[ NEWS FROM THE WEEK PAST ]
Rochester gets small aid boost
Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren asked Governor Andrew Cuomo for $100 million for a downtown performing arts center. She didn’t get it. But Warren did get an extra $6 million for the city, bringing the amount of aid Rochester will get via the new state budget to $94 million. The City of Rochester has a $28 million budget gap to close. Warren is expected to present a budget in May.
Stark divide
ACT Rochester’s yearly report card provided yet another bleak picture of life for some in the City of Rochester. Highlights: the city’s child poverty rate is an absurd 47 percent. The numbers are even higher for African American and Hispanic children. And Rochester has the lowest median income in the region, $30,708, with the highest rate of poverty, 32 percent.
Segregated schools
New York State’s public schools are the most racially segregated in the nation, according to a report from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA.
The report, which spans from 1989 to 2010, says the problem has been heightened by the state’s real estate, zoning, and health care policies.
News
Obamacare enrollment ends
Open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act ended with millions of last-minute calls and visits to the government’s federal enrollment site, www. HeathCare.gov. The Obama administration says the call center handled 2.5 million calls last weekend alone. The number of enrollees has also climbed, igniting a debate over the data.
Prekindergarten expansion
The Rochester City School District will receive $10.8 million from the state to expand its half-day prekindergarten program into a full-day program. The funds will allow Rochester schools Superintendent Bolgen Vargas to offer enrollment to most of the city’s 4 year olds, which is one of Vargas’s main strategies to improve student achievement over the long term.
Neighborhood of the Arts’ 2013 street-painting party. FILE PHOTO
NEIGHBORHOODS | BY CHRISTINE CARRIE FIEN
Explore the Neighborhood of the Arts Here’s a chance for all of you closet super sleuths to activate your inner Sherlock while nabbing some prizes, too. On Friday, May 2, the business association of the Neighborhood of the Arts will launch a summer-long scavenger hunt called Explore NOTA. QR codes, which are similar to bar codes, will be displayed in participating businesses throughout the neighborhood. You’ll scan the code with your smart phone to earn points. Completing a series of visits will earn you a virtual badge. Each month has a theme. June is the garden challenge, for example, so you’ll earn
a badge if you visit all participating NOTA gardens and scan the codes. “The goal is to get people to explore the neighborhood and get to know the businesses,” says Meg Colombo, a spokesperson for the Memorial Art Gallery. Colombo is an advisor to the Explore NOTA event. Other badge themes are music, public art, cultural, foodie, and event. The event badge will be earned by finding and scanning codes at NOTA events, such as the Clothesline Arts Festival. The monthly challenges make it possible for short-term players, including people visiting the city, to
participate, Colombo says. You can scan all the public art QR codes, for example, in a single day. A virtual leaderboard will show the most active players based on the number of scans and badges earned. The standings will be displayed in real time, Colombo says, “so you can actually watch people move around the board.” The event ends in October. Winners will be announced and prizes awarded at the NOTA street art event. More information should be available soon on the Explore NOTA Facebook page, https://www. facebook.com/ExploreNOTA
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