Riverhead to host community forum on common core standards

Riverhead will host a public forum by the New York State education commissioner’s office on Tuesday, Nov. 26 from 6 to 8 p.m. to review the Education Department’s Common Core State Standards Initiative.

Riverhead Central School District Superintendent Nancy Carney said she is waiting to hear details about the meeting from Sen. Kenneth LaValle’s office. She said LaValle will likely host the forum.

A certain number of people from each district will be allowed to attend. Once the numbers are determined, Carney said the district would make the information public and anyone interested will be able to contact her to sign up. That process will work on a first-come-first-serve basis, but Carney said there will be an emphasis on making sure a certain percentage is parents.

Carney said King’s office asked the district to host the event and she believes it was a good choice.

“It’s a good location for all the districts on the East End,” she said.

The education department scuttled previously scheduled community forums after education Commissioner John King came under fire at contentious meetings earlier this month. His office announced they would reschedule the meetings and planned two for Long Island, but none on the East End.

Assembly candidate John McManmon last week made a public call for community meetings on the East End to discuss the curriculum’s “flawed implementation.” He said a comprehensive reassessment of the initiative is needed.

The education department announced the Riverhead date and time on its website this week.

McManmon said today he is “delighted” to hear a meeting is scheduled in Riverhead, which he said he plans to attend either as an elected representative or a concerned citizen, depending on the outcome of next week’s election.

“The public deserves a forum to give feedback,” he said.

The curriculum, its pace of implementation and the initiative’s focus on testing have been the subject of much suspicion and harsh criticism from teachers, parents and residents worried that the changes are too drastic and in some ways inappropriate.

A resident at the Riverhead Board of Education’s October 22 meeting raised concerns about her child in elementary school learning about topics like Mesopotamia at too young an age, and being so burdened by testing requirements that the mandates would detract from the other aspects of their life.

Carney said at the meeting that the state is allowing the district to implement the changes at a slowed pace, and that the new techniques don’t mean a replacement of the entire curriculum.

“You don’t throw out all the good strategies that teachers have been using,” Carney said at the meeting.

The education commissioner, in a letter to district superintendents last week, acknowledged that “a variety of pressures at the state and local level may have resulted in more testing than is needed and in rote test preparation that crowds out quality instruction.” The amount of testing should be “the minimum necessary to inform effective decision-making,” King wrote.

The Board of Regents at its last meeting “discussed a comprehensive initiative to keep the focus on teaching in New York State schools,” King wrote. The initiative will include requests for waivers from the U.S. education department to: eliminate double-testing in grade 8 (algebra regents and grade 8 math exam); implement native language arts tests for English language learners; allow students with severe disabilities who are not eligible for alternate tests to be tested based on instructional level rather than chronological age.

King urged teachers and parents to be “supportive and affirming” for students. “A positive approach to the right level of assessments can help students avoid stress and perform to the best of their abilities. If we provide students with the proper support and the right message, challenging content will build their knowledge, skills, and confidence,” he wrote.

“Teaching is the core,” King said.