NYC DOE- NYC schools closing- The NYC DOE fatale`

The NYC-DOE has planned for closure of twenty NYC schools. At a hearing at Brooklyn Tech Tuesday evening, Chancellor Joel Klein and the PEP (Panel for Educational Policy) listened from 6:00 p.m. into the early hours of the morning to students, teachers, union representatives, parents, and political leaders protesting the closing of twenty city schools.

The conclusion seemed to me to be foregone that the schools would be closed since Mayor Bloomberg appoints eight of the members of the panel. Yet the passion and often logical arguments of many of the speakers should have given them pause before they decided to vote. Early this morning the board approved the school closings.

The inconsistencies in the evaluation of schools and the neglect that the DOE has shown in their treatment of schools in predominantly minority areas seem to me to give the accusations of “racism” levelled by a number of the speakers at the PEP committee some foundation. What struck the teachers, parents and students was the inconsistency and even irrationality in which the DOE has administered and evaluated these schools. Several sources found that the Mayor had forbidden fund raising at Beach Channel High School, while recently there was a fund raiser at a Manhattan school in East Harlem.

Morrison Consulting announced that it has been awarded two contracts by the New York City Department of Education [NYCDOE] for its Common ID Services. The first contract, referred to as the “Embedded Infrastructure”, is to maintain the existing system which is in 253 buildings and over 400 schools that currently operate Access411’s award-winning software solution, Comprehensive, Attendance, Administration, and Security System [CAASS].

As reported by the New York Daily News on September 19, 2009 [Panel for Education Policy signs off on $250 million in controversial contracts] and in the contracts themselves, “Both the Embedded and Next Generation Common ID Services contracts were awarded to Morrison Consulting. The new Visitor Pass Plus component which when implemented will allow scanning and collect all visitor information and enable schools to verify if an adult has authorization to remove a student from the facility.

This will deter and prevent unauthorized persons from entering the school. Decreased Costs Laptop computers will replace desktop units and monitors which lower the cost of hardware acquisition and maintenance. The new centralized server will replace the upkeep and maintenance on all local servers that reside in individual schools. The new web-based application will require no local software installation on the school personnel’s computers. Since hardware theft is a primary concern, new locking cabinets on carts will assist with loss prevention initiatives.

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