Slimeball Walcott, under the direction of the Evil Bloomberg is trying to get a charter school to co-locate at Martin Van Buren HS. Van Buren has been a failing school for a long time, but a new principal and a promise from the DOE has been slowly turning the school around. Yet, in spite of this, around June 16, Mark Weprin's office got wind of this new development which will help kill the school so he, and a few other local politicians got together to try to stop this.
Today,one of the hottest days of the summer a news conference was held in front of the school. I always intend to show up at these rallies, but something always comes up (or I just get lazy) and never make them. But, this was in the neighborhood, so I grabbed my camera and headed over. The politicians, community leaders and others spoke passionately. NY1 covered the event as well as several local papers.
One thing that upset me was the misconception I heard from several of the neighborhood people. They talked (rightly so) of the troubles Van Buren has had these last few years. Many of the students are out of control and the trouble sometimes spills on to the street. These people feel a charter school will solve these problems. They don't understand that the difficult kids will still be in the building. They also blamed the UFT for protecting "bad" teachers and for keeping the system from getting rid of them. They saw no harm co locating schools did to the schools already in the building, denied any services were taken from kids not part of the charter school.
I was happy to hear Tony Avella blame the former principal for many of the schools problems and to even say the DOE may have kept her in place to destroy the school. I was thrilled to here community activists talk about the problems and expenses of having multiple principals in the same building.
(Notice the clock on the wall. The vice borough president commented that it just started working. He then said bringing in the co location would set time back. It was a very profound sentence to end with.)
Today,one of the hottest days of the summer a news conference was held in front of the school. I always intend to show up at these rallies, but something always comes up (or I just get lazy) and never make them. But, this was in the neighborhood, so I grabbed my camera and headed over. The politicians, community leaders and others spoke passionately. NY1 covered the event as well as several local papers.
One thing that upset me was the misconception I heard from several of the neighborhood people. They talked (rightly so) of the troubles Van Buren has had these last few years. Many of the students are out of control and the trouble sometimes spills on to the street. These people feel a charter school will solve these problems. They don't understand that the difficult kids will still be in the building. They also blamed the UFT for protecting "bad" teachers and for keeping the system from getting rid of them. They saw no harm co locating schools did to the schools already in the building, denied any services were taken from kids not part of the charter school.
I was happy to hear Tony Avella blame the former principal for many of the schools problems and to even say the DOE may have kept her in place to destroy the school. I was thrilled to here community activists talk about the problems and expenses of having multiple principals in the same building.
Tony Avella
Washington Sanchez--UFT
8 comments:
I have been a big fan of Tony Avella for years. He is one of the few politicians who "gets it."
Oh, and great photos, by the way!
I love Avella too. He is the only one I bothered to video.
Great pictures and video, PO'd!! I also love Avella. I'm trying to figure out why he's being relegated to run for borough president, which to me is a patronage job and retirement to the dust bin. I was hoping he'd run for mayor. He's been a great state senator, very responsive and always proactive. Thanks for posting on such an important issue. Co-location is nonsense!!
I told Avella I wished he was running for mayor instead of the clowns that are. He said small steps. Guess he knows what he is doing.
The school for the last 10 years has been neglected by the DOE and the prior Principal was allowed to run the school into the ground. She eliminated programs that would have enhanced the school, tried to cut athletic programs, and was never able to improve school security and discipline. Finally a change in leadership took place and the new principal has made inroads in inproving school culture, boosting school morale and started the process of brining in new programs that would recruit better students to the school. Instead of giving the new Principal several years to turn the school around the DOE is in too much of a hurry to get another location for one of their "pet new schools" that will eventually lead to the death of another comprehensive high school "Van Buren". We have seen this happen to all the other large high schools in Queens. THis has to be stopped!!
I worked at Van Buren 20 years ago as a new teacher and received so much support from colleagues AND administrators. So sad to se good schools destroyed by the greedy agenda of multimillionaires.
Look up Sal Albanese's website...he is running for mayor..except I doubt he will make any headway in the democratic primary...he was a former public school teacher and is pretty progressive on most issues..
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