Journal News

April 7, 2008

Yonkers group releases report on public school parents' and students' top needs

By Ernie Garcia

YONKERS - Greater college and career access, increased parental involvement in schools and more community information about social services for children are city parents' top needs, according to a new report.

Yonkers Partners in Education recently released its findings of parents' needs in its report on a January education summit organized by the nonprofit group.

The organization launched a new series of meetings to follow-up on its report, including one held Monday morning at the Yonkers Public Library with community-based organizations.

Wendy Nadel, the group's executive director, said the new meetings will ask participants to identify what they can specifically contribute to the city's schools.

"The whole purpose was to look at the community organizations and who's doing what and who can bring their services in a cohesive way to the school district," Nadel said. "The community-based organizations all do programs, but a lot of them are within their organizations or they (are) not promoted to the public or they don't take place in schools."

The group's next community meetings are April 10 with parents and May 21 for business leaders. Nadel said that the latest round of meetings have already paid off.

Last month the group met with local college representatives to discuss what services the colleges can bring to public high schools. Nadel said the college representatives agreed to develop a plan for bringing workshops and tutoring to the high schools.

The Yonkers Partners in Education is a nonprofit that works with the private and public sectors to create better educational opportunities for the city's public school students.

The group's January education summit featured a fundraiser breakfast with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg that raised an estimated $35,000.

The next step after the current round of community meetings is to develop a community agenda that can be integrated into the school district in 2009.