Town Forum On Albany Public Schools
Yesterday about a hundred people filled the large community room at the public library with the goal of discussing the schools and proposing solutions that would help. Personally my wife and I were asked, and consented, to be small group facilitators in the process. The process that was chosen by the sponsoring groups - the Youth Taskforce (that grew out of the forum done a couple of months ago on youth) and Citizen Action - was an open process of the type that is often done for "priority setting". The point, I think, was to select by a public process, a set of issues to "work on" by these sponsoring groups.
On the plus side I believe this process and meeting added some public energy to a continuing discussion in the community on the schools and the problems that the schools face. It surely brought in additional people to the public side of the discussion. Among the things that were identified as directions that might help improve the schools were increased cultural competancy by teachers and other staff regarding inner city communities, increased minority recuitment of teaching staff, more engagement on the part of the schools with the community. There were other points I do not recall.
There was not a great deal of discussion as I experienced it in the small group I facilitated and in the general meeting regarding the recent violence in the schools though there was some significant discussion of it at the end of the program. Organizers of the program stressed that the focus of the night was not the violence in particular since the program had been organized long before the violence happened. But there was a feeling that the solutions identified would contribute to a reduction or elimination of school violence.
On the minus side the "solutions" identified did not have the appearance of anything new. There were no revolutionary solutions. They sounded alot like what many people have been saying for months, or years. They are the same solutions that emerged as the the public discussion in the election campaigns for school board in many ways. In other words the public has already identified these priorities. Perhaps the value of the evening is that they were brought to a new audience.
The Town Hall Meeting did not come up with a game plan for approaching these proposed solutions. There will be another meeting on December 7th of the Youth Taskforce at the Women's Building at 79 Central Avenue where an attempt will be made to digest the proposed directions and develop advocacy plans.
As I am sure you all saw in the papers, the Center for Law and Justice held a press confernece earlier to make the point that they felt the schools erred in calling the police regarding the brawl at Albany High. Almost needless to say the police responded by saying the arreests were necessary. The police assert that some school security personnel and staff were assaulted in the scuffle.
-Paul
On the plus side I believe this process and meeting added some public energy to a continuing discussion in the community on the schools and the problems that the schools face. It surely brought in additional people to the public side of the discussion. Among the things that were identified as directions that might help improve the schools were increased cultural competancy by teachers and other staff regarding inner city communities, increased minority recuitment of teaching staff, more engagement on the part of the schools with the community. There were other points I do not recall.
There was not a great deal of discussion as I experienced it in the small group I facilitated and in the general meeting regarding the recent violence in the schools though there was some significant discussion of it at the end of the program. Organizers of the program stressed that the focus of the night was not the violence in particular since the program had been organized long before the violence happened. But there was a feeling that the solutions identified would contribute to a reduction or elimination of school violence.
On the minus side the "solutions" identified did not have the appearance of anything new. There were no revolutionary solutions. They sounded alot like what many people have been saying for months, or years. They are the same solutions that emerged as the the public discussion in the election campaigns for school board in many ways. In other words the public has already identified these priorities. Perhaps the value of the evening is that they were brought to a new audience.
The Town Hall Meeting did not come up with a game plan for approaching these proposed solutions. There will be another meeting on December 7th of the Youth Taskforce at the Women's Building at 79 Central Avenue where an attempt will be made to digest the proposed directions and develop advocacy plans.
As I am sure you all saw in the papers, the Center for Law and Justice held a press confernece earlier to make the point that they felt the schools erred in calling the police regarding the brawl at Albany High. Almost needless to say the police responded by saying the arreests were necessary. The police assert that some school security personnel and staff were assaulted in the scuffle.
-Paul
posted by paul at
9:47 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home