2407 COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA CAPITAL PROGRAM & BUDGET HEARINGS BEFORE THE COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Tuesday, March 2, 1999 10:30 a.m. - - - Bill No. 990026 - Amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code entitled "School Tax Authorization". . . Bill No. 990027 - Amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code entitled "School Tax Authorization". . . Bill No. 990028 - Amending Chapter 19-1800 of The Philadelphia Code entitled "School Tax Authorization". . . PRESENT: COUNCIL PRESIDENT ANNA C. VERNA, Chair COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN DAVID COHEN COUNCILMAN JAMES F. KENNEY COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILMAN ANGEL L. ORTIZ COUNCILMAN RICHARD T. MARIANO COUNCILMAN W. THACHER LONGSTRETH COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 2408 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. I N D E X David Hornbeck, Superintendent of Schools 2410 John Lombardi, Director of Transportation . . 2410 Gerald Santilli, Acting Associate Managing 2417 Director of Finance Marjorie Adler, Human Resources . . . . . . . 2421 Jackie Sparkman, General Counsel. . . . . . . 2447 Tom McGlenchy, Acting Assistant . . . . . . . 2455 Managing Director for Business Operations Ted Skirski, Acting Director of Design. . . . 2456 and Construction Catherine Connor (position not identified). . 2476 John McLees (position not identified) . . . . 2490 - - - 2409 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. P R O C E E D I N G S
Good morning. This is the continued public hearing of the Committee of the Whole regarding Bill No.'s 990026, 990027 and 990028. The Chair recognizes Councilwoman Blackwell.
Good morning Madam Chair. Thank you. Dr. Hornbeck, I neglected to ask you yesterday about bus attendants. I understand -- and I know I've spoken with you about this, did research on my own on top cities across the country. So my question is -- and I know we use them for special ed. kids. -- is that privatized? The bus drivers, do they work for the Board, do they work for a private company, number one? And, number two, how does it work? And some of the research I've done, one of the people who were not for it, who thought we ought to have bus attendants talked about the fact that with cameras, you can catch it after the fact, but you can't prevent it up front. Where are we on all of that? 2410 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. And, as you know, number three, the unions and, of course, the bus drivers are upset because they lose jobs and they feel that the accidents that occur because there is no attendant on the bus.
The bus attendants, I think in all instances, are employees of the School District. Mr. Lombardi you might join me on this. (John Lombardi comes forward.)
My name is John Lombardi, Director of Transportation Services. We do contract out for bus attendant 2411 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. services where it's more economical with some of the private schools, and as recently as this year, some of the public schools as well as. So we are contracting out for bus attendant services.
So the bus attendants have had on the de-seg. routes, for example, they were our employees?
They were our employees and they were not mandated by any State or federal law.
Okay. There are some attendants, as you noted, Councilwoman Blackwell, that are on the buses because they are provided for in IEPs with kids with disabilities, and those bus attendants will continue. Wherever there is an IEP that requires any service, then we're obligated to provide it, and it's apparently those bus attendants that we do contract with at times, including with the private schools, to which Mr. Lombardi refers, to which the kids are being 2412 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. bused. The attendants that have been taken off the routes, which were the other ones that you were referring to, are -- by and large, at least -- employees. When we looked at this issue first back in the context of Greater Philadelphia First's Management and Productivity Committee recommending a change in that, we went to all the other big cities in the United States, because one of the ways you learn how to do things best is to find the best practices in other places. And what we discovered is that we were the only school district that even had bus attendants, and that the disruption rate, the accident rate, all the other things that have been posited just don't happen at any greater rate with them or without them. And we had gotten into the business of doing it for some reason many years ago. And our experience now has been, since we've taken them off that, in fact, in some years since we've taken them off, the accidents that buses have been engaged in actually went down. And I think we've done it for two years now if I 2413 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. remember correctly; and one year they went down significantly, and one year they went up marginally. So there seems to be no factual connection between an increase in any kind of accidents and the presence of bus attendants. And that certainly continues to be the case nationwide in terms of other school districts.
All right. Would you check on one, two, three -- four bus route numbers for us.
Would you check on four bus route numbers for us. We received information that, in Incident No. 1, Route 3931, that there was an incident involving two male and two female students where one male student exposed himself to the other students. And these are incidents that allegedly happened because there was no attendant on. And that was on 6/5/98. On 9/18/98, Route No. 3854, we're told that students were throwing acorns and other objects out of the windows on Roosevelt Boulevard, 2414 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. and then when of bus driver stopped, students jumped out of the back of the bus and were threatening other students and the bus driver. That, again, was 9/18/ 98. And the third incident allegedly happened on 9/23/98 on Route No. 1085, where students were throwing things -- acorns and other things at the driver, running up seats, and all of that. And school police and monitor, they had both trying to control the situation. And these are things, again, that they allegedly happened because bus attendants were removed. And then on 9/10/98, Route 3889, a driver was assaulted by a parent who boarded the bus and accused her of hitting her son. And these are these alleged charges. So these are incidents that we report happen. And our research also indicates that in many other places, the attendants have been taken off the buses except for special ed. students. But let me ask you, in the case of schools where many incidents of violence or disruption are reported overall, would they be considered maybe -- would we consider them for bus 2415 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. attendants where you have a problem in the neighborhood or a problem with various types of school like public Catholic schools maybe, areas that traditionally there may be problems especially when school lets out or when spring comes? Would these areas be right for reconsideration of a bus attendant?
Certainly if there were an instance where there was some sort of a pattern of behavior that made it appear that for a period of time, somebody on the bus could make a difference. We wouldn't -- I wouldn't categorically exclude that at all. What we will do is, we will look into these incidents that you described as well. But what we would find is that if you went back two years, three years to the time that there were bus attendants, we would also be able to describe a handful of instances. When you consider that we run in a sense -- what is it? -- 1100 buses a day?
And out of a six-month school year so far, we have five or six instances 2416 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. in which a handful of kids were disruptive, acted inappropriately, bad behavior, etc., we had that, quite frankly, even before we took the bus attendants off. So it's not the bus attendant that is the factor in this, and that's what we've found in terms of the factual stuff about the increase or the decrease in the incidents on the buses, but we will certainly look at these four incidents.
Yes. My understanding -- I didn't give you all of the report on the last incident. When this incident happened, a bus attendant was there and helped restrain the parent and removed the parent from the bus, but that bus attendant was also removed later in the year, and that was an incident where, thank God, a bus attendant was there to deal with the issue.
Thank you. The Chair recognizes Councilman Kenney. 2417 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST.
Thank you, Madame President. Good morning. Dr. Hornbeck, does the budget that we are examining today and yesterday include all of the monies that the School District receives? For example, are there grant monies in here, federal funds, Title I dollars?
Is there some document that exists that lists how that money is spent and how much --
There's a Volume II of the budget book that typically comes out about three to four weeks after that one's released.
Yes, it's the Categorical Budget, it's Volume II of the budget 2418 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. book.
Are there -- one of things that I've been having difficulty with is -- we had a discussion yesterday about post-secondary readiness coordinators, the new positions. 7 They don't appear anywhere in this budget, do 8 they? 9
They're 12 categorically funded. How many other similar-type 13 administrative positions appear in Categorical 14 Budget that we don't really see -- or won't see 15 for a few weeks? 16
What's the difficulty with the Categorical Budget being later 2419 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. than --
The funding is not -- we haven't been notified of our funding yet. So typically, most of the categorical funds are federally funded, and we haven't received notification from the federal government as to whether the funding is secure or at what level we'll be funded yet.
In the materials provided to Council as it relates to the discussion this budget document, are all those administrative positions in the Categorical Budget reflected in the documentation that we've been given for this budget?
Well, categorical positions would only be in Categorical Budget. The information that we have here about budget is strictly Operating Budget; it doesn't include categorical at all. There will be a similar breakdown in that book of administrative instructional, of all the various categories that we discussed yesterday.
So this isn't necessarily a true overall picture of the number 2420 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. of administrative personnel?
Do we have a count, both categorically and operationally, of how many teachers we have, the exact number of teachers?
Of those 12,300 teachers, are they all in a classroom?
No, not on a day-to-day basis. There's a concept called "Teachers on Special Assignment," and they're principals on special assignment -- and there are a couple of hundred?
A couple hundred 2421 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. out of 13,000 that are on special assignment?
What are examples of what those special assignments are?.
I'm Marjorie Adler, Human Resources for the School District. In total, including teachers on special assignment, they are closer to is 12,500 teachers. Teachers on special assignment might be facilitators working with teachers in their classrooms and doing professional development. They might be working on curriculum. Those kind of things.
But are they counted for purposes of our budget as instructional staff?
But they're really not performing instructional duties.
My guess is that probably some of them are not counted as instructional staff -- that would be your answer, Gerry? 2422 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST.
No. They are considered in the appropriate category. If they're in an administrative function, they would be classified as administrative. If they happen to be working on professional development, they would be in the professional development category. They are not classified as instructional.
So the categories of administrator instructional, and then there's another category of -- of-- you said there was three --
There's more than three cat -- instructional, there's support services, there's in-school leadership, there's administrative, there's professional development. And that's on a chart -- I think on the third of the charts yesterday that's broken down for you. There's a pie chart.
We're just talking now about the Operational Budget, not the Categorical Budget.
Okay. And what is the purpose of having those teachers on special 2423 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. assignment? Why --
Well, it depends on which one you're talking about, but if we're talking about facilitators, for example, the facilitator's job is to help the other 12,300 teachers teach better and improve the achievement of children. And the best people to help teachers are teachers.
But if we have an extreme, as was testified yesterday, an extreme shortage of teachers, wouldn't we be better served by having as many teachers as possible in the classroom?
We think -- which is the reason we made these assignments -- that if the strategy for improving reading, math, and science highest for most kids is best served by the way in which we have approached it, that is certainly a totally reasonable question and one that we've wrestled with ourselves. But in the end, to leverage the skill of the 12,300 teachers that are in the classroom through, for example, those individuals is -- in fact, the dramatic results we've achieved 2424 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. demonstrate the wisdom of the decision.
You've already given me answer on the number of teachers that are actually on special assignment of the -- we 6 didn't get an exact number. You said it was maybe 7 a couple hundred but -- 8
Thank you very 11 much. Now I'd like to go for a moment to the 12 issue of --
Please, before you go any further, I've heard two different figures -- 12,300, and 12,500. Which is it? Is it 12,500 or --
I'm sorry. Now I'm confused. There's 12,300 teachers in the classroom?
How many people titled as "teachers" do we have? 2425 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST.
Okay, all right. 20 Now I'm back on. 21 Do I have any time left? 22
I'm sorry, I 23 just wanted to get the figure straightened because 24 I heard two different figures, and I didn't know 25 if -- 2426 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST.
The performance index issue. My understanding is that attendance of teachers is part and parcel of the issue of how we rate the performance of an individual school.
If a teacher is out for pregnancy leave, for example, or some long-term illness, is the school penalized, or is that viewed the same way as if a person is just simply absentee?
Yes. Because we want to focus on the overall attendance of the school. As I said yesterday, this is not about penalizing that individual; there's another set of things going on there. But to separate out and to make individual judgments about individual teachers and 2427 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. how long they should be out and shouldn't be out is not the function of the attendance piece of the performance index; it is instead to identify for the school in an overall way the issue of how many teachers they have in front of their pupils how many days of the year. And we thought that if you start down the pike of deciding, Well, people with this kind of disease don't get counted but people with that kind of disease do, and you only get this many days for a heart attack but you get that many days for a broken arm, is a quagmire without end.
Even as it relates to the issue of pregnancy, which seems to be something that even the federal, State, and local governments have all acknowledged that it's something that's -- I mean, it's certainly not extraordinary, it's very ordinary, but it's certainly something we like to encourage and help and treat women fairly in this regard. My concern is if the school happens to have a large number of young teachers and they procreate, does the school wind up in trouble?
No, I don't think -- 2428 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. this isn't about the school winding up in trouble; it's about having teachers in front of kids on a consistent, stable basis, which is, you know, the business of the school. And this is trying to cast a very strong light on what is a very serious problem here, and that is the excessive absenteeism, in fact, of staff in Philadelphia. And, happily, the policies that we've pursued have had their intended effect by increasing the attendance of staff.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to come back but I think I've gone. . .
Thank you, Madam President. Mr. Hornbeck, I have some questions about charter schools. The more I think about them, the more I hear about them, the more difficulty I have in understanding them. First, they're part of the public school system; is that right?
No. They are public 2429 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. school, but they are not a part of the School District of Philadelphia.
Could you tell me in what way they're not? What's the separation?
Well, I guess you would say they are not part of the School District of Philadelphia in any way.
They are not part of the School District of Philadelphia. The State, in fact, the law provides that they should be treated, in effect, as a separate school district, each one. For example, when they get their Title I money, they get their Title I money as a separate school district.
Do they get that Title 1 money through the Philadelphia School District?
They do not; they get it from the State in the same way we get our money from the State. They're separate creatures. There are only two roles, in effect, that the School District plays vis-a-vis the charter schools, although it takes a huge amount 2430 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. of time and a huge number of dollars to do it. One is, we have the responsibility of approving or disapproving a charter in the first instance. And secondly, whenever a charter is proved, we have the responsibility of sending them money. And then four years later, we will have, though we've not reached that in any instance yet --
And the money you send them does not include the Title I money.
The money we send does not include the Title I money, that's correct. The State sends them the Title I money.
When you -- I think it was -- perhaps it was Mr. Alston's statement that said that the cost currently is $40 million a year to the School District. Are you including the Title I money?
Would the School District of Philadelphia have gotten that Title I money if there had not been a charter school? Does the check that goes to that charter school --
Yes -- 2431 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. (Dr. Hornbeck confers off mike with staff members.)
It comes off the top at the -- first of all, let me say that the $40 million is not current, the $40 million is for the '99-2000 school year. Currently, the number is, in this school year, about $13 million. It will grow by $27 million in the next fiscal year. The $40 million does not include the Title 1 money, and we would have gotten some of that Title I money if the kids had stayed in the Philadelphia School District.
Because it comes off the top of the State allocation. And so, in a sense, we get reduced as part of the whole in that process. For a while, we were afraid that, in fact, the allocation to the charter school was simply going to come out of our share. And because the State law provides, in effect, that these schools are school districts, it doesn't come out of just our share, it comes out of 2432 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. everybody's share. So that if those kids were back in our school district, then, in effect, we would get it all, and other people wouldn't lose what they presently lose across the State as a consequence of payments to charter schools -- not just ours but to all of them across the State.
-- is that any different from the requirement for the teachers in the Philadelphia Public School District?
Yes. The charter schools are required to have 75 percent of their teachers be certified; we are required to have all of our teachers certified.
Is that 75 percent for charter schools just a blanket 75 percent?
Who supervises, or 2433 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. is there no supervision of the way those teachers teach? Is it the School District's responsibility?
No, we -- no, the supervisory responsibility is the responsibility of the head of the charter school, whoever that is, the equivalent of a principal or a head master. And the only supervisory responsibility -- I mean, in a sense, we have no supervisory responsibility 'cause that sort of connotes a day-to-day kind of thing. But we do have the responsibility of, for example, tracking enrollment because enrollment drives payment. And so there's a kind of monitoring function.
Other than to have examined the proposed curriculum prior to the charter being granted, there is no ongoing supervisory responsibility of the School District to oversee curriculum or day-to-day practice.
Can that curriculum be changed as the charter school proceeds? Is 2434 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. there any --
Certainly as a practical matter, it could be, because we have, and under the law, should not have any kind of continuing day-to-day oversight that way. If there were some sort of, you know, radical change in it of some kind and it were reported to the School District, I suppose the case could be made for our examining whether the conditions under which the charter was granted had been so radically, utterly, dramatically changed that there should be some kind of an intervention. But the State law contemplates a -- the State law contemplates a school that is unfettered of all -- I mean, it's supposed to be a separate thing out there that runs by itself, has maximum flexibility, doesn't have contractual obligations unless they decide to have them, etc., etc.
Well, it sounds to me that while it carries the title of a "public school," it is in fact a private school. I just have this great problem differentiating a charter school from a private 2435 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. school. And I keep hearing it's part of the public school system, but I don't see where it is part of the public school system except that 75 percent of its teachers have to be certified. But that may be true also in the private schools.
Well, the color of money is green, whether you designate it "public" or otherwise. It doesn't -- you know, the money does not designate the nature of the school system.
The only other piece, Councilman Cohen -- and I'm not holding a brief now for this, I'm just giving you information.
The only other place that would clearly separate the public charter school from the private school rests in a sense in the conditions on the basis of which a charter is issued and then reissued. And two come to mind. One is our insistence that a charter school not contribute to segregation or re-segregation in illegal ways around race.
It's open to 2436 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. everyone.
And secondly, this requirement that we imposed which requires the use of the SAT-9 as a measurement tool to determine the --
The same test that we use in the public schools, they must use it as a way to provide some crossover comparative data for parents and others. And those factors would play a role, then, in the reexamination of the charter status at the end of four years; and private schools, of course, don't require periodic rechartering, if you will. So there are those -- on the other hand, it is absolutely true that they, by and large, as a concept, operate independently of oversight by any local school district.
Well, I can understand the desire of parents interested in the education of their children to have called a 2437 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. charter school, called a private school, called a parochial school, maybe possibly called a public school under certain circumstances. Certain public schools, I think, are sought after more than any other schools in the City.
And I understand that. What concerns me is, I see down the road just lots and lots of charter schools and the constant shrinking of that public school core, that body that I know as the public school system. And among the many concerns I have were that to happen and the way this is growing by leaps and bounds makes this seem like not a wild concern of mine. But a realistic concern is that parents who tend to want to pick the school of their children are the parents that historically have been most concerned about school systems. And as you develop charter schools, you are removing from the other schools this body of parents who are tremendously interested in the education of their kids, but also they get interested in the education of all children. 2438 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. And I'm just very fearful of what's happening to the body of public school -- of the regular public schools as I know them going to consist of children's whose parents don't have an interest, for some reason or another -- maybe they can't have an interest because they're not well enough physically or maybe they're so tied up trying to earn enough money to survive that they can't get involved with their kids' education. This seems to me to be draining away from rather than continuing towards the development of the public school system, and that's the main concern I have because I think the most treasured aspect of democracy that exists in all of the United States is the public school system. If that goes, I think the whole basic tenet of democracy goes. I think you've got to have a basic public school system that every child can go to and get an education that develops that child for the future as a self-respecting and self-supporting citizen, able to raise a family. I think if we lose that, we lose the most basic element of democracy. That doesn't exclude having private 2439 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. schools and parochial schools; they also serve a purpose, but they serve their purpose as additions to a basic public school system which serves everybody and which is guaranteed to everybody in this country, that they're entitled as a matter of right to get this kind of education from their school system. And I just don't really see much difference between a charter school and a private school except that the public money is going into the charter school and apparently being taken away from the money for public schools. Could I ask you on the finances -- just use that 40 million, I understand your corrections and that it will go higher, but using that 40 million, was that a gross or a net figure?
In other words, let me ask you, as a result of the growth of the numbers of charter schools, are you able to hire fewer teachers, fewer other staff? Tell me how that works so I'll know whether the alleged $40 million is a gross figure, meaning the charter schools are getting $40 million of public money, 2440 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. or is it what nets out after you deduct whatever savings come to the public school system as a result of their being charter schools?
It's a net figure. And let me illustrate from a conversation that Councilman Kenney and we had yesterday. If it were the case that we were able to reduce staff, teachers by an amount equal to our projected charter school enrollment, we would be able to reduce staff by something in the neighborhood of 130 or 40 teachers. But what we know is that charter school students don't leave in neat clumps of 30 each; and, therefore, we can't reduce staff by that total amount. And we estimate in the issue that we were discussing yesterday that we can only reduce it by around 75 or 80. That is to say we're still going to need about -- I think the number we used yesterday was 57, I think, on one of the pages. So that it's -- that's the staff reduction piece of it. In addition to that, someone asked yesterday also about, Don't we get any money from the State? And we get about $700,000, roughly. 2441 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. And that's for the payment around non-public school kids that go to charters but for whom we now have to pay. And last year, when they in the non-public school, of course, we didn't pay anything. But if you take all those things together, the net projected cost of the charter schools approved for next year is about $40 million. To put it another way, yesterday we told you that we have about $94.5 million worth of projected expenses for which we have not identified specific sources of revenue. If we did not have charter schools, any, and if all the kids who are going to charter schools were back in our schools, we would be sitting here today talking about having about 54 million, not $94 million worth of expenditures for which we have not identified specific sources of revenue. So they contribute $40 million worth of the $94 million worth of gap or whatever you want to call that.
Councilman, any number of Council people want to be 2442 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. recognized.
So I would ask you to wait for the so on go-around.
While we're on the subject of charter schools, may I ask if we're having any difficulty in attracting teachers in the charter schools? And are most of them transferring from the public schools into the charter school?
We lose many in that way, but I really don't know 'cause we -- we wouldn't know.
I think there's somebody that may have an answer to that. (Dr. Hornbeck confers off mike with staff members.)
Right, we do not know. There is difficulty in finding people, but Miss Adler tells me that over the two years in the now 13 charter schools that are open, that we've lost about 20 teachers out of the School District.
How many 2443 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. teachers? You wouldn't know how many teachers they have in the charter schools? I'm just 4 curious to know if they're having difficulty in 5 attracting teachers as we are. 6
Does anybody know about 7 how many teachers they have in the. . . 8 (Dr. Hornbeck confers off mike with 9 staff members.) 10
We could get last year's 11 data, which would basically be four schools. At 12 the end of this year, we could add the others. Of 13 course, they don't have the various -- the three big issues that I talked about yesterday as being things that the people we survey inhibit coming to us, two of those three don't apply to charter schools. And the third one.
Well, residency requirements don't apply to charter schools, and the contract doesn't so the seniority stuff doesn't. The third one was --
But a teacher leaving the public school system going to a 2444 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. charter school, would they lose most of their benefits? They don't get the same benefits or do they? I don't know; I'm asking the question.
The State law provides that the benefits are the same, and it provides that they have a right of return for -- how many years?
So their pension and their benefits are not in question.
The pension continues while they're in the same pension plan with the charter schools.
Now, they do not necessarily get the same pay; they might get more or they might get less. I mean, they don't have a contract. There is no union at the charter school 2445 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST. unless the teachers in the given charter school decide to have a union, and they may do that. So the -- I'm just simply saying that the inhibitions that the people who turn us down have identified are not the same for the charter schools.
I would be very curious to know how many of the teachers, A, live outside of the City that are working in the charter schools, how many of them have transferred from the public school, and how many certified teachers are actually teaching in the charter schools? I think that's information that I would like to see.
And I'd like to ask how many students in the public school system have left to go into the charter schools?
We can give you that, we can give you the teachers that have left. I think we will be unable to give you how many are residents because we have -- 2446 3/2/99 WHOLE COMM./BUDGET/SCHOOL DIST.
Of the teachers, 'cause we have no jurisdiction over these schools. You might be able --
So we would have to contact each of the charter schools?
Thank you. On that one issue, though, either Madam Chair or Dr. Hornbeck, you said there is no union at the charter school, but if the public school teacher who was teaching at a regular public school one year goes to the charter school the next year, can they still be a member -- and I assume they were -- of the PFT? If they were in the PFT last year, are they still potentially a dues-paying member of the PFT this year at the charter schools?
I'm told that they are not. Whether the PFT bylaws prohibits them from paying union dues or not. . .