Schools chancellor meets with Queens parents

Among the Adams administration’s priorities for the city’s youngest is an attention to holistic wellness, including mindfulness and meditation. Photo by Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office

By Rachel Vick

Borough President Donovan Richards hosted the first Queens Parent Advisory Board meeting under the Adams administration Tuesday, with new Schools Chancellor David Banks on hand to offer insight into what's next for public schools.

Banks, a Hillcrest High School alum, outlined the administration’s educational priorities, to be executed through a multi-pronged approach to preparing the next generation. He also fielded a portion of nearly 70 questions submitted by attendees.

“It's been a whirlwind since I got into office,” Banks said. “I know how important it is for our kids to be part of our school family and when that was broken up it has done a real damage to our kids.”

“I’m focused on creating, as our mission, opportunities for our kids to have career pathways, that they graduate with real skills and opportunity,” he added, explaining that setting students on a track to the middle class is the “north star” of what they're working on.

Under Banks, the Department of Education is aiming to expand civic engagement and maximize students’ ability to use their voice and participate. They also plan on working to engage parents and bring educators more into the decision making process. There will also be an increased focus on mental health and mindfulness to be better equipped to handle stress or trauma.

“If we want our kids to be active, engaged citizens and take their rightful place in this democracy, we have to develop them so they understand how this democracy works,” Banks said. “We've got to build that muscle from K through 12.”

Banks explained that the Adams administration’s approach will be less uniform and more tailored to the independent needs of school communities, but that paying attention to what works for students and prepares them for the real world will be key.

He highlighted the success of technical education programs and suggested that they shouldn’t be considered a separate track because many students walk away able to “understand more deeply why they’re going [to school] in the first place.”

Banks said that “nothing could be further from the truth” than claims that good things are only happening in charter schools.

“I've got to ensure our young people come out with accreditations and skills… to get on the path to economic security if our ed system is not producing that we’re wasting our time,” he added. “We've got to do a better job and we will.”

Of the 66 questions submitted by listeners, a number were concerned about high school admissions, with some confused and concerned about the lottery system – the controversial policy was changed under the de Blasio administration.

Chief Enrollment Officer Sarah Kleinhandler said as an “interim step in preserving academic standards,” admissions criteria this year will include the highest grades from the final marking period of seventh grade and the first of eighth.

Altered admissions criteria opened the door to increase Black and brown student admission into screened high schools by 13 percent, according to Kleinhandler.

Richards offered his confidence in the parents, educators and administrators who have supported students throughout the pandemic and moving forward.

“At the end of the day you are the engine that drives our school system and our children's education,” he said. “I know how tough the transition from in-school to remote to back in person was but I know how hard the educators at my son’s school and all our Queens schools have worked to make things as normal as possible.”

Richards said following the cancellation of Regents, he had called on the state to cancel remaining statewide standardized tests because it “wouldn't be fair to take an education-defining test in the wake of the pandemic which we are still very much in.”

The next Parent Advisory Board meeting will be March 9.