SCSD to Host 2019-20 C4E Budget and Narrative Public Hearing

Full-day Kindergarten and PreK programs will be maintained.  PreK classes at Grant Middle School will continue to be held at other locations within the District.
 
The District intends to build out the bilingual and sheltered English as a New Language programming in accordance with CR Part 154.  We opened Delaware Primary school at Delaware’s campus in 2014-15 to offer bilingual instructional programming for students.  This new school is expanding to include full-day kindergarten through fifth grade in 2019-20.
 
In addition, we restructured Fowler High School to open a new school focused on challenging academic content and learning opportunities through career and technical education (CTE) programs.  The Public Service Leadership Academy at Fowler serves students in grades nine through twelve.
 

The Syracuse City School District was identified in 2004 as a District in Need of Improvement for English Language Arts achievement for the student with disabilities (SWDs) and English language learners (ELLs) subgroups. Since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act waiver, all of our schools are identified as either Priority or Focus Schools. While our graduation rate remains relatively stable, we have large numbers of students not graduating in four or five years and/or dropping out.
 
The percentage of students living in poverty continues to increase each year with more than 85% of our students qualifying for free or reduced meals during the 2018-19 year.  More than 20% of our K-12 students are identified as students with disabilities and over 15% of our students are English Language Learners. These high risk factors are challenges faced by all of our schools and our community as a whole. As a result, many interventions or initiatives that are implemented are done so District-wide to improve student achievement in all classrooms.  In addition to the systematic effort, additional supports are provided to our most underperforming schools where there are high percentages of struggling students.
 
We piloted a Newcomer Program in the 2009-10 school year to address the needs of students coming to the District with little or no formal education in their native language. This program will assist in decreasing our ELL dropout rate, and our sheltered approach to ESL instruction will provide more support to students in need of English language development. We are also still not graduating a high percentage of our students with disabilities, another at-risk group in SCSD.
 
Our schools in highest academic need also have a high level of poverty and in many cases high numbers of ELLs and students with disabilities, who at times account for more than a third of a school’s overall student population. Our struggling students need more time and intervention to close achievement gaps through after school programs, summer school, specialized ELA and math courses designed to catch students up, and individual and small group tutoring and instruction. The increase of ELA, math and AVID teachers who use differentiated instruction to meet the needs of these at risk students, including those with disabilities and ELLS, will better support all students toward graduating from high school to be college and career ready.
 

Our Say Yes to Education Project will assist in supporting afterschool programs, summer programs, tutorials, and higher education incentives to encourage students to stay in school, graduate and go on to college.  Say Yes will also provide socio-emotional supports for students in the primary grades as well as legal services for families, mentoring for our middle level students, mental health services, increased social workers in our buildings and a new student assessment system.