Community Board 11 committee weighs how best to support local schools

Alex Ellison, chair of the Community Board 11 Education, Culture and Youth Services Committee, opened the Feb. 5 meeting by saying, "I'm the new chair, Alex Ellison, leading my first meeting as chair." The committee reviewed the board's public list of schools and discussed how to prioritize outreach and support.

The committee debated what it can realistically offer to schools in the district. "I think definitely reaching out to schools is important, but I think something we need to determine amongst this committee is, like, what can we actually offer?" said Dier Taylor, a committee member. Taylor cautioned that asking schools an open-ended "how can we support you" question could produce requests beyond the committee's capacity.

Members identified several concrete areas where the community board can help, including connecting schools with city agencies and elected officials, flagging transportation needs such as additional crossing guards or signage, and sharing information about grant opportunities. "We have connection to a lot of those resources that maybe people who work at the schools may not," Ellison said, pointing to transportation, signage and elected-official funding as examples.

Cynthia Rodriguez, Community Board chair, cited recent local examples of school-related issues that passed through board channels, including a street-design change recommended by the Department of Transportation and a summertime food truck in front of a school that would have required a street activity permit. Rodriguez said the board's transportation committee also fields "open streets" requests that affect nearby schools.

Committee members proposed practical outreach steps rather than broad, open-ended surveys: offering lists of available grants and deadlines, recruiting experienced local principals to present grant-writing workshops, inviting elected officials to flag schools that have raised issues with them, and using the board's social media and email lists to circulate opportunities. The group also discussed using an intern, Maddie, as a resource; the transcript records that Maddie's recent work was focused on a narrower "health" or "senior" needs assessment rather than a broad school needs assessment.

The committee noted the large number of schools in the district as a factor in prioritization. "Looking at this list of schools, it's a lot of schools," Taylor said, adding that the roster includes approximately 20 elementary schools and roughly seven or eight middle and high schools each. Members suggested starting outreach with high schools and schools that have reported problems to elected officials.

The committee did not take any formal votes on outreach priorities during the meeting. Members agreed to follow up by contacting elected officials and using the board's social channels and mailing lists to reach schools and PTAs.

Less-critical details: members discussed logistics for compiling outreach lists and identified local points of contact. The committee moved on after roughly 30–40 minutes of discussion to the next agenda item, the youth leadership award.