Michael Duvalle, a CEC 27 member, pleaded with the city to hold its vote on JHS 226. Hannah Sheehan/The Forum Newsgroup
South Ozone Park parents registered their unanimous opposition to the city Department of Education’s proposal to open a new district high school within Building Q226 at 121-10 Rockaway Blvd., which already hosts three middle schools, at a public hearing last Wednesday.
Mike Duvalle, a member of the District 27 Community Education Council, appealed for a moratorium on the plans until further discussion between community members and the school’s new administration could take place. The CEC, he said, voted unanimously two days earlier against the DOE’s plan due to reservations regarding bullying and overcrowding.
“Years after years, they’ve been telling us that we cannot reduce class sizes because there’s not enough room to create more classrooms in the schools,” Duvalle said. “For years, that was the reason we had 36 or even 40 kids in a classroom.”
District parent Mona-Lisa Chandler voiced concerns over tight resources, which have already forced the school to make use of trailers as additional classrooms, and plans for a dance studio that may never come to fruition if space is limited further.
“That was something that was promised to the children and is still in the process of being worked on to be built,” she said.
Chandler also suggested renovating an existing, empty school building to house the new high school as an alternative to the DOE’s plan.
“Let the new high school co-locate with high school students,” she said.
Tykia Moore, a mother of two daughters new to the district, spoke about the dangers of allowing middle school students to mix with high schoolers.
“At the last meeting I asked, ‘How are you going to keep our children safe?’ They said more policing. Our children don’t need more policing. They need more education. They need dance. They need the arts,” Moore said. “They need a greater curriculum, a stronger curriculum, more teachers to help them, reduced class sizes–not a high school to take away from the current space that they have.”
Moore also addressed the difficulties inherent in scheduling lunch periods for so many students.
Parent Mona-Lisa Chandler said she was worried the city’s proposal would create increasingly overcrowded conditions in the building.
“My daughter has lunch at 10:30 in the morning…So what’s going to happen if they put a high school in here? The kids are going to have lunch at 9:30, 9 o’clock? That’s breakfast. Then you’re going to want to know why these children can’t function in their seventh period class,” she said.
Moore added that she worries about the far-reaching consequences of the city Panel for Educational Policy’s vote, which was scheduled to take place Wednesday evening. Often regarded as a rubber stamp for the mayor because the majority of it is made up with Bloomberg’s appointees, the panel is expected to approve the plan for JHS 226. If approved, the new high school would open in September 2014.
“If we don’t do something now, years from now you’re going to be paying for it. You’re going to be paying for it because you’re going to have to take care of these children who are now adults and don’t have an education and can’t afford to take care of themselves,” she warned.
The DOE’s co-location plan will attempt to address overcrowding at Q226 by reducing enrollment at the school over the next three years and allowing the new high school to grow to scale. JHS 226 currently serves 1,371 students in grades six through eight and enrolled between 415 and 425 sixth graders in recent years. If the PEP approves the DOE’s proposal, the junior high school will see a reduced enrollment of 295-305 sixth grade students next fall.
The planned co-location of JHS 226, JHS. 297 Hawtree Creek Middle School, and PS 233 at JHS 226 with the new high school is one of 25 similar plans that were expected to come up for a vote this week before the PEP. Of the initially proposed 28 citywide co-locations, three of the plans were withdrawn in the days running up to the vote.
The PEP previously approved 23 DOE planned co-locations across Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn earlier this month at a meeting on Oct. 15.
By Hannah Sheehan
