Hey Local Colleges, Pick Up 2.5 Million Dollars and Pick A City School

SUNY GENESEO MAY PARTNER WITH SCHOOL NO. 19

 Pending Approval of $2.5M State Grant, College Could Manage School as an Educational Partnership Organization

 Rochester, NY – The State University of New York at Geneseo will partner with Dr. Charles T. Lunsford School No. 19 to implement an improvement plan led by teachers, if the State Education Department approves a $2.5 million grant application submitted yesterday and an Educational Partnership Organization (EPO) agreement with the District.

District officials today released a letter being mailed today to School 19 families describing the potential partnership, and a memorandum of agreement signed by SUNY Geneseo President Denise Battles and Board of Education President Van Henri White. The joint memorandum was submitted yesterday with an application for a School Improvement Grant that would provide $500,000 in additional State funds to support School 19 this year and for each of the next four years. It states that if the State approves the grant funding this fall, the two organizations will work on an EPO agreement that will be submitted later in the school year.

SUNY Geneseo will work with the District as the school year begins to gather input for the EPO plan from School 19 staff, parents, union representatives and students. The letter to families describes some of the benefits to the school if the EPO agreement moves forward.

• A SUNY Geneseo professor will be assigned full-time to help teachers improve their instruction and to work directly with your students.
• The school will have a direct pipeline to SUNY Geneseo students who can serve as student teachers, tutors and in other supportive roles.

• Students will receive more personalized academic instruction and be able to participate in more extra-curricular activities, including arts, drama, science, sports and community development.

The school would implement a collaborative co-teaching model, under which teachers lead the decision-making about what takes place in the classroom and work in teams with the same group of children over a two-year period.

President White said that the partnership with SUNY Geneseo would add “educational firepower” to State grant funds that will help School 19 to accelerate student achievement. “From a District perspective, managing an elementary school in partnership with SUNY Geneseo complements our EPO with the University of Rochester at East High School,” he said. “We hope to have two incubators of success that will model best practices we can replicate in other District schools.”