Education Roundtable: Dorita Gibson

Q: What are your major goals and initiatives in the 2015-2016 school year?

DG: One of the big initiatives we have this year is that we identified new superintendents to some of the districts, and we refer to them as the anchor, the go-to people in the district. So they’re in the process of being trained on how to manage the work around all the schools in that district and to supervise the principals in a collaborative type of a way. And the other piece of it that we’re really focusing on is parent engagement and professional development in schools, so we’re really asking the superintendents to spend a lot of time working with them. … We’re making sure that there is a transparency for parents within the school community. So they have someone to go to, and they know that their concerns will be met. And we’re going to expand our SAT programs across the city. There’s a lot of work with that, a lot of interest in that. It’s critical that our students really, truly graduate ready for college and have a true means for a career ahead of them.

Q: As Albany is considering renewing mayoral control and how that might look, what if any sorts of revisions to mayoral control would you like to see, and why?

DG: A lot of our initiatives would never have been able to come to fruition without mayoral control. I mean pre-k being one that happened this year. But the work that we’re doing in all of our schools, it helps to have the mayor’s understanding and the mayor’s support behind it. Even with the contracts that we have this year—extending of the workday. I think mayoral control is a very important piece. We support that work. High stakes testing is a part of that work and of how we work together. As written, mayoral control definitely strikes a healthy balance between clear accountability and community involvement. And we’re very much involved with that as we are talking about building more community schools within the city…. We think it’s good. We think it’s working in the right direction. We’ll see.

Q: The chancellor had convened a committee to look at new criteria for admissions to specialized high schools. Where does that committee stand in terms of its work? What kinds of revisions it might be considering? Is the state cued in?

DG: We believe that our schools should reflect the diversity of our city. And we believe that our top tier schools need to continue to have a rigor and have the best students that we have across the city. And that conversation continues. We are talking about that. We’re really concerned about how we prepare our middle school students to take the exams. There is a test. But most important, we do want to build our program. There is a program that we have in New York City called DREAM, which is a program that identifies children who are from the lower socioeconomic parts of New York City, but they have an opportunity to get a lot of professional development, a lot of expertise around how you sit for a specialized high school test. It’s a three-year program, where the students start in sixth grade. So by the time they take the test in eighth grade they’re really prepared for the kinds of answers to questions that they have on these particular tests like they’ll start algebra earlier on and they’ll have better knowledge on how to sit for a half a day exam, so to speak. But it really is preparing our students to take the test. But mostly, we believe that the schools, specialized high schools, should reflect the diversity of our city.

Q: At one point the committee was discussing expanding the criteria from the one test. Is that still what they are discussing?

DG: There is no one way. We know that the official ways of looking about this. There is a test right now on this. There’s one entryway to get in there. But there is no one solution to this question. It keeps coming up. Possible changes are in the future. In the mean time, we know that we want to prepare our students to be the best that they can so they can go out and take the test. There’s a lot of work to be done. We’re working with all of our stakeholders in New York City and some of the alumni associations, and really talking about what is the best way to do this. There is no one solution here.

Q: With the new Renewal program for struggling schools, schools are slated to have needs assessments coming in this spring. Are those starting to come in yet? What types of needs seem to be really prevalent?

DG: They have their plans in place. They’re working. We’re doing a needs assessment, as we talk, schools are doing this. There are 94 schools that are there. And they’re working very hard. Each school is different. And each school has a different plan and different needs. We’re trying to take the schools from where they are and to move them in the right direction as we build around their teams and their schools to support the children the best we can. Some things will be universal, some will not. Some will be school-specific.