon deeper inspection, you can see upward trends.  [Insert chart from Legacy Stats created in Dec]

Attendance Rates

Attendance rates are influenced by a variety of factors that include home environment, preparation for school and feeling capable, extracurricular activities and school environment.  The reality is that in 2010:

• 95% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, which indicates income levels at home.[1] Additionally, 3% of our student population was homeless.  We are one school but we need to situate ourselves within a larger context of New York City.  As programs and social services are being cut throughout the city, more support is needed within the school.  The social and emotional issues that accompany students from under-resourced neighborhoods and schools need those supports provided at their school. However, we are experiencing cuts directly related to this need such as our loss of a social worker, the parent coordinator and a nurse.  These challenges affect attendance rates.


• A peer index is the average 8^th grade math and English test scores combined. The highest peer index a student can have is 4.0.  Our current peer index is 1.56 or 2.6? (check stat).  This means that we continue to receive many students who were not fully prepared in elementary and middle school.  Research has found that students will not come to school if they feel inadequate and this challenge will affect attendance rates.


• Equally, budget cuts have reduced access to art, music, dance, theater, foreign language, computer skills/technology, school sports teams or clubs, tutoring and enrichment activities. Although the principal is in charge of the budget and how it is used, what must be understood that there is money that is not flexible and has to be used for certain items.  In our most current school survey, 42% of students were not offered art before-school, after-school or during free periods.  The same can be said for 66% of students not being offered music; 52% not being offered dance; 74% not being offered theater; 60% not being offered foreign language; 74% not being offered computer skills/technology; 54% of students were not offered school sports teams or clubs; and 58% of students were not offered tutoring or enrichment activities.[2]  If students are not able to develop other aspects of intelligence, they would be less likely to come to school.  An education is more than reading and writing, but with budget reductions each year, schools have to do more with less and have to put resources in place to make sure that students pass their academic subjects.  Yes, all schools are experiencing budget cuts, but other schools have immense parent associations that invest much of their money to supplement these types of programs. At Legacy, we do not have that luxury.  Parents from Legacy use their income to provide for their families and after that, there is not much left over.  We do not blame the lack of these programs in our school on the administration and teachers at Legacy; we blame the Department of Education.

When you look at the whole picture of attendance, you see these other variables that will affect it.  We understand that students need to be present to learn, but at the same time, the Department of Education needs to understand that there are many variables to consider that cannot be blamed on Legacy staff, students and parents.

Regardless of these challenges, the school environment is changing and Ms. Mosely has been an essential aspect of that change.  Within her short amount of time [more is needed in this section]:

• ENACT, our community-based organization that specializes in dropout prevention, has expanded their work to include the 10^th grade in addition to the 9^th grade. Not only has this helped students have accessible strategies to use when confronted with social and emotional challenges but will connect them to the world of theatre and drama in an engaging way.

• College Summit and Strive for College have partnered with Legacy in assisting Juniors and Seniors in the college application process.  Four sections of a College Preparatory class have been created.  This creates a college going culture that sets high expectations and is fully aware of their post-secondary choices.

• We are partnering with Future Project that provides one-on-one mentorship as well helps students create social entrepreneurial projects that are focused on increasing their community’s capacity.

• The Save Legacy Committee is creating a culture of activism, unity and community organizing.  They are the leaders behind a growing student movement that analyzes the world around them and speak up for the rights of students within the DOE structure.  They have been featured in Pix11, Gotham Schools, NY1, DNAinfo, The Today Show, Huffington Post Teen Twitter and other media.

However, parents, students, teachers and administration at Legacy understand that much more change is needed, but we all feel that we are heading in the appropriate direction with dependable leadership.  In the latest Quality Review, Ms. Mosely obtained a well-developed in:

• Establish a coherent vision of future development that is reflected in a short list of focused, data-based goals that are understood and supported by the entire school community.

Communication and joint vision is important in transforming a school.  Ms. Mosely also obtained a proficient rating in:

• Communicate high expectations to students and families, engage them in decision-making and promote active involvement in the school community.

In comparison, our past administration received underdeveloping with proficient features for both of those measures.

If the Department of Education decides to phase-out and close Legacy, they will be interfering with the stability and the process that we are making. This will affect our future school environment and attendance rates.  We have potential and are creating a Legacy that we can all be proud of. Phasing out a school that has potential and is making change does not make sense.

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[1] http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/442F7C27-FD97-4B1A-91EA-28D53BC9B394/116619/Legacy_HS_PO_EIS_vFINAL2.pdf

[2] http://schools.nyc.gov/OA/SchoolReports/2010-11/Survey_2011_M429.pdf

Proposal for Closure

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com Proposal for Closure

The proposal for closure is based on data on significant time increments: 10 years, 5 years and 3 years.  We only have data from the past three years so we feel that anything before needs to be disregarded and not utilized as part the proposal for closure as the public does not have access to that data. What we do have data that begins in 2008 and so we can comment on that.



The first thing that should be noted are the differences between past administration and current administration.  Ms. Mosely, our current principal, has only been here since 2010 and so a closure should be based on her data.  While we recognize that it is important to compare the year or two before Ms. Mosely, what we find appalling is the evaluation of Ms. Mosely and her ability to create change.  She has only had one year of data and so at this moment, the DOE is unable to fully evaluate her capacity to change the school in the future.

[How did the DOE evaluate Ms. Mosely’s capacity to create change in the school? Does the DOE regularly just give one year to principals to create change? What is the data regarding this?]



There are two aspects to discuss here:

• A comparison of principal to principal


• A comparison of one year to the next year by the same principal

Since, neither us or the DOE have the data to compare yearly gains of Ms. Mosely to evaluate her capacity to increase graduation rates and better learning outcomes, we can discuss the comparison of principal to principal.



According to the Progress Reports:

	2008-2009 Gregory Rodrigues	2009-2010 Gregory Rodrigues	2010-2011 Joan Mosely	Areas of evaluation
School Environment	7.6 of 15 C	8.0 of 15 C	6.0 of 15 D	School survey, attendance rate
Student Performance	9.8 of 25 D	7.5 of 25 F	10.1 of 25 D	Graduation rate, weighed diploma rate
Student Progress	25.7 of 60 D	35.5 of 60 B	19.3 of 60 F	Credit accumulation, regents passing rates
Overall Score	D	C	F

By looking at the numbers, we can see that there was a decrease in school environment and student progress from 2009-2010 school year to 2010-2011 school year.  There was a significant numerical increase in student performance from 7.5 to 10.1 out of 25 because of the 6 year graduation rate and weighed diploma rate.  The decrease in student progress was mostly because of credit accumulation.  In fact, Ms. Mosely received 6.16 points for regents pass rates compared to 5.78 the year before.  Under deeper inspection, when we analyze the specific areas of evaluation such as school environment, we see that there were not many differences numerically in school survey data, but the points lost were because of attendance rate.  In the next sections, we will discuss the differences between principals and other factors that affect each of these measures by looking at the school environment, student performance and progress.

Legacy's Creation

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The creation of Legacy School for Integrated Studies came from the Coalition of Campus Schools Project (CCSP), launched in New York City as part of a broader initiative to create small, new model schools during the early 1990s.[1] The project was part of the Board of Education’s broader school restructuring initiative, begun by Chancellor Joe Fernandez in 1989 and continued through the terms of four subsequent chancellors.[2] This project replaced two large, comprehensive neighborhood high schools with eleven small schools and redesigned the campuses to include a set of small elementary and high schools.[3]  Julia Richman was one of the large, comprehensive high schools that was replaced by six smaller high schools: Coalition School for Social Change, Landmark High School, Manhattan International High School, Manhattan Village Academy, Vanguard High School and Legacy School for the Integrated Studies.  Since, 5 of the 6 schools have remained opened.

When this project began, it was plagued by problems such as lack of funding, space and structural supports for student recruitment.  Late admissions, guidance counselors’ reluctance to recommend schools that did not have a site, and the Board of Education’s complex assignment procedures produced a student body comprised mostly of students who had not applied elsewhere or had been rejected by their chosen schools in the normal admission process.[4] Thus the CCSP student population included much greater proportions of low-income, low-achieving, and limited English-proficient students than the citywide average or the old Julia Richman High School (see Table 1).[5]



Since its inception, Legacy School for Integrated Studies has been a place where they have warehoused students who needed the most support. The small schools within this coalition did achieve greater attendance rates, fewer disruptions to the learning time and larger graduation rates.  However, Legacy had left the CCSP because of philosophical differences between the director and other members of the project.  Therefore, the findings about the outcomes from the report do not fully pertain to Legacy.



[Where is the data for Legacy during this time? Do parents and students have access to it?] [Insert student/parent perspective of why we bring up the past—history of disinvestment and policies that are mandated rather than created with parents and students that do not work]



However, in the Educational Impact Statement, statistics from the last ten years are cited as a reason for closure.

[From Educational Impact Statement] Graduation rates at Legacy have been consistently low for the last ten years. Last year, Legacy’s four-year graduation rate (including August graduates) was just 43%—well below the citywide average of 65.1% and in the bottom 4% of high schools Citywide. (Citywide average is based on the 2010 New York State reported graduation results for NYCDOE students.)

[Where are the graduation rates from the past ten years? How can the community make an informed decision without the appropriate data?]

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[1] Reinventing high schools: Outcomes of the Coalition Campus Schools Project http://www.srnleads.org/data/pdfs/reinventing_hs.pdf

[2] Reinventing high schools: Outcomes of the Coalition Campus Schools Project http://www.srnleads.org/data/pdfs/reinventing_hs.pdf

[3] Reinventing high schools: Outcomes of the Coalition Campus Schools Project http://www.srnleads.org/data/pdfs/reinventing_hs.pdf

[4] Reinventing high schools: Outcomes of the Coalition Campus Schools Project http://www.srnleads.org/data/pdfs/reinventing_hs.pdf

[5] Reinventing high schools: Outcomes of the Coalition Campus Schools Project http://www.srnleads.org/data/pdfs/reinventing_hs.pdf

Legacy's History!!! A Teachers Point of View

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com Statement from an original staff member of the first and second year of Legacy School for Integrated Studies.

The Legacy School came about in 1993 along with a few others that were expected to take students from Districts 4 and 5 as Julia Richman HS was being phased out.
It was supposed to eventually move to 67th street but that never happened; so much for DOE plans and promises.
In our staff development training, we learned about Global Warming, and the urgency of developing critical thinkers who can make connections between subjects now, so that they can be better leaders later.

The school went through a lot of trauma because on the very first day there was an Asbestos Crisis.
We were kicked out of old Stuyvesant so it could be cleaned of asbestos, and moved to the National Guard Armory on 14th St at the site that is now the YMCA.

It was very hard to hold classes in rooms with no chalkboards.
One room had walls that were painted with camouflage, and that was where fights broke out.
There were even rumors of a weapons room that some adventurous kids found in the basement.
There were only two bathrooms and no cafeteria.
The students got so tired of cold school lunch with warm milk, that they almost had a walkout over the food question.
Of course there was no gym, I can't even remember how we handled that.

Over the Martin Luther King weekend in 1994, the water in the pipes froze and burst because a window was left open, or so they told us.
As the ice thawed, the school became flooded, and once again was homeless.

We went back to the old Stuyvesant building but only had access to the auditorium, where classes were held, until the other schools shuffled around and gave us something like 3 rooms.  The principal had a desk in the hallway.
Later we got a few more rooms and a small office.
Meanwhile the new building was being renovated but not fast enough.

What brought the school together in the late Spring of 94 was the interdisciplinary Neighborhood Study project.
Different teams of different ages had to work together to conduct research, surveys and other exploration of either Chinatown, Harlem or the Lower East Side.
They were rightfully proud of their presentations.

The school has come a long way over a very bumpy road.
Legacy's middle school grades have already been phased out.

However it's obvious that the high school students have benefited from their education at Legacy because they are already leaders!  They are using their technological, intellectual, and presentation skills in many creative ways to address an attack on their community which is being repeated all over the place.
Clearly someone sees that building at 34 West 14 Street as prime real estate, and now we see the threat to close down Legacy.

Sooner or later, public school students and families and the hard working staff of hard pressed schools will get to determine the destiny of our own schools.
The obstacle now is the 1% who see dollar signs and markets, not beautiful young people with potential, when they look at the education system!  We outnumber them, and we need to out-organize them.
Legacy students: live like them, Dare to struggle, dare to win.

Sara Catalinotto, former Legacy teacher