Neighbors to Greet Students at Center for Suspended Teens, While Continuing Opposition to DOE Decision

Park Place Underhill Avenue Block Association (PPUABA) members and neighbors will greet students assigned to the two Alternative Learning Centers (ALC) in the former Mt Prospect Laboratory at 355 Park Place (corner Underhill Avenue) and also continue opposition to their placement in an inadequate facility.

We plan to welcome the young people when they arrive on Thursday and Friday morning.

Your support and participation will show them that residents of Prospect Heights want the best for them and that’s why we want them to have an instructional site fully equipped for their successful learning and their well-being.  For more information, contact the PPUABA at ppuaba@gmail.com with 355 Committee on the subject line or call me at 718 636 9089. 

We are planning a public forum in late October.  Legal and media outreach teams are working.  Participation is the key to democracy and to the outcome of any neighborhood campaign.

We expect suspended high school students to come from all around central Brooklyn for periods of 10 to 180 school days when they are excluded from their regular placements because of behavior problems. Despite continued requests for the information, no official DOE communication with the PPUA Block Association, the Education Committee of CB8, the Community Education Council of District 13 nor the office of our city council member, Tish James, has told us how many students. Rumor has it that 70 have been assigned and under-the-breath asides slip in that only half of them are expected to show up. 

Enough anxiety to go around for the young people and for the neighbors. A misguided policy decision by the mayor and his team at the Department of Education (DOE) is a set-up for friction. “Predictable consequences are a good measure of intent," says Noam Chomsky. 

We will mitigate some of the tension by greeting the young people when they first arrive.  Their instructional site has no kitchen nor lunch room, no gym nor outdoor recreational space, no library nor lab nor auditorium. A return to their regular school depends on spending six hours a day inside for the duration of their suspension, some short term and some long term. 

For background information, you can read previous posts on this blog, which document concerns about the inadequacy of the facility at 355 Park Place as well as study where these young people come from and why they are coming here.  That is available in three research reports published by the NYC Civil Liberties Union. “Education Interrupted” ( 2011), “Safety with Dignity” (2009) and “Criminalizing the Classroom” (2009).  For a national perspective, check out this research done at UCLA:  Opportunities Suspended: The Disparate Impact of Disciplinary Exclusion from School.  

Despite our concerns and our opposition, the young people are on their way.  The case highlights yet again (after the siting of a despite unanimous community opposition) the necessity for debate about mayoral control and public school governance to be open and frank, especially during election season. Public schools are a common responsibility with policy decisions made by elected officials in local and state government.   We can assume differences of information, experience, perspective and opinion among candidates and among residents.   Our relationships in the neighborhood will be strengthened by taking on the issue with respect and listening to each other.  Personal, procedural and party differences are inevitable. We can engage in the spirit the dedication we feel to our homes in Prospect Heights and to the future we share with the young people who soon will be joining us.