BOCES poverty workshop canceled for lack of attendees

from The Journal News

One out of four school-age children in Rockland County is eligible for a free or reduced-price lunch.

About one in 14 of Putnam County school-age children and about one in three Westchester school-age children also are eligible for the national program that helps give low-income children at least one meal a day by providing it in school.

Schools keep track of this number because it's an indication of poverty, and poverty has long been proved to affect children's education.

Studies show that most children from low-income homes have a smaller vocabulary than their more affluent peers. They are at greater risk of obesity and the health problems it causes than children from wealthier backgrounds, and their reading and writing skills are worse. They also run a greater chance of dropping out of school or turning off education at an early age.

There are ways to counteract the effects of poverty. There are ways to shore up a child's vocabulary, to give him or her the references more affluent children seem to understand innately. There are ways to work with a family to encourage reading, to make education a necessity and to show how a strong educational background can lead to a more affluent life.

The Rockland Board of Cooperative Educational Services awhile back invited an expert on poverty to teach a two-day workshop to local educators and others who work with children in schools.

For weeks, BOCES staff sent out e-mails, letters, fliers and pamphlets and made phone calls to let people in Rockland, Westchester and Putnam know about the workshop, hoping for 40 people to come and learn. The workshop was scheduled for Tuesday.

About a week before it was supposed to happen, with only 10 people signed up, BOCES canceled the workshop.

"I'm not really sure" why the workshop didn't attract more people, said Kathleen MacNaughton, director of professional development and instructional support for Rockland BOCES.

"It would have been really useful for teachers and educators as well as other professionals who try to support students who come from a poverty background," MacNaughton said. "It would help them understand things like how children from poverty have a different, much smaller vocabulary. The first day of the conference was to give an overview, the second day would offer specific strategies that could be used in a classroom to support the students."

MacNaughton didn't want to give specifics on why people told her they weren't attending, but some themes emerged, she said. School districts have cut their professional development budgets, so they had to choose only a few training workshops that could show immediate results. Teachers were being dragged out of class too much for test-taking requirements - scoring, data analysis, tutoring, test-prep strategies - and couldn't afford more time away from the children.

"Anyone who heard about it said the conference was worthwhile, it was just a matter of 'you can't do it all,' " she said.

Anne Nissen, who heads the 21st Century Collaborative of Children and Families, said she was disappointed the workshop was canceled.

"Some of the Family Resource Center coordinators were going to attend," she said. "They always want to reach all the families in a school, and many training workshops are sort of middle-class-geared, and this one wasn't."

Mary Corretjer, whose children attend North Rockland schools, said she thought it was a shame the workshop was canceled. She said her district's PTAs have started several initiatives to reach out to all families, rich and poor alike, and anything that would have helped schools better connect with children and their families should have gotten more support from the educational community.

"Just speaking for North Rockland, as a district of such diversity, I think teachers would benefit from it, so they could help deal with kids and help them learn better. You always need more ideas," she said.

Both Nissen and MacNaughton touched delicately on something few people like to acknowledge when it comes to affluence and poverty: Most teachers and administrators are from middle-class backgrounds. If it's not in your background, poverty is easy to ignore or downplay.

MacNaughton said she would like to try for another poverty workshop, but wasn't expecting to do so anytime soon.

It was sort of ironic that the workshops that were going on at BOCES the day the poverty workshop was supposed to happen centered on processes - grading tests and teacher mentoring - and not on a program that would have helped some of the least-proficient children do better on tests.