Dep. Chancellor Chris Cerf will be at tonight's District 24 (western

Dear All:

Dep. Chancellor Chris Cerf will be at tonight's District 24 (western
Queens) CEC meeting to speak and answer questions about the DOE
reorganization and fair funding proposal. All are welcome to attend:
7 p.m. at PS 58, School of Heros (72-50 Grand Ave., Maspeth).

More importantly, I would appreciate input and additions to the
following list of questions we have already compiled for Mr. Cerf.

Thanks.

Marge Kolb
Member, CEC-D24

General

What is happening to the Regional Operations centers? Isn't this
where personnel, procurement, school food, pupil transportation,
school repairs, new construction etc. are overseen?

How are RISs (instructional specialists) being replaced and who will
perform their oversight duties? (e.g. the Physical Education RIS was
able to report to our CEC on how many schools in our district did not
have a Phys Ed teacher, and he worked with those schools to try to
get them to hire one, he oversaw the CHAMPS programs (middle school
sports program), etc.

Will all schools geographically located in a district report to the
District Supt, including empowerment schools (but not Charter
schools)? Will there still be LISs? Or how will one Supt. supervise
30 or more schools and principals?

What happened to the idea that LISs should oversee elementary, middle
AND high schools so that there would be some continuity in a child's
education? Are high schools now being jettisoned from the community
school district/region and back to a borough command?

Can the DOE require that School Leadership Teams (SLTs) approve the
principal's choice of which of the three networks to which the school
affiliates?

Will the city continue with a uniform curriculum and textbooks or
will each and every school be able to choose their own curriculum and
textbooks?

Special Ed. Questions:

What will happen to the Regional CSE (committee on special Ed)?

What will happen if a school can't approve a service on a child's IEP
and needs services allocated from above which have been previously
provided at the regional offices?

Where will initial evals of children referred to Special education
take place?

Where will Special Ed mediations take place (when a school, district
or parent disagree and a parent wants an impartial hearing)? The law
now requires the regions/districts to have a dispute resolution
meeting to try to resolve the issue and to ward off unnecessary
hearings that cost tax payers money.

Where will the RASE, Regional Administrator of Special education, and
the Chairperson be housed. (These people oversee the delivery of
special ed services at the schools and decision of resources and
class placements as well as special education decisions...what
schools have what class and what children in the region go to what
schools.)

Where are records for Special Ed children going to be located and can
parents be provided with a full copy of the entire student file to
ensure that a copy is in existence? (Here is a quote from the Jan 8,
2004 New York Times about the formation of the new regional offices
in the last reorganization: "Special education services and
evaluations have been delayed, parents and educators say, because of
difficulties in finding records that were moved to new regional
offices from the old community school districts.")