Victory!: City Department of Education funds program to hire more expert teachers

By Denae Brewer
Editor-in-Chief

The Community Collaborative to Improve District 9 Schools (CC9), a coalition of six community-based organizations, has achieved perhaps its biggest victory in the three years it has been fighting for improvements in the local elementary schools.

The city Department of Education agreed to help fund the hiring of lead teachers with extensive classroom experience for each school in District 9.

The goal of the Lead Teacher Initiative, as it is called, is to strengthen and stabilize the teaching force within each of the schools, to attract highly skilled teachers, and to provide opportunities to highly qualified teachers for professional advancement while remaining in the teaching profession.

“This is a major accomplishment in school reform,” said Ocynthia Williams, a member of CC9. “For the Department of Education to not only work in collaboration but fund it is unheard of.” CC9 consists of ACORN, Citizens Advice Bureau, Mid-Bronx Council, New Settlement Apartments, Northwest Bronx Community Coalition and Highbridge Horizon Community Life Center.

In a district where a majority of teachers have less than five years of teaching experience, many see the lead teachers—who must have at least five years of satisfactory teaching experience—as crucial for mentoring and supporting rookie instructors. They are expected to not only teach children, but to be able to offer their expertise and best practices to other teachers.

Education officials “realized younger, newer teachers need the additional help,” said Julie Jackson, a CC9 member whose daughter attends C.E.S. 126, Ms. Jackson was thrilled at the news. “This way someone will be there to support them and help them learn as they go.”

Part of a larger education reform platform, CC9 began generating money and support for the lead teacher initiative last year. After garnering the support of the United Federation of Teachers, the city teachers union, CC9 launched a petition drive last February.

Two months later, the group presented more than 10,000 signatures to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein who immediately expressed his support for the initiative.

CC9 also went to the city with some cash: $400,000 from the Booth Ferris Foundation. Upon approving the initiative, the city pledged an additional $1.6 million to hire about 35 lead teachers for the 10 Region 1 schools represented by CC9: C.E.S 4, 28, 35, 53, 73, 88, 90 and 126, as well as P.S. 64 and C.I.S. 166. The plan is to place at least three lead teachers in each school.

As part of an agreement hammered out by CC9 with the city and the teachers’ union, each Lead Teacher will have a $10,000 salary increase. To ensure the program’s start date for September 2004, the U.F.T. and CC9 is skated to stort interviewing candidates later this month. The initiative is expected to start in September 2004.

Marveling at how receptive city officials, including Deputy Chancellor Carmen Farina, were to the project, he said, “Everyone worked hard on this, parents, teachers, the UFT and DOE, and the thing that got us over the top was that we all worked together. “It’s amazing how quickly this took hold.”.

But Correa and others remain optimistic. “Our goal is to improve the quality of education in our cluster of schools,” he said. “Eventually we’ll spread this model to all public schools throughout the city.”