No 'Chief Integration Officer' In NYC School Diversity Plan

NEW YORK — Hiring a new integration czar will not be among more than 60 steps that New York City school officials will take to address racial segregation.

Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration on Monday said it would adopt 62 of the 67 recommendations that the city's School Diversity Advisory Group issued in February. The proposals are aimed at making the city's notoriously segregated public schools more reflective of its demographic makeup.

The administration rejected two of the recommendations — including that it hire a "chief integration officer" to coordinate integration and diversity efforts across the agency. The Department of Education is still reviewing the other three remaining recommendations, according to the mayor's office.

While he said the idea was not a bad one, schools Chancellor Richard Carranza said he already views himself as the DOE's integration czar. He suggested that putting someone else in charge could lead others to shrug off responsibility for addressing segregation.

"When I say that I am the chief integration officer I mean that every decision, every way that we look at how we serve our students and communities, that will be my focus, and I will hold people accountable for making sure that we’re implementing policies from an integration perspective, but also from a 'what’s good for kids' perspective," Carranza said, according to a transcript.

The DOE also decided not to analyze the pros and cons of taking over supervision of the NYPD's school safety agents from the Police Department, as the advisory panel had suggested.

The DOE is better suited for handling educational issues than training safety agents and does not want to "sacrifice the great partnership (we) have with NYPD," Carranza said.

The city otherwise accepted the vast majority of the recommendations that the advisory group released after more than a year of meetings and discussion of the city's persistent school segregation problem. The DOE plans to implement 40 of the recommendations outright and 22 others with modifications, city officials said.

For example, the DOE will add diversity and integration metrics to its School Quality Report, which offers a picture of the learning environment and student achievement at each school.

The department also plans to require schools to monitor student discipline practices and address discipline disparities. And the DOE will create a "General Assembly" with a representative from every high school that will vote on certain issues and create a student agenda.

The city also awarded grants to help five community school districts develop their own school integration plans. De Blasio announced the $2 million grant program last year after Manhattan Districts 1 and 3 and Brooklyn's District 15 created such plans.

Districts 13 and 16 in Brooklyn, District 28 in Queens, District 9 in The Bronx and District 31 on Staten Island will each get $200,000 to formulate a diversity proposal through local meetings, working groups and the hiring of community planning firms that specialize in diversity, city officials said.

"There’s no one who knows better how to diversify our school system than our students, parents and teachers," de Blasio, a Democrat, said in a statement. "Accepting the School Diversity Advisory Group’s recommendations and awarding diversity grants to five new school districts are crucial steps forward toward ensuring that every student, no matter their zip code, has access to a school where they can thrive, and a natural next step for our Equity and Excellence agenda."

Patch editor Kathleen Culliton contributed to this report.