School Regions Eliminated, Districts Remain
BY RICHARD GENTILVISO

Bloomberg rearranged the public school landscape again, this time eliminating the 10 regional offices and significantly increasing responsibility on the principals.

Four years ago, during his 2003 State of the City Address, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a sweeping reform to centralize the New York City public school system, creating 10 regions while trying to abolish the 32 community school districts.

Last week, during his 2007 State of the City Address, Bloomberg rearranged the public school landscape again, this time eliminating the 10 regional offices and significantly increasing responsibility on the principals.

Back in 2003, Bloomberg, under the newly formed Department of Education (DOE), implemented a strictly mandated curriculum for reading and math. Now in 2007, principals must choose between three "learning support" structure options.

One is to empower themselves so decisions in their schools will be entirely theirs and cannot be overruled by outside consultants or DOE officials.

The second is to partner with a private organization hired by DOE on a contract basis.

The third is that four of the 10 regional superintendents will remain in the system and will be available on a support basis instead of in a supervisory role.

"Principals are in a far better position than a distant bureaucrat to know what they need to be successful," states the January 2007 edition of Children First.

"Regional offices that we established four years ago to stabilize a failing system will be eliminated, now that their job is done. And the 32 community school district superintendents will report directly to the chancellor," Bloomberg said on January 17 skipping why it was that community districts stayed while the regions went.

Bloomberg's plan four years ago never quite panned out because the New York state legislature, which gave control of the public schools to Bloomberg in his first year in office, said he could not abolish community school districts, established in 1968 to decentralize schools. Bloomberg will have to convince the legislature to reauthorize mayoral control of schools again by 2009.

Community school districts were placed inside the 10 regions. Within Region 4, covering 100 schools and more than 100,000 students in Western Queens and Bushwick, Brooklyn, were Community School Districts 24 and 30 in Queens, and 32 in Brooklyn.

In Region 4, Reyes Irizarry, one of the 10 regional superintendents appointed in 2003, abruptly retired January 12.

According to reports in the January 13 New York Post and the January 14 New York Times, Irizarry retired after 33 years in the New York City public schools because the special commissioner of investigation for the schools, a division of the city Department of Investigation, substantiated that he had had inappropriate relations with a subordinate.

Deputy Superintendent Charles Amundsen was named superintendent for the soon-to-be eliminated Region 4.

In January 2005, The United Federation of Teachers (UFT), spurred by complaints from teachers in Region 4, voted to issue "A Statement of Censure Against Superintendent Reyes Irizarry". It said, in part, "Pedagogical staff members in Region 4 have been subjected to working in an atmosphere that stifles their professional judgment". More than 400 teachers held a demonstration outside the regional office in Long Island City at the time.