When the hedge funders and the charter school operators want to start and/or co-locate charters, the DOE says okay, b/c they are responding to &8220;parent choice.&8221; When hundreds or thousands of parents, along with community members, plead DO NOT close our public schools, the DOE says, we don&8217;t care.
The charter school co-location plan drew quick and fierce fire during the hearing. Perkins,an outspoken critic of charter schools, said Harlem Success had a track record of an &8220;antagonistic relationship&8221; with the local community and should not be given more space.
Department of Education officials said they sought to close Wadleigh&8217;s middle school not to make room for the charter school but simply because keeping it up and running is unsustainable. It has just 94 students and last year earned a D on the progress reports the city uses to judge schools.
These are the NYC senators who voted for the Silver Padovan Bill continuing mayoral control in 2009:
We serve the same students, we serve the same community, he said. Our school has some of the same struggles that Wadleigh has. We are working tirelessly every day to make it better.
In response, shouts of Yes emanated from the audience, which frequently interjected through the five-hour-long hearing. At times, they chanted until officials were drowned out.
there were also numerous Wadleigh alumni there and the NAACP. It is clear that the community considers Wadleigh , with its 111 year old history, a neighborhood treasure, and does not want to see it close. As one community member said to the DOE this shows you are saying you are giving up on the community.. Others asked where the 17% of the students with special needs will go, they said not to HSA. (one parent there there said her student was &8220;counseled&8221; out of the charter and was now at wadleigh.)
But closing the middle school could take a different toll on Wadleigh&8217;s arts programs, by reducing the number of students prepared to participate in them in high school, people said at the hearing.
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Wadleigh&8217;s 440-student high school would remain open under the plan, as would another middle school in the building, Frederick Douglass Academy II, which narrowly escaped closure this year after earning an even lower progress report score than Wadleigh&8217;s middle school. A chartdance academy schools City plan to shrink Wadleigh draws vocal and official oppositioner school, Harlem Success Academy I, is set to move its middle school grades into the building, according to a plan the city set last year.
Klug told me he believes the middle school&8217;s closure would &8220;significantly negatively impact, if not destroy,&8221; the high school&8217;s arts programs.
A handful of middle and high school students were the first to speak at the hearing. Standing in a line on the performance stage, the students said the schools performing arts focus draws neighborhood students like themselves.
dance academy schools City plan to shrink Wadleigh draws vocal and official opposition,A who&8217;s who of elected officials and Harlem leaders turned out Thursday to defend the Wadleigh Secondary School of Performing Arts against the Department of Education&8217;s plan to close its middle school.
Ninth-grader Geronimo Miranda joins sixth-graders Ariyelle Ceasar, Tiane Jackson, Cheyanne Young and Nia Manerville in describing Wadleigh Middle School&39;s positive qualities at a school truncation hearing Jan. 26.
Re &8211; &8221;It was also very interesting to hear Wright strongly announce that he was ready to go to Albany and fight to rescind mayoral control b/c it was not working for the people in his community.&8221;
English teacher from Wadleigh: it would be embarrassing to teach democracy at this school after what happened today.1 day ago
Addabbo, Dilan, Espada, Golden, Hassell-Thompson, Klein, Liz Krueger, Lanza, Monserrate, Onorato, Padavan, Sampson, Savino, Schneiderman, Serrano, Smith, Squadron, and Stavisky.The eight Senators who voted against were Adams, Diaz, Duane, Huntley, Carl Kruger, Montgomery, Parker, and Perkins. All assemblymembers voted for except: Abbate, Aubry, Brennan, Castro, Crespo, Dinowitz, Gibson, [adult school] Sacramento city attorneys office says justice served in protest cases sacramento (0) 2011-12-27 14:46:29 Glick, Heastie, Jeffries, Maisel, O&8217;Donnell, Perry, Jose Rivera, Naomi Rivera, Robinson, Weprin.
He drew cheers when he told the DOE officials listening to the testimony, &8220;Closing a school is not difficult to do. It&8217;s assisting the school that&8217;s difficult.&8221;
Jamal, Wadleigh HS student: my choir has performed @ Carnegie Hall, Apollo theater. "If it wasn&039;t for Wadleigh I wouldn&039;t have gone on tour"1 day ago
This letter speaks beyond just Bushwick Community High School; it articulates the struggle of teachers around all of New York City.
&8220;We have eight arts and specialty rooms, and so basically the last two years they were trying to colocate a third school in the building, not recognizing that these arts rooms take more space than schools that don&8217;t offer these programs,&8221; he said. &8220;Dance kids are going to need more than a 500-square-foot room. Shrinking our school is the first step to ending [that program].&8221;
Wadleigh theater teacher: We&039;re not a perfect schooldance academy schools. We need help to bring in the parents. Rather than close, let us have tools we need.1 day ago
With a school that is performing at this level at this size, is it possible to make it successful? asked Shael Polakow-Suransky, a deputy chancellor, during the hearing.
Tags:anthony klug,arts schools,Bill de Blasio,Bill Perkins,Harlem,Harlem Success Academy,Hazel Dukes,John Liu,Manhattan Theatre Lab High School,performance review,Robert Jackson,scott stringer,shael polakow-suransky,wadleigh secondary school for the performing arts
They said the city was giving up on a neighborhood institution by moving to close Wadleigh&8217;s middle school. Jackson promised to call Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Dennis Walcott today to air his opposition to the plan.
The comments developed a theme that supporters of another performing arts school, who included staff from Wadleigh, outlined at its closure hearing earlier this week. Closing arts schools that serve low-income studentswould cut off a rare option for those students, argued supporters of both Manhattan Theatre Lab High School and Wadleigh. The schools a close relationship: In 2006 Evelyn Collins left her job as Wadleigh&8217;s assistant principal for the arts to head Manhattan Theatre Lab, and Herma Hall became Wadleigh&8217;s principal in 2008 after working as an assistant principal at Manhattan Theatre Lab.
This is a visual arts school that is trying to make the arts better so we can fulfill our dreams, said sixth-grader Tiane Jackson. Do you really want to be responsible for crushing dreams?
The problem is that we have autocratic rule of the public school system.
It is time to take that power away from the mayor.
Is he ready to do that today?!
Kudos to those politicians and dignitaries that stand up for public schools. I, for one, will remember this when I vote, particularly those who stand up to Eva and her ilk, and those who expose the truth about how charter schools are incredibly destructive to NYC public school communities, and those who expose the current mayoral control of NYC public schools, for what it is- an abject ilure.
Anthony Klug, a teacher and the school&8217;s union chapter leader, said the departure of a math coach, guidance counselor, and dean had caused the middle school&8217;s performance dip last year. Restoring those resources would help turn the school around, he said.
We need equal opportunity for an education for our students &8230; not an equal opportunity for entrepreneurs to start a new school or expand their current charter business. Whose schools? Our schools!
Hall, Wadleigh&8217;s principal, did not speak during the hearing. But FDA II&8217;s principal, Osei Owusu-Afriyie, went to bat for Wadleigh.
Community board 7 rep: there&039;s a scarcity of middle school seats in district 3. Schools that serve arts empower students who&039;d be overlooked1 day ago
Polakow-Suransky said during the hearing the building had more than enough space for Wadleigh to share space with another school and also maintain its arts programs.
About 200 parents, students, activists, and staff packed the school&8217;s auditorium Thursday evening for a public hearing on the proposal. Just before, officials who included City Councilman Robert Jackson, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, State Sen. Bill Perkins, and Comptroller John Liu all held court in the packed lobby of the Harlem campus. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and the city&8217;s NAACP chief, Hazel Dukes, also spoke at the hearing.
Other elected officials who spoke for Wadleigh/against the Success Charter co-location included State Assemblyman Keith Wright and NYC Council Member Inez Dickens. Both pointed out that the drop in Wadleigh&8217;s scores coincided with a change in school leadership and a shrinking of the middle school, both brought about by the DOE. It was also very interesting to hear Wright strongly announce that he was ready to go to Albany and fight to rescind mayoral control b/c it was not working for the people in his community.
This hostile takeover of New York City public schools just doesn&8217;t stop&8230;
