Category Archives: Education
Resorts World Casino New York City has generated more than $105 million for the New York Lottery’s Education Fund in less than five months after opening, according to the latest Lottery Report released yesterday. 44 percent of Resorts World’s earnings are given to the fund as part of an ongoing commitment to support New York’s education system. “Improving our education system has been a primary goal from the very beginning of the video lottery program, we are proud that our … Continue reading
While a new Elmhurst library is being built, a temporary library has opened to serve the community at 85-08 51st Avenue, near Broadway in Elmhurst. The temporary library is across Broadway from the old library, which is currently in demolition to be rebuilt. The newly built library is anticipated to open at the end of 2013 on the same site as the previous building. It will be double the size of the old library, featuring four levels for customer service … Continue reading
As a vote slowly approaches to close and reopen 33 schools, the fight is gradually escalating against the Department of Education and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The Queens delegation of the City Council met Thursday, March 15 near Borough Hall to protest this turnaround plan. The initiative closes a school, renames it and then reopens it with the principal and half the teachers replaced. The student body would remain unchanged. Eight of those 33 schools are in Queens, and borough leaders … Continue reading
Parents got the walk through, but the Department of Education (DOE) won’t say what’s next. Answering the call of angry residents and Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, DOE representatives followed Community Education Council 24 on a tour of a Woodside intersection that parents say is endangering their kids. Two high-ranking DOE officials walked the route from the Big Six Towers in Woodside to P.S. 229 in Maspeth. But they gave no indication if parents might win back the bus service that’s … Continue reading
As trucks were rumbling past behind Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer and students from P.S. 229, he and parents explained why kids shouldn’t have to dodge those trucks to make it to school. Last week, they were standing in front of the intersection at Laurel Hill Boulevard and 61st Street where vehicles were disembarking from the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. The group was there to keep pressing the Department of Education(DOE). Last month, the DOE promised to reassess a decision that took … Continue reading
After a public shaming aimed at the Department of Education (DOE), parents at a Maspeth school won a second chance at bus service for their students. DOE representatives have agreed to reassess an intersection at Laurel Hill Boulevard and 61st Street in Woodside that dozens of P.S. 229 students must traverse to get to class. Parents say sending an 8-year-old child across the complicated intersection where trucks disembark from the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE) is a deadly risk. The Office … Continue reading
Congressman Bob Turner (R-Queens) wants to give parents who pay for private school a tax break. At a news conference in front of St. Margaret School in Middle Village on Friday, March 2, Turner introduced the Tax and Education Assistance for Children (TEACH) Act. “When a parent chooses to send their child to a nonpublic school, they are freeing up capital and opening up a desk for another child. Yet even though they no longer use the resources of the … Continue reading
Thanks to a new pilot program, the next must-have mobile app could be developed by any one of Ridgewood’s brightest students. Ridgewood-based Grover Cleveland High School was recently selected as the only school in New York State—and one of only five nationwide—to be part of a pilot program initiative aimed at giving schools the tools they need to create new mobile apps, which could potentially be used nationwide. The pilot program, called the Mobile App Curriculum, is designed to promote … Continue reading
Several schools in Queens are in danger of closing – including Grover Cleveland High School in Ridgewood, Richmond Hill High School and John Adams High School in Ozone Park. The Department of Education (DOE) is inviting residents to attend public hearings for changes in school utilization during the public review period. According to the DOE, all the schools that have proposed changes will hold a public meeting to garner public comment on the proposals, before the Panel for Education Policy … Continue reading
Another Queens educator was arrested last week for allegedly sexually abusing students. He was the fifth of six Department of Education (DOE) employee arrested on sexual charges in February. Students at P.S. 52 in Jamaica complained that Brett Picou, a 30-year-old teacher’s aide, slapped and held the buttocks of six female students between November and February. Picou lives in Far Rockaway but turned himself in to officers at the 112 Precinct in Forest Park Thursday, Feb. 23. It wasn’t immediately … Continue reading
Parents with children at District 27 opposed to the controversial middle school choice proposal can rest easy—at least, for now. Citing the loud opposition to the city Department of Education’s proposal since it came before parents late this past fall, Community Education Council (CEC) 27 voted unanimously, 7-0, Monday to reject the plan, which effectively ends discussion on the matter unless it is proposed again in the future. The proposal would have created a single application form and process … Continue reading
Despite a breakthrough from Albany in the deadlocked debate on teacher evaluations, 33 city schools—including eight in Queens—may still replace half their teachers as part of the contentious turnaround plan. In the early morning of Thursday, Feb. 16, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the New York State United Teachers union reached an agreement to implement teacher evaluations for the state. They also hammered out an appeals process that could apply in New York City. If the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) … Continue reading
A Rego Park teacher who was investigated in 2000 for inappropriately touching students was arrested Thursday, Feb. 16 for allegedly sexually abusing two boys in his classroom last school year. Wilbert Cortez, 49, is a computer teacher at P.S. 174. Between Sept. 7, 2010 and June 30, 2011, Cortez allegedly placed his hands over the pants of two boys and rubbed their genitals. The incidents happened separately, and one included multiple occasions when Cortez allegedly rubbed one boy’s crotch and … Continue reading
Calvin Covington was driving a bus full of sixth-graders home from Intermediate School 77 on Thursday afternoon in Ridgewood when he smelled smoke. He passed Eliot Avenue on Fresh Pond Road around 3:15 p.m. and dismissed the scent as coming from the gas station at the intersection. After another mile, he still smelled the smoke and then the acrid odor of wires burning. He pulled over as soon as he could at 74th Street and 58th Avenue in Maspeth and … Continue reading
Community Board 6 announced their capital and expense budget for 2013 at their monthly meeting on Feb. 8, which aims at saving a local school program that could disappear at the end of the 2011-12 school year. Each year, the board must put together a list of 10 local items that they believe need additional funding for the 2013 fiscal year. The board submits this list to the state government. This year, the board put more funding for the Beacon … Continue reading