Then off to see former student perform at La Tea on Suffolk St. at 8pm where I will meet up with another former student from the same 4th grade class. How can these guys be pushing 40 when I am so young? Ernie was in one of the two top level classes I had. He was an above grade level reader and damn easy to teach. (Do I get merit pay?) In the world of BloomKlein that should have solved all his problems. But he had some journey.
See a review of one of Ernie's shows below.
He is also appearing on Wed and Thurs is the final show.
Tuesday - GEM meets 4:30, CUNY 5th ave and 34 st. Rm 5414 bring id
Wed. - PS 15/PAVE - one more time - at PS 15 in Red Hook 5:30 to sign up. See below for details.
Thurs - 12 noon- CPE wants to close the rubber room
GEM/CPE meeting of reps of each group to explore common issues and build an alliance. 6pm
Fri - ICE meets at 4:30 at Murray Bergtraum, Rubber room movie premiere at Puck building, 6pm
Sat - matinee of the play, "Enron."
Sun. Taping "The Rabbit Hole" at the Rockaway Theatre Co. Directed by my acting teacher Frank Caiati.
heavy like the weight of a flame
***Extended by Popular Demand!!!***
Featuring R. Ernie Silva
Written by James Gabriel and R. Ernie Silva
R. Ernie Silva just recently got nominated for Best Solo Performance by the LA Weekly!!
A Bushwick projects street kid +
domestic strife + deaths of close friends + overdose of an idolized older brother =
Pick up your guitar and hit the road
An autobiographical one man show about a kid who decides to run away for a better life on the road in America – Will he become a casualty of the “road” if he goes; a victim of the “street” if he stays? Maybe the road is just another street in Brooklyn.
Actor, guitarist, stand-up and sketch comedian, USC graduate, Ernie Silva tells his story; sometimes fun, other times harsh but always universally human. Ernie Silva comes back home to New York City to tell the story of the trip.
“The sheer strength of will that it took for Silva to outstrip such negative indoctrination is inspiring”
- LA TIMES
“Silva is a charismatic talent! I expect we’ll be seeing more of Mr. Silva and this is a good place to get acquainted”
- LA WEEKLY
R. Ernie Silva is a product of the Bushwick projects in Brooklyn New York where he grew up the youngest of 13 siblings. His creative career started at the age of 12 when one day while break dancing in the streets he and his crew Love Disco Style were discovered by radio station 98.7 KISS FM where Eddie Rivera chose them to be the station’s resident dancers. It was there Ernie got his first tastes of life in front of live audiences as they immediately began performing in shows with some of street music’s hottest acts across the city. As Ernie grew so did his taste for performing, but now with a more eclectic edge. He left breaking and became fascinated with performers like Flip Wilson, Freddie Prinze, and Richard Pryor. Consequently, the desire to make people laugh drew him back to the stage at places like the upper west side’s Stand Up New York, The Comic Strip in the upper east side, and the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village. At age 17 standup became his new voice. Eventually his musical side came calling to be recognized. It was then that the voices of people like Andres Segovia, John McLaughlin, Paco DeLucia Son House, and Jimi Hendrix began to join all the other voices he loved. All these exploits and years of traveling around playing guitar, acting and doing comedy in stand up and sketch comedy forms eventually earned him a full scholarship to the newest Graduate Acting Program at the University of Southern California. Soon the world of one man shows moved into his sights. It was in this realm that Ernie would find the creative room for all of his individual abilities to coincide in harmony in whatever capacities he chose. There is where he has been ever since.
PS 15/PAVE
Hello All!
Hopefully some of you will be able to join us at our public hearing on Wednesday, April 14th @ 6:00 (sign ups to speak begin @ 5:30). If not, please consider leaving a message, and encouraging others to do so, at the proposal email or phone number (718-935-4390, D15proposals@
Thanks so much!
In Solidarity,
Our Position and Message:
1. We oppose the extended co-location of PAVE Academy beyond June 2010.
2. We reject this revised process and want the record to show we do not believe it complies with State Education Law.
3. The revised EIS still fails to address the negative impact on PS 15 and does not provide a proper analysis of the facts:
-Special education services, mandates, and testing accommodations are not accounted for in the utilization formula, the footprint, or the EIS. 15 rooms are needed for testing accommodations, which is already impossible this year. Second grade classes are being forced to leave the building on trips in order to have all of the needed space. Related service providers are traveling the building looking for space to serve or assess their students. At least four rooms are needed for related service providers, none are allocated.
- Enrichment and intervention services are not accounted for in DOE space policies. The EIS treats these needed services as luxuries. Our children are more than entitled to utilized space to have the programming and services schools in non-minority areas have such as science labs, computer rooms, art rooms, etc.
-Community partnership space is imperative to our community. The EIS inaccurately accounts for this space and leaves out the dental program and GED program, gives Beacon only one room when they use three and Lutheran only a 1/2 room.
- Claims PS 15's enrollment has not increased: increased in the last year by 10% and we have projections including K numbers, new classes, and magnet grant that tell us our enrollment will continue to increase. In addition, the city-wide enrollment ave is increasing, this year by 14,000 students. All trends point to our enrollment continuing to increase and this extension will stifle the growth of an AAA school successful serving the Red Hook Community.
-By 2012 the EIS states PS 15 will have 27 full size rooms and 4 half size rooms. This allocation would be insufficient for the basic needs of our building. If there is not growth, we would have 24 classrooms. That leaves three classrooms for clusters (which the footprint allocates us for three even though we need 4 to run the program). This would leave four half size rooms in the entire building for 9 related service providers, guidance, mandated counseling, parent coordinator, ELL, intervention, health and community services (beyond the one room allocated to Beacon and 1/2 room allocated to Lutheran), teacher cafe, PTA room, SETTS teacher, and DOE nurse. Not to mention testing accommodations, enrichment, and intervention services. Clearly this is NOT enough space.
-The EIS is based on PAVE having a new facility. Even if they went into contract on a building today (which they have been saying every few months since 2008 they are doing, even writing in the proposal for 26 million taxpayer dollars that they were in a contact on a building when they were not and still are not), there is no way a building will be completed in three years. Permits, the existing businesses in the proposed space, zoning approval, finances, and the actual construction once all of this is completed will certainly take more than three years. Even on the barest of utilization numbers, PS 15 would be over 100% capacity by this point. Is it the DOE's policy to intentionally overcrowd and undermine a successful community public school in a low-income-majority minority community?
4. Law allows charter schools in NYC access to public school space only when space is "unutilized". There is now and there has been NO unutilized space at PS 15. This co-location has only taken space, services, and programs AWAY from existing students and families who were utilizing and flourishing in those spaces. This policy is a direct attack on the PS 15 and Red Hook Community. The DOE has sought to divide and disenfranchise the families in our community and has undermined the quality education provided to the children of Red Hook. This policy has taken resources away from Red Hook students to benefit a school that serves more than 50% of students from outside of Red Hook, 20% of whom are even out of district (while we neighbor one of the most overcrowed neighborhoods, Sunset Park). This is a destructive policy that does not comply with basic logic let alone law. PAVE must be held to the two year co-location. With over $12,000 in per pupil funding and the private donations they absorb, PAVE board and founders can secure and pay for their own space, or perhaps the DOE can generously find them an alternative space, by this summer.
5. It should also be noted several parents, Red Hook and PAVE parents, have claimed that Spencer Robertson has stated directly to them that PS 15 is closing. Sara Gonzales' office is reporting, and we have heard from other policy makers, that Spencer Robertson is inundating them with phone calls and visits telling them that PS 15 parents and teacher are lying, there is no negative impact, and there is more than enough space in the building. Interestingly, Mona Davids now appears to be going against Mr. Robertson; when the ONLY person who got up and spoke on your behalf at the last PEP meeting is now publicly against you, it is pretty clear who the liar is.
1 comment:
Busy man. Thank God you have a pension that gives you the oppurtunity and time to do this stuff....Actually it wasn't God, it was the hard work of UFT/Unity Leadership.
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