Showing posts with label Coney Island Prep. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coney Island Prep. Show all posts

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Coney Island Prep Charter Schools Publicly Shame Students

“It is in their handbook that they subject their students to wear an orange tee-shirt over their uniform when they are Out of the PRIDE, when they’re not given enough money in their paycheck,” asserted CEC 21 Treasurer and local parent Randi Garay at a Parent Education Program (PEP) meeting with the Department of Education (DOE) last October. “When they’re Out of the PRIDE, they miss out on enrichment. They’re not allowed to communicate with other students and they’re not allowed to be spoken to.”..... http://www.homereporternews.com/news/school_news/exclusive-orange-is-the-new-blackboard/article_11bfa7f4-c1a5-11e3-85ad-001a4bcf887a.html

EXCLUSIVE: Orange is the new blackboard?

Posted: Friday, April 11, 2014 2:13 pm | Updated: 2:17 pm, Fri Apr 11, 2014.
Parents with children at Cavallaro Intermediate School, slated to co-locate with Coney Island Prep, this fall, are seeing red over the orange shirts that students at Coney Island Prep’s Coney Island campus are at times forced to wear as a disciplinary measure.

The orange shirts are the penultimate stage in Coney Island Prep’s system of discipline, which begins with a token economy called PRIDE – a system, measured in money, that allows teachers to reward and penalize students as they see fit by either awarding or deducting PRIDE dollars from students’ weekly paychecks, and which can result in the orange shirt punishment. The final stage in the system is suspension.

“It is in their handbook that they subject their students to wear an orange tee-shirt over their uniform when they are Out of the PRIDE, when they’re not given enough money in their paycheck,” asserted CEC 21 Treasurer and local parent Randi Garay at a Parent Education Program (PEP) meeting with the Department of Education (DOE) last October. “When they’re Out of the PRIDE, they miss out on enrichment. They’re not allowed to communicate with other students and they’re not allowed to be spoken to.”

The system is exhaustively mapped out. According to the Coney Island Prep handbook, students receive $50 worth of PRIDE dollars weekly, which teachers then add to or deduct from throughout the week. At the end of each week, the results are tallied and PRIDE paychecks are printed and distributed for parental signature. Students who fail to bring back their signed paychecks see $50 deducted from their bank accounts and find themselves Out of the PRIDE – a handbook-mandated consequence also visited on students who lose $20 or more in one day from their PRIDE paycheck or end their week with a $0 balance.       

Among the acts for which students receive anywhere from $1 to $5 bonuses are going above and beyond in such areas as enthusiasm, professionalism, respect and integrity, and students may receive $20 for doing an excellent job on a major assignment or demonstrating PRIDE values through an exemplary act.

On the other hand, students can lose anywhere from $3 to $10 in PRIDE dollars for infractions, including, but not limited to missing homework, misuse of materials, grooming in public, leaving their seats without permission and arriving at school after 7:30 a.m.

Higher infractions include $20 deductions for a dean’s referral.

According to CEC 21 Recording Secretary Linda Dalton, the board brought its concerns to the DOE at the PEP meeting where members were approached by a DOE lawyer who took a copy of the handbook. They have heard nothing since from the DOE about the issue.

Despite the controversy, Coney Island Prep Founder and Executive Director Jacob Mnookin stands by the system, adding that the charter school hasn’t heard any complaints from its own parents.
“It’s just a different kind of take on a typical behavior management system,” said Mnookin, stressing the approach’s similarities to thousands of behavioral management systems used in schools across the country. “We think it makes crystal clear what our expectations are and what the rewards are for excelling and good behavior, and what the consequences are for not as good behavior.” The orange tee shirts have no special significance, added Mnookin, other than orange being a school color.

According to Mnookin, Coney Island Prep will not move forward with a PRIDE dollars approach or the orange tee shirts, at its elementary school planned to be housed at Cavallaro. Instead, the charter school will implement what the leader called a “stop light system” that aims to teach its younger students the basics of good behavior.

“Every kid would start every day at green and move to yellow or red dependent on their behavior,” he explained of the system, used already in other elementary schools across the country.

Either way, the team at Coney Island Prep stands by the consequences of being “Out of the Pride.” The school’s mantra – which, according to Mnookin stands for Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Determination and Excellence -- is also used to define a pack of lions; the school’s mascot.

“Being ‘Out of the Pride’ means that you’ve violated the norms and you’re out of the pack, out of the community” he explained, “but rather than having an in-school suspension, which we feel can take away from the educational aspect, kids can still go to class and participate in class; they just kind of sit separately until they can turn their behavior around.”

            The DOE did not respond for a request for comment.
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Tuesday, April 5, 2011

The ICK Factor: People Who Run Charter Schools and Tweedies Look Alike

So I spent the evening at yet another phony baloney charter school hearing.  Every single charter school leader and the henchmen and women behind them look alike, walk the same way - or scurry like little rats clutching their Blackberries. And the hordes of Tweedies there to run the meeting and supposedly be neutral look just like them.

I'm really getting sick of them because they all have the same script:
Charter schools bus in loads of people wearing tee-shirts and make sure to get them there an hour early to stand in line so they can get first dibs on signing up to speak with their little scripts that will be sure to talk about how they grew up in the neighborhood, attended public schools, believe in choice, brag about how their kids love school and reading.

And the public schools trying to fight back. The IS 303 crew met in front of the schools and marched over to Lincoln HS for the meeting. Quite a spirited march.

This case is a doozy. IS 303, as I reported yesterday (Rally at IS 303 Today and March to Lincoln HS to Oppose Co-Location of Coney Island Prep Charter School), is being invaded by Coney Island Prep (CIP - as in CIP from the fountain of public funding.) IS 303 already has 3 schools - IS 303, Rachel Carson HS and a Dist. 75 program. So why not add a 4th school which wants to expand from 5-12 over time? We heard all the same old lying crap from the CIPers and Tweedies and your basic sleazy local politician.

A building is not a school.
This is only temporary - we have our own building just waiting for them but it is delayed.
All your schools are great but we need more.
choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice, choice
Our kids are from the neighborhood.

I won't bore you with the rest of the list. I have lots of tape with great stuff from a former student and Julia Daniely and will post a follow-up.

Deputy Chancellor Marc Sternberg was in charge of the event. The first time I saw him up close and he reminds me of John White - sort of beginning to look like him, with the same air of superiority and arrogance. Sneaking looks at his Blackberry - until I filmed him and he hid it. Grimacing when people from both sides fought it out verbally, trying to drown each other out, making like he really cared about the chaos he and his Tweedy pals have brought to the public schools.

I really came away not liking this guy, sort of akin to how I felt when I saw Santiago Taveras interact with the CEC 14 meeting I taped on Feb. 28. The announcement that he was leaving came during the meeting and I'll have more to say and show you on this guy who actually staked his integrity on the fact that he believed the PEP and DOE actually listen to the voices of parents. (I have a half hour video up on this meeting - Voices of Parents, Teachers and Principals at Feb....
FYI- Taveras is taking a job with a DOE vender - how corporate of him. See: follow up to question re conflict of interest rules re Santiago Taveras and other DOE employees

I feel the same about Sternberg just watching his body language. Another possibly former good guy who turned to the dark side. They are all Darth Vaders.

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