FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Tory Frye
Johanna Garcia
May 21, 2014
District Six Public School Parents Advocate for Using the
Mother Cabrini Space for Current District Six Student Needs
Press Conference
When: Wednesday, May 21, 2014 @6:30 PM
Where: Isabella Geriatric Center (515 Audubon Avenue at 191st Street)
New York City –
District 6 public school parents call attention to the inequity and
injustice of the city paying the rent of a Success Academy charter
school, to be located in the Mother Cabrini educational complex located
in District 6, while current District 6 students are educated in
trailers, substandard school facilities and overcrowded classrooms, and
while numerous District 6 schools are over overcapacity and/or face
imminent co-locations that will compromise students’ educations. The
Success Academy charter school in question was never approved for
District 6; rather it was originally approved for District 1 and then
moved to District 2. There was no community engagement of any kind with
the District 6 parent and neighborhood communities regarding locating a
charter school in our district. District 6 parents are distraught that
their children’s needs and their schools’ needs, to improve, expand and
flourish, continue to be ignored and hampered, while charter schools
are fully supported in expanding and at great expense to the taxpayer.
Gale
Brewer, the Manhattan Borough President, writes, “The siting of a
Success Academy charter school at the former Mother Cabrini High School
is taking place with zero transparency and no public input. For years,
families in the community, CEC members from District 6, and education
advocates have put in the necessary hours of dialogue to lay the
groundwork for Mother Cabrini to successfully transition from a Catholic
school to new and much needed public school in the district. Success
Academy was never a partner in this effort and to be the recipient of
this space is nothing short of a hostile takeover. This sort of opaque
decision-making only breeds resentment and creates divisions. New York
must do better.”
Evelyn Roman, public school parent and Parent Association President at District Six’s Mott Hall School says, “The
Mott Hall School is the highest performing Title I School in District
6. Despite this, it has been left to languish in a “temporary”
building for 27 years. This building has no cafeteria, using a
makeshift one instead, no gym, no library, limited outdoor space (that
is currently in violation of building codes), and tiny classrooms. The
current Mott Hall space was never intended for use as a school. Mott
Hall parents have been advocating for new and adequate space for over a
dozen years to no avail. It is painful that well-equipped spaces, such
as the Mother Cabrini space, have been offered to charter schools,
funded by special interests, while our Mott Hall children are once again
ignored and the hundreds of students who each year seek to attend Mott
Hall are turned away due to lack of space.”
Miriam Aristy-Farer public school parent and President of District 6 Community Education Council (CEC6) notes, “As
a District 6 parent and CEC6 president, it was troubling to learn about
Success Academy coming to District 6 and Mother Cabrini via the local
news, illustrating that there was no public engagement process of any
kind. As a parent at a co-located District 6 school, given how quickly
this decision was made after the state budget passed, I found myself
depressed and asking if we New York City public school parents are
actually now worse off than before. This is very different from the
future we envisioned after the Bloomberg era."
Johanna Garcia, a parent whose children attend PS/IS 187 and the Vice-President of the PTA, says, “Speaking on behalf of the
PS/IS 187 community, the neighborhood school sitting just a block away
from Mother Cabrini, we feel especially betrayed and disappointed in the
utter lack of community input in the decision-making process. In the
past seven years, budget cuts to our school alone have exceeded $1.5
million, resulting in the loss of more than twelve teachers and three
aides. Our school is bursting at the seams and grossly over capacity. So
much so that two years ago, our popular universal pre-kindergarten
program was squeezed out due to overcrowding. The District 6 community deserves and, frankly, was expecting better from the new Administration.”
Yuderka
Valdez, IS 52 parent and school leader says: "Earlier this year over
2,000 JHS 52 parents and District 6 community members signed a petition
against the co-location of a Career and Technical Education (CTE) high
school in the M052 building, when it was first proposed by the Bloomberg
administration, because we knew that such a co-location would
irreparably damage our children’s school and education. Now we learn
that city will spend tens of millions of dollars to house a charter
school in a space that would be perfect for the incoming CTE high
school, sparing our school and our students."
Finally, Kari Steeves, District 6 public school parent states, “The parents of Muscota
New School, one of 3 progressive elementary schools in District 6, see
many needs in our district that will go unaddressed and unfunded,
because public money will be directed toward charter space, not public
school space. Most urgently for our children, we have identified the
need for a progressive middle school in the district to allow students
to continue their education within the progressive model. We have
expressed this need to our elected parent representatives on the CEC and
the District Superintendent. Rather than supporting this need and
others identified by our fellow D6 parents, the city will now pay rent
for and renovate space for a Success Academy charter school at the
beautiful Mother Cabrini campus, even though there has been no movement
within the D6 community to bring a Success Academy charter into the
district. Parents at Muscota call on the state to repeal the amendment
to the 2014 budget that guarantees publicly funded space to charter
schools, which makes clear that the state neither trusts nor cares what
local parents want for their children.”
We
District Six parents, elected parent leaders, public education
advocates, and the elected representatives who support us urge our state
representatives to introduce legislation to undo this disastrous
policy, which forces the city to house or pay rent for charter schools.
We call upon Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Farina to pull out of the
deal to site the Success Academy charter school at the Mother Cabrini
educational complex located in District 6. We urge them to consult with
the District 6 parent community and collaboratively determine how to
use the Mother Cabrini space for current District 6 students. We note
that the District 6 Community Education Council recently passed a
resolution in opposition to the state budget provisions, urging our
state elected leaders to rescind them and calling on the Mayor to work
with the community to address the urgent needs of District 6 students,
in particular the use of the Mother Cabrini space. All are welcome to
join us on Wednesday May 21, 2014, at 6:30 PM
at the Isabella Geriatric Center (515 Audubon Avenue) to hear from
District 6 public school families affected and support our District 6
public school parents, students, schools, families and communities.
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