The most remarkable thing about the BCHS even last night was the students- current and former who spoke eloquently and passionately about their school. Student leader Chris Petrillo did a 20 minute presentation over the initial objections of Deputy Chancellor Kathleen Grimm after City Councilman Erich Ulrich asked. (He is turning out to be an interesting guy even though a Bloomberg admirer. He showed up with a petition signed by every Queens Council member urging that the schools not be closed.)
I have so much good video of Chris and am editing it in various ways to make what he had to say as effective as possible. The segment I am working on now was his response to Grimm's statement that students don't want to go to BCHS. Chris went through program after program cut by the DOE that would drive students away.
James Eterno, CL of Jamaica HS was there and he and Chris spoke. Chris expressed interest in going to their meeting tonight to link up with the activist kids from Jamaica. I spoke to his mom last night and she said it would be fine. Chris just called to ask if he can get a ride home with me if he goes and it looks like he will be there. He is also anxious to link up with other student activists at closing schools and Seung Ok from Maxwell is putting him in touch with a student there. Oh, and I met with a sophomore on Tuesday at the Academy of Environmental Science who had asked me for help making a video to defend his school (I put out a call and 3 filmmakers responded) and he is also interested in linking up. There are some amazing kids out there and meeting them makes so much of this worth while no matter what happens.
Check back tomorrow morning for some video of BCHS and this weekend for Jamaica HS.
In the meantime read Maura's report at Gotham.
3 comments:
Kudos Norm! At least you report on the other school closings, it seems like the main ICE Blog only cares about Jamaica HS. You'll see little mention of the other schools there.
Norm,
Is it possible to filter out comments that are truly unnecessary such as the one prior to my comment.
Thank you.
P.S. I look forward to seeing the video of Chris. He's a great candidate to be involved in the union down the road or any other pro-teacher political position.
I have to filter them manually or moderate all comments. I think you have it wrong about your attitude about the ICE blog. I am part of that too. We use Ed Notes to get certain things out because it has a wider distribution. The ICE blog is more specialized. Also check out the GEM blog and the ICE web site which takes a broader view than the blog. I know its confusing but ICE is somewhat decentalized without a tight structure - we are very sensitive to not functioning like Unity.
It should be pointed out that GEM which has taken up the fight on closing schools all over the city is an outgrowth if ICE and many ICE people are involved.
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