School Community

A final-year student from Queen’s University in Belfast has outshone more than 3,000 competitors to be crowned the UK’s Universities Brightest Business Brain.

David Galbraith, from east Belfast, who is studying computing information technology, topped the leaderboard to take the title and the 1,000 prize in the grand final at Cass Business School in London.

Launched in September, the popular competition saw more than 3,000 students register and take four online exercises which were designed to assess their competencies, traits and aptitudes as well as identify their commercial awareness.

The 60 highest scorers were then invited to take part in the grand final where there were challenges including teamworking and communication exercises and a business case study.

A former pupil of Wellington College, David said: “The exercises we undertook ranged from having to construct a Lego tower to taking part in a debate about positive action.

“They were undoubtedly challenging and I had to think on my feet, but I also found them quite good fun.

“Obviously I’m delighted to have won, and I’m very grateful to the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Enterprise SU at Queen’s for their support.

“The experience was really worthwhile.

“It not only opened up potential job opportunities for me after graduation, but also led to my acceptance by the Brightest Minds organisation, which is quite an honour.”

Now that hes retired, the board is poised to bring those committees back. 

The five-member school board will vote at a meeting Thursday whether to revive 10 committees, which is one committee fewer than it had in 2008. 

Each panel would be led by one board member and have a second member serving on it. With two members on each committee, the board will not have a quorum and therefore will not be able to take any official votes. 

The committees would meet once every three months, and would call additional meetings as needed, said school board President Levon Manzie, who has come up with the list of committee assignments. Each board member would chair two committees. 

Meetings would be open to the public, board members said. Interim Superintendent Martha Peek and a board attorney would attend all committee meetings, as would the relevant school system staff. 

During a work session Thursday, board members said that without the committees theyve felt out of the loop on a lot of the measures theyve been asked to vote on. They said they often have had to table items with which they werent familiar during the boards regular, once-monthly meetings, until they could get more information. 

“Our current format does not lend itself to us receiving information,” Manzie said. “We must have access to the staff.” 

Nichols, who retired in December, was vocal in his goal to put an end to years of board micromanagement, which landed the entire school system on probation about 10 years ago. Besides eliminating the committees, he cut the number of regularly scheduled board meetings down from two a month to one. And he prohibited board members from asking questions of his staff directly during public meetings. 

Board members said reviving the committees is not a form of micromanagement; rather, the committees are tools to help them do their jobs. 

School boards set the policies of a school system, but superintendents are responsible for daily operations. 

“Were not attempting to micromanage,” Manzie said. “Were trying to have a format where we can ask questions.” 

Board member Ken Megginson, who was one of only two current board members who served prior to 2008, warned that the committee meetings are time-consuming. 

“If you think you can come for 15 minutes and leave,” Megginson said, “thats not going to happen.” 

But, he added, the committees are very informative. 

The other committees would be: intragovernment; policy/legal; safety and security; school and community relations; school facilities and land; student services; and technology. 

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Posters from past student theater performances adorned the walls of Franklin Delano Roosevelt High Schools auditorium, where parents gathered Monday for a meeting on school turnaround.

The city has started running through its closure protocol at dozens of low-performing schools it wants to turn around.

At Brooklyns Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School, Superintendent Aimee Horowitz held a tense meeting with teachers to talk about the closure plan Monday afternoon. Hours later, she defended the plan to about 50 angry and bewildered parents at an early engagement meeting that has for the last two years been the Department of Educations first step in letting schools know they could be closed.

The pattern is set to repeat this week and beyond at dozens of l0w-performing schools that were midway through federally mandated overhaul processes known as transformation and restart until earlier this month, when Mayor Bloomberg announced that the city would instead try to use a different process, turnaround, at the schools. The switch, aimed at letting the city sidestep a state requirement that it negotiate new teacher evaluations with the United Federation of Teachers, would require the schools to be closed and immediately reopened after having at least half of their teachers replaced.

The mass-replacement plan drew fire from parents and students who said FDRs teachers are essential if academic performance is to improve.

I feel tortured, said Abdul Sager, a ninth-grader whose first language is Bengali. If a new teacher comes who doesnt know about my feelings and strategies to learn English, its going to take more time.

Parents found out about Mondays meeting in letters shortly after Bloombergs announcement and through automated telephone calls over the weekend announcing a parent-teacher association meeting with Horowitz, according to Robin Piraino, the mother of a ninth-grader. She said the messages didnt say the meeting would deal with FDRs proposed closure, and some people who attended the meeting were visibly surprised by the news.

Principal Steven Demarco implored families to push back against the citys plan by contacting legislators and elected officials. He also promised that FDR would survive the citys latest efforts to reshape the school.

Weve always been a family, weve always gotten through, he said. Regardless of what were called — transformation, restart, turnaround — we are continuing every day to make progress. That will continue until Im dragged out of here.

Demarcos predecessor was in fact yanked from the school. Starting transformation in 2010 required Roosevelts longtime principal, Geraldine Maione, to be replaced, so the Department of Education appointed Demarco, a 29-veteran of the school, to take her place. Then the city installed Maione at William E. Grady Career and Technical Education High School, another school that was undergoing transformation and could now be closed.

Since 2010, FDR had received millions of dollars in federal School Improvement Grants. Teachers said the funds had financed training sessions and overtime hours for leading after-school English classes for parents, tutoring students, and hosting a new advisory program called freshman and sophomore academies.

Weve invested our support in the English Language Learners, said Jorge Mitey, a Spanish teacher and FDRs union chapter leader, who had passed out large buttons showing Bloombergs face with a red strike-through to people attending the meeting. Theyre coming in on weekends, theyre coming after school. Weve given them more academic rigor to improve.

Forty percent of FDRs 3,400 students are considered English language learners, a data point that teachers said makes it impossible for the school to meet the citys expectations, especially for its four-year graduation rate. Of the students who entered as ninth-graders in 2006, 59 percent graduated four years later, giving FDR a graduation rate just two points below the city average. The school received Bs on its two most recent city progress reports.

Current policies do not reflect research on how students learn languages — many of our hardest-working students at this school are English language learners, said one teacher, who asked not to be named because she is worried about keeping her job. All research shows that it takes five to seven years to become academically proficient in a second language, and that is only if you have literacy in your first language. But many of our students come in with literacy challenges in their first language, Chinese, Spanish.

The meetings are a first step in the citys notification process for school closures. For the last two years, the city has held early engagement hearings at schools it is considering shuttering before finalizing the closure slate. Then the city must hold public hearings at each school slated for closure before the citywide school board, the Panel for Educational Policy, votes on them. The panel has never rejected a city proposal. By law, the city must also issue detailed reports about the closures impact, called Education Impact Statements, at least six months before the start of the school year when the closures would begin — a deadline that is just weeks away.

Other school communities are gearing up to protest the turnaround plan at meetings with superintendents later this week. On Wednesday, teachers at Brooklyns John Dewey High School say they will defend the progress the school has made under the restart model to department officials and ask them to let current teachers stay in the school.

Free walk-in dental exams including X-rays and oral cleanings are available from 9 a.m. to noon Jan. 21 at Case Western Reserve Universitys School of Dental Medicine, 2124 Cornell Road.

No appointment is needed; exams are given on a first-come, first-served basis.

Students from the dental school organize the day of service. Both volunteer faculty and student dentists provide the services.

Depending on the type of care needed, patients with certain dental needs may qualify for additional free or greatly reduced-price services. Participants who want to become regular dental school patients will receive a $20 voucher to help defray the admitting cost.

Call (216) 368-3819 or (216) 368-6766 weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. for details.

The Education Act 2012 gives schools the power to impose detentions without the existing 24 hours’ notice for parents. 

Teachers will be able to keep unruly pupils behind at the end of the school day without warning after ministers scrapped the existing 24-hour notice period for parents.

The Government insisted the rules – being introduced from today – would make children more accountable for their bad behaviour.

It is among a series of Coalition reforms enshrined in the Education Act 2011 designed to crack down on classroom indiscipline. This includes increased powers to search pupils for banned items, granting teachers anonymity when accused of assault and giving heads the final say on expulsions.

It comes amid fears that the balance of power in schools has swung too far towards pupils in recent years.

Almost 1,000 children are suspended from school for abuse and assault every day and two-thirds of teachers admit bad behaviour is driving professionals out of the classroom.