TESTIMONY
Dale Kelly, First Vice President of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators on School Space and Class Size Data Concerns
2:51:06
·
3 min
Dale Kelly discusses the inaccuracies in data regarding school space and class size provided to the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators.
- Kelly emphasizes the need for more accurate and up-to-date information from the department regarding school space and class size.
- He suggests conducting a principal survey as a method to gather real-time, ground-level insights.
- Kelly highlights discrepancies in the department's initial estimates of space availability and concerns over charter schools not following the same class size mandates.
- The testimony points to the potential disadvantage this discrepancy could cause to the public school system.
- Kelly advocates for equitable application of class size mandates across all schools.
Dale Kelly
2:51:06
Definitely.
2:51:07
Ultimately, we have to rely on the department to provide us those numbers because we have no way of getting to that bottom line number.
2:51:15
But what we do know is that, you know, some of what has been shared to this point has left more questions and answers.
2:51:28
You know, one of the things the department spoke about several times today was the principal survey.
2:51:32
That principle survey is something that CSA suggested, and we suggested that because all of the information that the department has been sharing us with us to date is based on a sum It's based on past service.
2:51:42
It's based on outdated information.
2:51:44
And we said to them in order to land on information that's relied people, you have to speak to the building leaders and the people on the ground floor to get accurate information.
2:51:54
So to that end, they began this survey process and what they've learned based on some of the feedback they've given us is that some of our school leaders don't agree with those initial estimates that have been provided by the department.
2:52:08
So when you ask this afternoon, as of today, how many schools will be prepared with the with the adequate space, the fact that that number isn't on the tip of everyone's tongue is a bit troubling to me because I would imagine that that number is driving all of the other numbers.
2:52:27
And we've been given information like how many schools are gonna require space, you know, what other again, please note, I kinda have to give this context.
2:52:37
The department shared with us that there's about 500 plus schools that are gonna require space.
2:52:41
They said of those 500 plus schools, there's 3 buckets within that 500 plus.
2:52:46
They said some of those schools They they don't have any space.
2:52:53
However, there may be space located within the confines of their building which can be repurposed to meet the class law mandates.
2:53:02
The second bucket of schools I said is that there's no space available.
2:53:05
However, but they are collocated with mother school or there's another building close proximity that might allow for them to meet the class size mandates.
2:53:13
And the last bucket where schools that under no circumstances can meet the class size mandate and that school construction is going to be necessary.
2:53:21
When we heard today, when the question was asked today, are charters going to have to adhere to this same expectation on a schools have gone ahead here to, and the answer was no.
2:53:31
Again, to me, that's very troubling.
2:53:33
Because can you imagine one of the things that president Rubio had been very clear with his chances that we have to do a better job at marketing our New York City Public School System and all the good things we do.
2:53:43
And can you imagine if New York City Public Schools are limiting the the caps on our students that are collocated with a potential school that does not follow those same caps.
2:53:55
We're simply driving New York City Public School Students into the arms of another system.
2:54:00
That's not going to help the success of our system and it's something that we must address and correct because there can't be 2 sets of rules.
2:54:11
So that's while while we're not here to discuss that, I think it's something that presents another sort of layer to this conversation that we must take into consideration because we don't want to put our school systems at a disadvantage through a lord.
2:54:26
It's clearly not intended to do that.
