KOPPELL DEPLORES LACK OF COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT IN SELECTION OF SMALL HIGH SCHOOLS AT CLINTON
In
speaking to Chancellor Walcott at a meeting of the Education Committee,
of which he is a member, on March 21, 2013, Council Member Oliver
Koppell
deplored the lack of community involvement in the selection of the two
new high schools to be co-located at DeWitt Clinton High School.
After DOE decided on the concept of co-location in spite of community opposition, Koppell said, “It
would have behooved the Department to consult
with the Community Education Council parents ,and local community and
educational leaders before deciding on what type of school was
appropriate for the area.”
According
to Koppell, he had not been apprized of the nature of the new schools
nor was there a description of the type of schools to be selected
in the Impact Statement or at the public hearing held about Clinton’s
fate on February 21, 2013 Marvin Shelton, Chair of the District 10
Community Education Council, said,
“We were not consulted or given a description of the new schools prior to their being selected. Everyone was kept in the dark.
I believe that not even the Panel for Educational Policy was
aware of the nature of the new schools when they voted on the
co-location.”
Koppell said, “Our students in the Northwest Bronx would have
benefitted from a school similar to the Ellis School on the Kennedy
Campus devoted to the needs of newly arrived immigrants. One of the
reasons Clinton received an “F” on its Progress Report
is that it had a disproportionate number of English Language Learners
without the resources necessary to meet their needs.”
Koppell
said it was unclear why the description of the two new schools at
Clinton was kept such a secret and why our community was excluded from
having any input
into this important decision. “However,” he said, “we probably
should not have been surprised since this behavior is in keeping with
the “top down” philosophy of the Bloomberg administration.”
