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Locals Out Of Loop On New
School
"School Banner"
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BY NICHOLAS
HIRSHON
DAILY NEWS WRITER
Wednesday, September 5th 2007
Students peeking out the windows of a new Queens transfer school yesterday saw
drama unfold across the street - and quickly learned they would not be getting a
welcome mat from the community.Gathered across the street from North Queens
Community High School in Kew Gardens Hills were residents upset that the city
signed a 20-year lease for the school without getting community input - even
though it might house chronically truant kids and dropouts. Its home is the
former Queen of Peace Catholic school on 77th Road and Main St.
"We never really knew any details of what was going to go on," said Patricia
Dolan, president of the Kew Gardens Hills Civic Association. "We have some
questions that we want the Department of Education to answer now."
With community leaders nodding as she spoke, Dolan outlined her concerns about
school security, a lack of recreation space for students and transportation
problems that might leave them seeking mischief nearby.
Association member Judah Mansbach, 71, admitted the area has a high
concentration of Orthodox Jews who attend yeshivas and leave public schools
underutilized. But he still objected to problem students being bused into the
neighborhood. "They have no roots in this area and they don't care about it," he
said.
Education Department spokeswoman Debra Wexler said transfer school students "are
committed to their education."Meanwhile, city Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh
Meadows), state Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky (D-Flushing), Assemblyman Rory Lancman
(D-Fresh Meadows) and Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn (D-Flushing) blasted the
Education Department for not contacting them before creating the school. "We're
disturbed by the fact that we were never consulted - none of us," said Mayersohn.
"I'm very hopeful that this plan will be removed and the mayor will reconsider
it." But Wexler insisted information about the school was available months ago,
and that Council members were invited to a briefing about all 40 new schools
planned to open this fall. Besides some administrators milling outside North
Queens and laughter coming from the classrooms yesterday morning, crossing guard
Pamela Ross said Day 1 of the new school year had been relatively quiet.
"I didn't see anything," she said. "It's the first day. I'm reserving judgment."
By
Colin Gustafson
Assistant Editor
Queens Chronicle, Wednesday,
September 5th 2007
Lawmakers and locals in Kew Gardens Hills are assailing the Department
of Education for leaving them out of the loop on a newly opened high
school for at-risk youth. City and state legislators claim the
department didn't do enough to consult the community before opening the
school, and residents are fretting about the onslaught of class-cutting
miscreants they're convinced the school will bring to their blocks. But
schools officials say they've got it all wrong.
As more than 1.1 million city school children returned to class on
Tuesday, education officials were staunchly defending their plan to open
a new "transfer school" in Queen of Peace Church, located at the corner
of 77th Avenue and Main Street. The program, North Queens Community High
School, will target students who have either already dropped out or are
on the verge of doing so because of poor academic performance or low
attendance. The school will serve about 200 neighborhood children who
have fallen behind and want to earn a diploma before aging out of the
system. Last year, the church housed the Ida B. Wells School for
pregnant teens and young mothers. But education officials abolished the
program in late May and then inked a 20-year lease on the site to
install North Queens High there. But, up until a week ago, many
residents say they never even knew the transfer school was slated to
open near their homes. Now, they're worried the school will lure the
borough's "chronically truant" troublemakers into their neighborhood.
Citing past problems with truant students from nearby John Bowne High
School,
Kew Gardens Hills Civic Association President Patricia Dolan is
concerned that the lack of an outdoor recreation space at Queen of Peace
Church will cause more students to loiter on private property. "We've
already had kids hanging out in the overpass, trashing stores, pissing
on people's front lawns," she said of some pupils from John Bowne, a
school that has struggled with theft, fighting and poor attendance for
several years. "We don't need any more of that here."
Not to worry, assured Debra Wexler, a spokeswoman for the Department of
Education. North Queens will only serve students who choose to attend
because they want to graduate, not because they have been forced to go
to class, she said. The school will not be a suspension center, nor will
it be a behavioral program for troubled youth. "Transfer schools are
nationally recognized," she explained, "because of their effectiveness
in helping students who have struggled academically to earn diplomas."
Still, lawmakers insist the education department could have done more to
inform residents about the incoming school — if only to forestall
concerns, apparently unfounded, about rabble-rousing. Wexler contended
that the department had made information about North Queens publicly
available months ago and even invited City Council members to a briefing
about all 40 new schools planned to open citywide this fall. "We will
gladly meet with community leaders who seek more information about this
school," she added. But some lawmakers want more than a briefing. At a
Tuesday news conference, Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Fresh Meadows) said
the City Council and local community boards should be given more
oversight in the review process for all new school sites.
Currently, state law requires education officials to seek the council's
approval only for proposals that require new construction, but not on
existing sites, like Queen of Peace, where a school is to be installed.
A unanimously passed Assembly bill, introduced by Education Committee
Chairwoman Cathy Nolan (D-Ridgewood), would allow the council to vet all
proposals —both on leased sites and buildings that are yet to be
constructed. But the Senate has yet to bring the legislation to a vote
in Albany. During the summer, Republican lawmakers proposed an amended
bill that would place community education councils — not the City
Council — at the center of the decision-making process. Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, widely known to favor limits on the council's role in school
siting, supports the Senate bill. But northern Queens lawmakers
—including Lancman, Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows) and
Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn (D-Flushing) contend that the council
should have more of a hand in the matter. "If the Senate had signed onto
the bill," Lancman said outside Queen of Peace Church on Tuesday, "this
problem with this school in this community would have been avoided."
DOE Says New HS Was Not A Surprise
By Liz Skalka
Queens Tribune, Wednesday, September 5th 2007
Some Eastern Queens residents were angered by the creation of a new high
school that opened in Kew Gardens Hills Tuesday without, they said, any
input from the community.
The school, North Queens Community High School on Main Street and 77th
Road, is located in the former Queen of Peace Church building. The
building formerly housed a school for pregnant students. Community
members and politicians, who fear that the schools will house truants
and other bad apples, said because the Department of Education leases
the space it did not have to consult with the community before creating
the new school.
A statement by the DOE said that contrary to what some resident believe,
the 150-student school is not for truant students, but rather it is a
transfer school for overage students with too few credits who are
seeking their degrees. Community members say there are still more
questions that need to be answered for them by the DOE, such as how the
students will be transported to and from the school, where they will
spend their recreation time and how the school will be secured. "When
you have a situation where the local elected officials are trying to
figure out the rudiments of a school, that's a bad situation," said
Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows). But the crux of the argument
against the high school is that the community was not made aware of it
in advance and therefore the school received no local feedback. "The
leased schools shouldn't be second-class citizens with no community
involvement," Gennaro said.
State Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Whitestone) added, "government works best
when it works together with the community." Stavisky said she did not
know the school would be opening until two weeks ago. The DOE's said
that information about the school was made available and that a meeting
about new schools was held for politicians in April. "We made
information about North Queens Community High School publicly available
months ago, and invited City Council members to a briefing about all of
the 40 new schools planned to open citywide this fall," the DOE said.
The politicians noted that State Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan (D-Ridgewood)
sponsored a bill in June that provided that leased schools require the
same level of community input as schools located in buildings owned by
the DOE, which require input from the community. Nolan is the chairwoman
of the State Assembly Education Committee, but her bill was not passed
in the Senate.As a result, "We don't have the laws in place for the City
to come to the community in these cases," Gennaro said. Residents said
that they were only made aware recently of the fact that there would be
a high school in their residential neighborhood "We should have had
input," said Debra Oro, who lives across the street from the school. "It
was all 'hush hush' and it wasn't right." "The community here it's very
quiet neighborhood," she said. "It's a good community, everyone pulls
together. It's a shame they didn't notify us."