Educating Tomorrow

The time has come for the Bronx River Alliance / GLOBE NY Metro's fall water quality monitoring training with Peter Schmidt. If you are interested in becoming an environmental steward, or if you have an interest in the Bronx River's water quality, spend a day learning the basics of becoming a citizen scientist. Students, teachers, community residents, and any other interested parties, are invited to participate. The agenda is full of hands-on learning:

• 8:00: Show up and enjoy coffee and bagels.
• 8:15-9:00: Introductions, overview of GLOBE, and answer the question; “Why GLOBE and the Bronx River Alliance?”
• 9:00-9:30: Look at the river (on map); discuss watershed, concept of “moving target”, triangulation.
• 9:30-10:00: “Which thermometer”, importance of protocols and calibration, calibrate thermometers.
• 10:00-10:10: Take a break.
• 10:15-12:00: Introduce and perform two protocols: dissolved oxygen and salinity. Learn protocol, review what we are testing for and its significance, talk about reasonable values and ranges, and run through calibration and review quality control.
• 12:00-1:00: Make your own sandwiches for lunch.
• 1:00-2:00: Introduce and perform two protocols; pH and nitrates.
• 2:00-3:00: Go to the river and run through the full series of tests.
• 3:00-4:00: Enter data into the GLOBE data base.

Space is very limited. Contact Peter Schmidt, Associate Director of GLOBE NY Metro at (718) 997-4268 or peter.schmidt@qc.cny.edu to sign up.

Is the New York City school recycling bin half empty or half full?

Councilmember’s Bill DeBlasio’s office introduced a bill calling for recycling in NYC schools (purposefully redundant since it’s unpracticed city law) and legislation requiring the Department of Education provide schools with recycling bins in June 2008. Teachers from around NYC brought over 200 students to City Hall in support of the hearing around the bill and legislation. Education Tomorrow’s Micki Josi and her students spoke out at the rally. A sixth grade student explained how he’s been taking his school’s paper recycling home because he couldn’t stomach it being trashed.

During the hearing, council members drilled the Departments of Sanitation and Education about the lack of recycling in schools. Jeff Shears, Chief of Staff for the DOE’s Office of Finance and Administration, was told at one point that if he were working for council member and Education Chair Robert Jackson, he’d be fired. He couldn’t answer a simple question: who is responsible for recycling in schools?

According to the Chancellor’s Regulations on Waste Management, it’s the principal. Yet, the vast majority principals haven’t prioritized it enough to even initiate programs and some have discouraged teachers who have tried.

As the bill and legislation gestate before a vote, the DOS and DOE have been given time to demonstrate their commitment, which they’re doing. Not like a valiant boyfriend professing his undying love, but more like one that’s tripped up so many times he’s trying to get some footing with a sound effort or two.

During the hearing, Shears was asked to produce names of the 372 recycling coordinators he purported having. Now he should be able to produce one for each of NYC’s more than 2,000 public schools.

For the first time ever, principals were required to submit the name of their school’s recycling coordinator by September 17, 2008. The position is unpaid and therefore didn’t require posting. Principals handpicked coordinators and staff may not know who was chosen, or that this new required position even exists.

There’s new energy around recycling in some schools, but coordinators are wringing their hands because starting a recycling program in a school that’s never successfully recycled is no small task. And the DOE is providing no training, nor are they training custodians who have been frequently at odds with recycling programs. Tackling the job as a volunteer isn’t always appealing—in one school, no one would take the job so the principal submitted her name. How effective and sustainable will this approach be?

Appointed recycling coordinators were required to create a recycling plan or sign a pre-fabricated one and submit a confirmation of having put it “on file” at school by October 1, 2008. The DOE acted swiftly with early-in-the-year deadlines, but how useful will thrown-together or stock plans be? Don’t effective plans come out of planning and environmental or recycling committee meetings with school-wide input?

The names of school recycling coordinators and their plans aren’t made public, so what will the next step for accountability be? Are these laudable first steps toward realizing effective recycling programs in all schools, or is it a way for the DOE to say they’ve done their part now it’s up to schools to do the rest? Like procuring bins. Right now, the DOE won’t provide bins, saying trash cans should be labeled as recycling bins—a naïve response that assumes there are extra trash bins, and that while our lessons must be consistently clear and explicit, our new recycling campaign needn’t be.

Over the summer, Educating Tomorrow spoke with the DOE about the importance of forming an advisory board to be part of the Chancellor’s Regulations on Waste Management revision process. This would bring all key players, such as the DOS and DOE, and the teacher’s, principal’s, custodial engineer’s and cleaner’s unions together to establish interagency best management practices. Yet one day in September, the new regulations were up and school recycling coordinators weren’t even notified. Again, a missed opportunity for communication, collaboration and success.

We also noticed the DOE now has a page up about recycling, albeit spelled wrong. We’re not too concerned by the missing “c”, but we are concerned coordinators may not know it’s there and don’t know who to turn to for help. Apparently, the more visible DOS Golden Apple Awards has received so many phone calls from new coordinators they’ve had to hire additional help.

The DOE has hired additional help to work on recycling, although we’re uncertain how they were hired or repositioned, what the new employee structure is (who’s responsible for what), and how long-term their position is. For example, one title is Special Assistant to the Integrated Service Center.

There are changes being made. We could just say the trash bin is completely full—half with paper and half with non-recyclable trash. Many of us don’t have recycling bins, and if we did, they’d be full of paper, some misplaced trash, and the air of good doing.

We had great turnout at the press conference and hearing on recycling in NYC schools on Tuesday! Students, teachers and parents from MS 447, PS 19, Eleanor Roosevelt High School and Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School, Brooklyn New School and PS/IS 298 attended, many of them wearing our "Be cool. Recycle at school!" t-shirts. The event was covered by NY1, and Metro Paper (see below).

Much of Mr. Shear's, Chief of Staff for the Dept. of Education's Office of Finance and Administration, testimony does not reflect the experience of teachers inside schools. We are very disturbed by the Department of Education's lack of understanding and attention to this important issue. Our Committee will be responding to Mr. Shear's testimony. 

You might want to ask Mr. Shear if your school's recycling coordinator is included in their supposed list of 372. You can contact him at 212-374-0209.

You can read the testimony of the teacher, Coquille Houshour, who was invited to testify.

Please respond to the hearing by contacting your favorite media. We need to continue to bring attention to the bill and legislation and ensure they are passed.

Also, be sure to sign our petition. As soon as we get a substantial number of signatures, we'll present it to NYC councilmembers. As of today, 186 people have signed. We know more people care!

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School Recycling Scores Low Grade - Metro Paper

CITY HALL. The city's 1,400-plus public schools generate roughly 50,000 tons of garbage annually, but only 10 percent of it is recycled, according to City Council man Bill de Blasio — despite a 1989 local law requiring the recycling of 25 percent of the city's average daily waste stream.

"We see recycling happen sometimes," De Blasio said. "It happens when there are teachers, parents and custodians willing to go out of their way." He said eco-conscious teachers have to rely on grants or donations for recycling bins.

He introduced a bill yesterday to require the Department of Sanitation supply every public and private school with a sufficient number of bins and storage containers for recyclables, plus signs to encourage participation and weekly pickups.

The bill was "not necessary," DSNY's Robert Lange said at a Council hearing yesterday. His department already provides such services and has been working with schools for 19 years on implementing recycling, such as by giving schools decals to label any receptacle for recycling, he said. "Whether a school successfully recycles is ultimately the responsibility of the school community."

Who holds schools accountable? That would be a school's "recycling coordinator," who develops an annual school recycling plan, coordinates with the principal and custodian and reports whether the school is meeting its targets, said Jeffrey Shear, of the Department of Education.

Only 372 schools have such a position. "The level of recycling is undisputedly higher at these schools," Shear said, adding that this summer, the DOE plans to do outreach to ensure schools have a designated recycling coordinator. "We have more work to do," Shear said.

AMY ZIMMER, amy.zimmer@metro.us

Calling All NYC School Recycling Supporters!

City Hall wants to hear from us! And WE NEED YOUR HELP!

A Joint Committee hearing with the Dept. of Sanitation and the Dept. of Education on SCHOOL RECYCLING is set for TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 1 PM. at City Hall.

Council member Bill De Blasio will be holding a pre-hearing press conference on the steps of CITY HALL at 12:15 PM. He'll announce a bill calling for school recycling programs in all NYC schools. Plus, he'll introduce legislation to bring back dumpster recycling collection (exactly what we've been asking for)!

Join us in showing the NYC Council how much we care!

Bring your teachers, students, parents and signs! Yes, it's a school day, but a wonderful opportunity to learn about our City's decision-making process. Council members McMahon, Jackson & others, NRDC, the Custodian and Cleaner's Unions will be there too!

We'll have "Be cool. Recycle at school!" t-shirts if you want to order some—they're only $5 (less if you order for your entire class)!

After the rally, the hearing takes place from 1-4 PM. The public is invited to attend.

This is critical moment: be there! And forward this far and wide!

Tired of using your old recycling can as a garbage bin? Always wanted to house a few industrious worms that won't scoff at cafeteria cuisine? Why not dress up your school's asphalt in the shade of green?

Here's your chance to develop a micro eco-culture.

Ford and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition are providing up to $250,000 in eco-friendly improvements to one lucky school. Complete the registration form and answer the question, "Why does your school deserve an eco-friendly makeover?" in 250 words or less by May 18. You could help make your school a greener, straight-up more conscientious place to be.

It's worth a try. You'll never know the fruit of a seed until you plant it. (And sometimes that takes a little dinero.)

If you haven't already registered, you may be out of luck. But try showing up and playing up your teacher profile and maybe they'll let you through the doors. (Come on, the break's almost over anyway.) Podcamp NYC 2.0, April 25-27, is focusing on education, and using new media to rethink and reimagine the way we learn--not only in school, but beyond. It's time to get inspired to work that SmartBoard like the machine it is.

The robust list of speakers is likely to knock you into a new orbit of thinking. Anna Beard's www.freereading.net, a wiki on reading curricula for you and your classroom, will help you say buh-bye to Wilson and Great Leaps. That kind of old-school is starting to feel like no-school.

Barbara Freeman, who teaches at Electronic Music & Audio Engineering at Greenwich High School, will be speaking on "Cashing in on Digital Distribution for Public Schools or 'The High Tech Bake Sale'". Learn about podcasting in the music classroom, and see examples of her students' podcasts. Get in the know about digital media content distribution, sales and how to using digital distribution as a fundraiser for your school program.

Kathy Shields, "Podcasting, Skypecasting, Webcasting and More for the Elementary Crowd," promises to help you maximize motivation by giving you and your students opportunities to interact globally. There's nothing like a little digitime to harness the promise of summer.

Be there or be square.

All you back-to-schoolers who missed Jonathon Kozol's fast, which began last summer as Congress geared up to reauthorize NCLB, can still dip into the controversy with Why I am Fasting: A Note to My Friends. And why not follow-up with a first hand account this Thursday, March 26, 2008 at Pace? He'll catch us up on his latest book, Letters to a Young Teacher, which is all about you—that is, if you're actively cultivating your irreverance for NCLB too.

Kozol, a Harvard graduate and Rhodes Scholar, moved from Harvard Square into a poor black neighborhood in Boston during the civil rights campaigns of the mid-60s and became a fourth grade teacher. Well-known for Amazing Grace, an expose on South Bronx schools, and then later for The Shame of the Nation, Kozol has a history of writing about the injustice in U.S. school systems. He also puts his mouth where his pen is, spending a lot of time in D.C. attempting to convince the Senate leadership to radically revise the punitive aspects of NCLB.

Pace University School of Education's sixth annual free lecture series, "The Current Status of Urban School Reform: What is Real?" is located at Pace's Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts from 6-8 p.m.

Also, don't miss the last speaker of the series, Deborah Meier, educational reformer, writer and activist, on “What’s the Big Fuss All About? What’s at Stake in the Latest Round of Educational Reform? A View from the Bottom” on April 16.

If you can't make Kozol or Meier, you can download the talks, along with all of the other speaker's lectures.

Who ever said teaching was cool? The theatrics employed to giddy-up interest and retention can be, well, lame. Not everyone can be in the zone five days a week, and when some of us think we're in it, our students make it clear we're out—way out—of it. So why not pass the buck and make a laughing stock of some other teach who's trying really, really hard to make it stick? (Remember: laughter is a powerful distraction from pain.) Mrs. Burk could do that for you. Easy.

But be careful. Ms. Robinson is so cool that after getting it down with her, your students will never listen to you again.

Either way, TeacherTube lets you step off the stage—or, if you want to expand your audience, you can project your teacher-virtuality far and wide. And given the proper paperwork, you could shine a spotlight on the real stars and make that student's science experiment that almost caught her lab partner's hair on fire school-famous.

ThinkQuest just announced their 2008 "Internet Challenge," a free citywide competition for teams of NYC students, grades 3-12, developing innovative websites. Winning teams, their coaches and schools are awarded some quest-worthy treasures like laptop computers, digital cameras and $1000 gift certificates.

Teams who make it through the adventurous project (you don't have to worry about poisonous snakes) and win the goods will also receive citywide recognition. Plus, winning websites are published in the TWNYC library, which has a bunch of cool NYC student-created websites.

And don't forget those good ol' intrinsic rewards, which are why you do it all in the first place.

Named by Technology & Learning magazine as one of the "Top 10 Innovative Projects" in the country, ThinkQuest NYC's "Internet Challenge" offers a great opportunity for NYC teachers to help students cross the digital divide by integrating learning with technology. Students hone skills necessary to succeed in the 21st Century: web authoring, teamwork and collaboration, project management, creativity and research.

Thanks to the City Council's support for Project Chess, the awesome non-profit, Chess-in-the-Schools, is training hundreds of New York City public school teachers (elementary, middle and high school) to implement chess programs in their schools in all five boroughs with their new Teacher Training Institutes.

Sign-up for one of their free two-session weekend workshops before they fill up. You'll learn all the right moves, plus you'll receive free chess materials to get your students started. (They'll even train all you novices who lose before even sitting down.) Additional workshops will be scheduled throughout the school year according to demand, so if you don't get a spot, you haven't lost yet. And if you really want to be a knight in shining armor, you could request an in-school workshop if enough teachers in your school are interested.

Before deciding whether or not it's worth giving up two precious weekend days, remember: successful chess programs help students master skills needed for academic success (and maybe even increase scores on standardized tests).

Just go for it! The sooner you sign up, the sooner you can get your students to one of Chess-in-the-School's amazing chess tournaments. All you have to do is fill out their form and fax it to them. If you have any questions, you can shoot Eric Hutchins an email at tti@chessintheschools.org, or give him a call at 212-643-0225.