A group of students walk past the vacant lot that the Clinton School for Writers and Artists wants to convert into a play space. Photo: Bogdan Mohora

Reported on June 18, 2011

Four days a week at 11:30 a.m., roughly 300 middle school students descend on West 33rd Street for recess. The students from the Clinton School for Writers and Artists play among parked cars and pedestrians on the closed street, fenced in between police barricades and just a stone’s throw from the Lincoln Tunnel entrance.

“It’s impractical,” said Miles Chapin, 56, co-president of the Clinton School Parents’ Association and father of a seventh-grader.

Chapin said that some of the challenges are managing a lunch hour that is divided into three shifts and dealing with business owners, upset that access to their buildings is disrupted while the street is closed. When the street remains open on Fridays, the auditorium that doubles as a lunchroom becomes overcrowded with energetic kids.

Providing outdoor recess space for students is a struggle public schools face.  In the current climate of relocation, closures and consolidation of public schools, many are making due in less than ideal facilities.  In a densely populated city faced with limited open space, schools, like the Clinton School, sometimes close a city street to make do. 

“There are many other schools that have play streets, P.S. 11, our old location, being one of them,” said Susan Kramer, board member of the parents’ association.

As soon as this school year, students at the Clinton School may have a new place to play though.  If parents and administrators have their way, a vacant lot adjacent to the school will be converted into a play area. They’ll be able to get their kids off the street and provide a safe place for recess while keeping the street open for businesses.

On Wednesday, Community Board 4’s transportation committee unanimously passed a resolution to support transforming the vacant lot into a recreational area for students of the Clinton School.

“I felt so gratified leaving the meeting that there was no opposition in the room,” said Miles Chapin.

The Clinton School hopes to use the lot by fall 2011 and the next step will be to get approval from the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.   The parents’ association argued in a written proposal to the transportation committee that student health and safety are at risk because the school building lacks outdoor recreational space.

The Clinton School moved to West 33rd Street in September 2010 and since then closing the street in front of the school to allow students to use it for outdoor recreation has been the only solution.

Marisa Zalabek, parent of a seventh grader at the Clinton School and faculty member at the National School Climate Center expressed concern over the potential for abductions, stating that middle school children are at the most vulnerable age for that kind of crime.

“It’s a straight shot to the Lincoln Tunnel,” Zalabek said.

The proposal also said that converting the lot owned by the Port Authority would improve the health and well being of students by getting them off the street as well as serve the interests of businesses. Planting greenery in the lot to help clean carbon monoxide from the traffic-heavy area was one possibility, according to Zalabek.

In a letter to the Port Authority, Principal Joseph Anderson wrote: “Neighboring businesses have concerns about the ability to receive deliveries during the time the street is closed.”

At the June 15 transportation committee meeting, Bill Young, a representative from Port Authority, confirmed that the space could become a parking lot for commuter and charter busses, but that no deals had been made.  If the request is granted for bus parking, the parents’ association believes the busses will bring new safety and health issues to the school.

P.S. 145, also known as Bloomingdale Elementary, located at 150 W. 105th St., in Manhattan Valley, is preparing to welcome West Prep Academy, a middle school slated to move into the building at the end of June. Photo: Luis Ahumada

Reported on June 17, 2011

Teachers and staff at P.S. 145, also known as Bloomingdale Elementary, have begun packing up classrooms and moving furniture to make space for West Prep Academy, a middle school serving 121 students in grades six through eight, slated to move into the building at the end of June.

Despite initial concerns from administrators and parents at P.S. 145, officials at the Department of Education decided to relocate West Prep to make use of idle capacity available at the Manhattan Valley building. The move will help free up some space in the crowded M044 building, located at 100 W. 77th St., where an elementary school with approximately half the number of students will be moving into the building after West Prep leaves.

Roberto Padilla, the West Prep principal, believes his school will benefit from the move. He is particularly excited that his students will have regular access to a gym and library. His only minor concern: “The space we are going into was designed for pre-k children,” he said. “So we are taking kids who are growing and have big bodies, and putting them into spaces that were designed for small children.”

Some P.S. 145 parents have expressed anxiety about having middle school kids around their younger children. “The age is too different; we shouldn’t put big kids with little kids, it creates problems,” said Mark Hill, a parent of a second-grader enrolled at P.S. 145.

Tina Crocket, the president of the Parents’ Association at P.S. 145, agrees with Hill. She said, “The little pre-k parents are worried about having older kids around the playground, afraid their kids might get pushed around or bullied.”

Padilla isn’t concerned, “Right now we share a floor with another middle school and a kindergarten and there haven’t been any issues in the past two years since we first opened.”

Maya Jones, a teacher at West Prep, said her sixth-grade students had engaged in a buddy program with kindergarteners earlier this year. She said, “They loved it because they were kind of like mentors to the younger kids and it was a meaningful experience for them.” Like Padilla, she doesn’t believe the elementary school kids face added risks. Jones says the move will also benefit teaching at West Prep. “It will be nice for the art, math and science teachers each to have their own rooms; plus, we will have a teachers lounge – which will be great because presently this is like our teachers’ lounge” said Jones while sitting in West Prep’s congested administration office.

Limited space isn’t an uncommon problem in schools across the five boroughs. Recent budget cuts combined with a shortage of zoned school buildings in many parts of the city, among other factors, have exacerbated the overcrowding of schools.

According to Noah Gotbaum, the District 3 Community Education Council president, a shortage of kindergarten and elementary school seats has been particularly severe in the southern zone of the Upper West Side, where West Prep is currently located.

New high-rise buildings have attracted young families, which in turn, have increased demand for zoned elementary schools in the area, prompting the school department to shuffle schools around to free up space in buildings like M044 – which presently houses five schools and is operating above its 1,253 student capacity.

Despite the challenges, administrators at Bloomingdale and West Prep have started working closely together to make the move as painless and seamless as possible. “We are already collaborating and sharing ideas,” said Ivelisse Alvarez, the principal of P.S. 145. “It is going to be a successful co-location because both schools have made a commitment to make sure that all our students succeed.”

The Greene Hill Food Co-op at 18 Putnam Ave. in Clinton Hill is slated to open its storefront to the public this fall after nearly four years of planning. (Photo: Lucas O’Neill)

Reported on Aug. 15, 2011

Had you told DK Holland in 2008 that it would take nearly four years for the Greene Hill Food Co-op to open its doors to the public, she probably would have abandoned the project on the spot.

“If I had known then,” she said, trailing off. “If anyone had known then…”

They didn’t know, however, and as a result the vision of Holland, the president of the Clinton Hill-based food co-operative, is close to coming to fruition. The co-op, which leased space at 18 Putnam Ave. last year, is eyeing a fall opening for its storefront — perhaps as soon as late September.

The aim is to provide access to quality fresh food at affordable prices, a combination that isn’t always readily available in the Clinton Hill, Fort Greene, Prospect Heights and Bedford Stuyvesant communities the co-op expects to draw from.

And when the building, located between Downing Street and Grand Avenue, officially opens, it will mark the final step of what co-op member Anna Muessig describes as a three-phase process.

The first phase started in December 2007, when Holland, who was then a member of the Park Slope Food Co-op, mentioned to The Brooklyn Paper that she was thinking of starting a food co-op in the Fort Greene/Clinton Hill area, where she has lived since 1983. The paper ran an article featuring a photo of Holland and co-founder Kathryn Zarcynski juggling fruit, and in the days that followed some 900 people signed a petition in support of the idea. Weekly meetings soon followed.

“I hate meetings and yet they make me happy because everyone agrees,” said Holland, a writer, designer and activist who sports short auburn and gray hair and a pair of black and neon green-rimmed glasses.

Phase II entailed the creation of a buying club. Co-op members submit their orders online and pick them up on alternating Wednesdays. On a recent pickup day, co-op members came into the Putnam Avenue headquarters between 5 p.m. and 9 p.m., handed over their checks and had their orders fulfilled.

Eventually.

A slight woman with shoulder-length brown hair rolled her bright blue eyes as co-op volunteers struggled to fill her order.

About 4 feet behind where the other members sat to process orders stood four white refrigerators and a large freezer adorned with a square of black chalkboard paint. Yellow and pink chalk marked which fridge contains what — lamb, milk, beef, overstock. “Runners” moved from these vessels to a wall of shelves with boxes of produce and other items, grabbing items and comparing them against the order slip.

Unlike Community Supported Agriculture groups, where members get whatever produce the affiliated farm provides any given week, co-op members select the produce, dairy, meat and other products they’d like from vendors, the biggest of which is Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative in Lancaster, Pa.

“You don’t want to act like a New Yorker,” said the woman, who asked not to be quoted saying anything negative about the co-op. “But I don’t want to wait a half hour to have my order filled.”

This is one of the problems with a young co-op. Part of joining means work — sweat capital — and all members are theoretically required to do a four-hour shift every few months, a number that will increase once the storefront opens. On this Wednesday night, however, a couple of people hadn’t shown up, and things were busy.

“This is what happens when people don’t do their shifts,” Holland said at one point.

She later clarified that most members were conscientious, but either way the scene was slightly disorganized, a symptom of the co-op’s main hurdle: a lack of members. It has taken so long to open the storefront because few of those 900 people who initially expressed interest actually signed on.

That means there are fewer people to do the heavy lifting — to plan, attend meetings, stock shelves, fulfill orders, make fliers and do outreach.

Fewer people also means diminished buying power, which is problematic in two respects: First, the co-op isn’t able to get the best bulk prices; second, it’s not able to buy a diverse a range of items, which means fewer choices. There are some: Sweet Ella’s peanut butter is $4.61, versus $3.71 for a comparably sized jar from Peanut Butter & Co.

But for potential members who might not want — or be able to afford — only grass-fed meat, for instance, this could be a deterrent.

“We don’t have enough inventory to have different price points,” said Aaron Zueck, a tall and trim man with short-blond hair and a beard who was fulfilling orders while simultaneously answering a reporter’s questions.

The co-op is running into something of a Catch-22, Zueck said, where the store isn’t open, so people are less likely to join and people aren’t joining because the store isn’t open.

All of these factors explain why outreach has been a priority in each of the three phases, but especially now. Currently, the co-op is in the midst of what it calls the +1 Project, for which each member is encouraged to find a counterpart to join. As part of those efforts, Greene Hill will host a community day on Aug. 27 with face painting, storytelling, yoga and dance lessons.

Between the +1 program and the news that the storefront will soon open, the Greene Hill Food Co-op is making significant process, according to Muessig, a Minnesota native who co-chairs the outreach committee. At the beginning of the summer, the co-op had about 250 members; by mid-August, that number had climbed to 425.

“We knew they were there all along,” she said. “As soon as the project became real to them, people started to come out en masse.”

The goal is to get to 700 by the time the storefront opens. Who those members are is important, however. While some people join the co-op simply to get a break on good food, for others there are additional considerations. There is a desire, for instance, to attract long-time residents, people of color and those from a variety of socioeconomic groups who are often underserved when it comes to reasonably priced, quality food.

Bedford Stuyvesant is considered a food desert, or a place devoid of any meaningful access to quality groceries. And Fort Greene has a number of markets, Muessig said, but often they are expensive.

While Clinton Hill has the bodegas and specialty shops, it also has a supermarket that has stood just two blocks from the Greene Hill location for more than 43 years. Rocky Widdi’s father, Wakeem, opened the Met Foods Supermarket branch at 991 Fulton St. in 1967, and since Rocky took over, he has expanded the selection to better serve a neighborhood that, according to Census figures, has seen an influx of young, mostly white professionals during the past decade.

Half of the produce is now organic, and the store carries an ever-increasing selection of all-natural foods. It remains a neighborhood fixture, Widdi said from his office overlooking the store’s interior last week, and the co-op doesn’t really affect him.

“The co-op is nice, but it does nothing for the economy,” he said. “It doesn’t provide jobs. It doesn’t provide taxes. It doesn’t provide anything.

“You save a few pennies, but then you gotta spend three hours a month there.”

But sometimes it’s more than pennies. The same jar of Peanut Butter & Co. that the co-op sold for $3.71 was $4.99 at Met. That can add up. The co-op has worked with the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Families United for Racial and Economic Equality, parent-teacher associations and City Councilwoman Letitia James’ office to spread the word.

“They are making all efforts to make outreach to entire community,” James said of the co-op in an email. “It is about education, marketing, outreach, convenience, product diversity and cost.”

On that last piece, a central tool in food access initiatives for low-income communities is the acceptance of Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards, which deliver public nutritional assistance (formerly food stamps), and Greene Hill recently added this option. Indeed, personal checks and EBT cards are the only forms of payment accepted. Cash is avoided for safety reasons, credit cards because of fees.

The co-op also offers a variety of membership plans: The standard (“lettuce”) plan includes a $150 investment and a $25 administrative fee, but the “apple” plan only requires $5 up front, with the $150 investment spread out over five years. Between those is the “carrot” plan, which requires $25 up front and the $150 paid, in $25 installments, during the course of a year. Nearly a hundred of the current members utilized the carrot plan, while seven joined through the apple program, according to co-op member Nick Collins.

“We really are building a very diverse group of people — racially, economically and in terms of what different people want out of the food co-op,” Muessig said.

And if the altruistic motivations aren’t enough, there is what Holland described as a selfish but universal impetus: everyone wants good food for cheap.

James Hillhouse High School was one of 43 sites around New Haven that offered breakfast and lunch to kids this summer. Photo: Brian Dowling

Reported on July 10, 2010

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – When the school year ended for the city’s public school students, so did regular meal assistance through the national lunch program that provides breakfast and lunch at school to students of low-income families.

As part of a summertime extension of this program, sites around the city opened to provide free breakfast and lunches July 6 to kids who live in areas with a high enrollment in the lunch assistance program.

“Today is cereal for breakfast,” said Betty Forbes, Hillhouse High School’s summer cook, as she walked toward the breakfast and lunch calendars posted on the cafeteria wall, “and turkey, ham and cheese sandwiches with salad and fruit for lunch.” She served breakfast and lunch five days a week as part of the Summer Food Service Program, a federally funded effort started in 1968 to provide summer meals to kids who get free and reduced-price lunches during the school year.

A report, however, showed that the summer nutrition program struggled to provide food to those who needed it last year, and in response, New Haven launched an advertising campaign to increase participation. Advocates think that the number of people participating is low because many people do not know about the program and schools have had to meet a high percentage of school-year participation to open during the summer.

About 509 of Hillhouse High’s 979 students qualified for the free and reduced-price lunch program, but according to Forbes, only 160 made it to the cafeteria on Wednesday. She expected numbers to rise as the weeks pass and more people hear about the program. The majority of kids who ate at Hillhouse were at the school during the day as part of summer classes or other youth programs, and very few are walk-ins, she said.

“If you can’t afford to send your kids to class, at least let them come over and eat,” said Forbes about the few walk-ins. In New Haven, 36 sites were open to children under 18, like Hillhouse, while seven were closed to children enrolled in a summer program at that site.

Participation statewide, though higher than the national average, is still low. Last summer, less than 26 percent of Connecticut kids who participated in the national meal program during the school year continued with the meals during the summer, according to a report by the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

New Haven hopes to increase the program’s visibility with billboards, public service announcements and websites, as well as working with community groups, said Timothy Cipriano, executive director of food services for New Haven public schools. “A lot more could be done, but we lack the financial resources to do more,” Cipriano said. “Ideally we would have banners at every site advertising free meals, more billboards, utilize buses for their ad space.”

A lack of awareness, however, isn’t the only problem, according to Dawn Crayco, child nutrition and policy director of End Hunger Connecticut!, an anti-hunger advocacy group in Hartford, Conn. The other difficulty to increasing participation is making sure sites are available where they are needed. Some areas, Crayco explained, have schools with 30 or 40 percent participation in the school meals program, but because they don’t meet the 50 percent minimum, these schools cannot participate in the summer food program.

Congress is in the process of reauthorizing the program. With the reauthorization, school nutrition advocates hope to see the minimum participation level lowered from 50 percent to 40 percent, which is closer to the pre-1981 minimum of 33 percent.

More stories by Brian

Campus of Essex County College, in Newark, N.J. While unemployment vouchers are accepted at other post-secondary institutions in Essex County, most students exercise the waivers at ECC given its two-year associate program, which serves as a bridge to a four-year education. Photo: Andaiye Taylor

NEWARK, N.J. – Cheritta Stewart knows better than to romanticize losing her job. At least, she won’t do so without qualification.

“I guess I can call it a blessing,” said the 29-year-old Newark native, who has been unemployed since 2008. “But it hasn’t been easy.”

Stewart was a case manager assistant at First Managed Care Option in Parsippany, N.J. when she was laid off; her duties there were mostly clerical. “Had this not have happened, I would have still been there dreaming about going to school,” she said.

The New Jersey Department of Labor’s tuition waiver program for people collecting unemployment benefits provides a bridge to new careers for state residents, including hundreds from Essex County, where unemployment was 11.8 percent as of July, according to preliminary U.S. Department of Labor data. Given its two-year associate degree program, which provides a smoother on-ramp to continuing education for students who are not prepared to leap into four-year programs, Essex County College in downtown Newark has enrolled many of these waiver-wielding students.

The Office of Student Affairs reports that the number of students who applied for classes with waivers has increased in the past few years: enrollment more than doubled from 393 during the 2008-2009 academic year, to 934 during the 2009-2010 year. Students can only exercise the waivers if other financial aid does not cover their tuition in full.

While students who were interviewed said unemployment presented ongoing economic challenges, they were nonetheless grateful for the opportunity to continue their education. None of them could imagine being able to afford classes without the support.

Tykyannah Fields, 28, was laid off from her job at the Irvington Board of Education. She intends to take courses in psychology at Essex County College full-time, and then use her associate degree as a first step to launching a counseling career in the school system.

The mother of three will rely on her network of family and friends to assist her with childcare while she attends classes. Even given the toughness of being unemployed, Fields said she thinks attending school right now is a worthwhile, career-boosting time investment.

The process Fields described for qualifying for the waiver aligns with the process laid out by the state Labor Department.  Unemployed applicants must first attend a series of workshops at a One-Stop Career Center. At the centers, would-be students receive career counseling to help determine a course of study. That chosen course must prepare participants for jobs in high-growth sectors as determined by the New Jersey Department of Labor.

Prospective students must also pass a qualifying exam at the center and be accepted into their chosen academic program. Waiver applicants can select courses after tuition-paying students have first reserved their seats in classes.

Waivers do not cover all costs for students, who are still responsible for books and fees. Patricia Vaden, an administrative assistant in the Essex County College student affairs office, cited the cost of books as the toughest hardship for waiver students to overcome, as those costs can approach the price of a single course.

In addition to the ailing economy, the number of students using tuition waivers has increased because of a federal policy change. According to Dean of Student Affairs Susan Mulligan, a federal policy alteration last year allowing financial aid offices to consider unemployment status when making award decisions increased enrollment by unemployed students. A March 2009 Department of Education memo advised state work force agencies to facilitate financial aid approval for the unemployed.

Despite her endorsement of the program, Stewart noted its key paradox: she had to first be laid off to receive the benefit. Describing her salary while employed as putting her “between a rock and a hard place” – she didn’t earn enough to afford school, but earned too much to qualify for substantial aid – she suggested that the program be expanded to also aid employed workers at lower income thresholds who want to advance their careers.

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A flier lies on the sidewalk outside of 242 Hoyt St. in Brooklyn, where two city-funded day cares face closure in a budget-cutting measure. Photo: Will Holloway

Reported on: July 12, 2010

Ederly Gonzalez doesn’t want to hear about alternative day care centers. She likes her 3-year-old son David’s current day care center.

David is one of 53 children enrolled at Strong Place Day Care, a city-subsidized program near the Gowanus Houses in Brooklyn. Strong Place is one of the 16 day care centers citywide scheduled for closure in less than a month by the city’s Administration for Children’s Services in a budget-cutting measure.

“They feel it’s not a necessity, but it is to this community,” Gonzalez, 38, said earlier this week. “People think it’s just a day care, but to these children, this is like a second home.”

Of the 16 programs slated for closure, 11 are in Brooklyn. Four are within Community Board 6 – one of the city’s 59 community districts – and two, Strong Place and Bethel Baptist Day Care, share the same building at 242 Hoyt St.

“We made the decision to consolidate centers with high-priced leases and where there are nearby alternative child care programs,” Laura Postiglione, press secretary for the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, wrote in an e-mail. “ACS has completed a comprehensive analysis of each of its directly leased facilities, identifying sites where we will be terminating the city’s lease agreements.”

“These closures will achieve significant cost savings,” Postiglione added. “ACS will work with parents of children in affected programs to ensure the continuity of care in their communities.”

According to Postiglione, 837 children citywide would be affected by the closures.

As children were dropped off on a recent weekday morning, parents and administrators alike noted that Strong Place and Bethel Baptist are crucial to families seeking a nurturing environment for their children.

Luvy Tavera, 22, lives in a shelter with her three children. She brings her 3-year-old daughter to Strong Place before heading off to her housekeeping job.

“This is my daughter’s second home,” she said. “She is very shy, but since coming here she is more open and likes to play. When she is here, she forgets that we are in a shelter.”

Lorraine Pennisi is the director of Strong Place, which has been operating for 40 years. “The mayor thinks we are babysitters,” she said. “But we are educators. This is about building people. We’re teaching them a sense of community and responsibility.”

At Bethel Baptist, Luz Santiago, 60, dropped off her niece, whose mother died three months ago. Marilyn Curry, 22, brought her 2-year-old daughter. Curry works two jobs and goes to school online.

“It’s like snatching a lifeline that links families to that sense of security,” said Joan Morris, director of Bethel Baptist, which currently serves 48 children. “It’s their shining star. It’s the safety zone for their kids.”

With July 1 rapidly approaching, parents’ frustration is only growing.

“How am I going to tell my son that he can’t come here anymore?” asked Gonzalez. “That he’s not going to see his friends anymore, he’s not going to see his teachers anymore – how do you explain that to a 3-year-old?”

In an effort to save the centers, Andrea Anthony, executive director of the Day Care Council of New York Inc., recently asked the affected landlords to consider rent concessions.

“The landlord of 242 Hoyt is willing to do whatever he has to do to keep these child care centers open,” she said. However, Anthony noted that in a meeting Thursday with City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn’s staff, six landlords – including a representative for the building at 242 Hoyt St. – stated that they have not had any communication with either ACS or the Department of Citywide Services.

More stories by Will

Touro College’s posters in English and Chinese can be seen all over the Flushing Main Street subway station. Photo: Larry Tung

Grace Lee wanted to be a public school teacher, but she spoke limited English and only had an associate degree.

Lee, a native of Korea, wanted to go back to school to get a bachelor’s degree. But she wanted to be close to home so she could take care of her two young daughters. After seeing an advertisement about Touro College’s Flushing Center, she enrolled in 2007. She said one of the primary reasons was the school’s convenient location on Roosevelt Avenue, just one block away from the Main Street subway station.

“It’s closer to my house,” said Lee, who chose Touro over Queens College, a selective four-year college in the City University of New York system, to which she gained admission. Queens College is about 20 minutes away by bus from downtown Flushing.

Lee, 37, is part of the new demographics of adult immigrants whom many colleges are trying to recruit in Flushing. At the Main Street subway station, it is hard to ignore Touro’s posters in English and Chinese because they are plastered all over the station. Pedestrians often get bombarded by fliers advertising colleges and English as a second language programs.

To attract immigrants, many schools hire multilingual admission officers and advisers. At Touro’s Flushing Center, a full-time academic adviser, Chung Pang, is available to serve more than 200 students of which half are immigrants. Pang, a Korean-born Chinese, speaks Chinese and Korean, two of the most popular languages in Flushing.

The most recent data from the city’s department of planning shows that about 24.5 percent of residents over the age of 5 in Flushing speak Chinese at home while 13.6 percent speak Korean.

In addition to language assistance, schools are offering special courses to appeal to immigrant students. Touro, a nonprofit private institution, offers the class Asian American Experience and Immigrant Experience in America as part of its general education electives.

“We were one of the first colleges that went out to neighborhoods, to reach out to under-served populations,” said Eva Spinelli-Sexter, executive administrative dean at Touro, which operates more than 10 sites in New York City.

Long Island Business Institute, with its main campus in downtown Flushing, is a for-profit two-year college that offers programs in office technology, accounting, medical billing and business. Soon the college will offer a program in homeland security and security management, an increasingly popular major among college students.

Since the college opened its Flushing campus in 2001, it has advertised heavily in local Chinese and Korean newspapers and television. The campus has outgrown its original location in Flushing Mall and moved to a two-year-old building on 39th Avenue with an enrollment of 700 students. Administrators declined to comment on the new program.

Anand Reddy Marri, an assistant professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, wrote in an e-mail that the student population at for-profit colleges is expected to grow at a very high rate.

“These for-profit colleges are very attractive to most non-traditional students and they offer convenient schedules, low barriers to entry, and ready-for-market skills in mostly technical fields,” Marri wrote.

To compete with these institutions, Queensborough Community College, located in nearby Bayside, set up a center in downtown Flushing in 2003. Its popular Port of Entry program, an ESL course that prepares students for college admission, runs eight classes in Flushing but only two on its main campus. The program is advertised in two Chinese newspapers and three Korean ones.

“There is a need there,” said Florence Tse, the program director.

While convenience plays an important factor in many students’ decisions, accreditation is another concern.

Vicky Lin, a native of Taiwan who just graduated from Touro, said she wanted to go to a school where the credits are transferable.

“The librarian at Touro told me that Touro’s degree is recognized by the Chinese government,” said Lin, referring to a list of recognized American colleges released by China’s Ministry of Education.

As for Lee, her positive experience at Touro gave her confidence to continue her education. Recently hired at a local day care center, she is going to pursue at master’s degree in educational psychology at Touro in the fall.

More stories by Larry

Evry Mann, far left, founder and director of the Center for Creative Education, teaches a percussion class. Photo: Celia Watson Seupel

KINGSTON, N.Y. — The new kid didn’t know he was supposed to hold the drumsticks backward, but he had no trouble keeping the beat.

Percussion with Evry Mann, founder of the Center for Creative Education based at 20 Thomas St., teaches essential skills for success in school. Only the kids don’t know it. They think they’re just having fun.

“Listening, cooperation, showing up, paying attention, teamwork,” said Mann. “We teach these without naming them. If I stood up in front of a blackboard talking about team work, they’d all be gone.” The center, a nonprofit founded by Mann in 1989, offers classes in dance and drumming for children aged 5 to 18 and adults. The Thomas Street location also houses a homework room, a kitchen, a computer lab and a recording studio.

“I’ve learned so much here,” said Nichole Naccarato, a 17-year-old Kingston High School student and a member of the center’s Energy Elite dance troupe. “Respect. Responsibility. We’re like a family.”

At a time when the New York State Education Department is threatening to shut down Kingston High School for failure to improve achievement for African-American students and students with disabilities, according to a state Education Department report, the district’s alliance with the Center for Creative Education may represent one encouraging avenue for change.

During the past two years, the district partnered with the center to work with eighth-graders who had attendance problems. “I believe it turned some kids around,” said Nicole Andrews, the center’s administrative director. “They still come and hang out here. They could have hit the ground running, but they come back.”

In 2011, the center will partner with the district in a broader program to offer enrichment programs to Kingston High School students in the newly renovated Carnegie library building. The city’s Board of Education building, which has been vacant for more than 30 years and is next to the high school, will house a new arts and technology center.  Renovations are slated to begin Aug. 18 and to be completed by the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year.

Planning for the Carnegie building includes the center’s participation in project-based learning for high school students as well as after-school arts programs, according to Mann.

“We know a lot more about how kids learn now,” said Mann, referencing William Butler Yeats’ quotation, “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.”

“Our kids are stuck in fill-a-bucket mode,” said Mann.

Naccarato, about to enter her senior year at Kingston High School, echoes that sentiment.  “I wouldn’t say there’s much creativity,” she said about her classes. “It can be kind of boring. It’s mostly taking notes off the board.”

This model of teaching, in which the instructor lectures and students take notes, lacks a sense of relevancy or opportunity for individualized learning and is one aspect of Kingston High School’s education that was criticized by the state in its recent report.

Darrell Herry, 17, a drummer at the center who will be a Kingston High School senior this fall, talked about some of the racial tension at school. “Some of the African-American kids are too stubborn. They won’t open themselves up.” Henry, who teaches younger children at the center, talked about the good teachers at the high school.  “I may have been hardheaded at first, but now I’m open to everything.”

The multigenerational cycle of poverty, Mann insisted, can be broken. “We have this incredible resource. Young, creative, incredible kids we’re just squandering. The arts can be a lifeline.”

More stories by Celia

His students watched closely from their seats on the floor of the school’s central hall, and New York City Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein stood near the improvised stage. It was Oct. 28, three days before Halloween, and the lectern was flanked by two “Pumpkin πs” – jack-o-lanterns carved with the famous mathematical symbol.

“First of all,” began the principal, before stepping forward and thrusting the silver trophy aloft. “Yeah!”

Principal Kenneth Baum raises the trophy after being presented with the Intel Schools of Distinction Award. Photo: Sasha Chavkin

From their makeshift seats, the students responded with a burst of laughter and then cheers. The Urban Assembly School for Applied Math and Science had just won the Intel Schools of Distinction Award for its innovative teaching of mathematics, one of six schools in the nation selected for the prestigious prize.

The school seemed an unlikely candidate for the honor. The 6-year-old public school is located in Morrisania in the South Bronx, one of the country’s poorest neighborhoods. The area’s students got their biggest headlines recently, when a 15-year-old girl was struck by a stray gunshot fired by a 16-year-old boy. Between 81 and 90 percent of Urban Assembly’s students come from families receiving public assistance, with 94 percent eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, according to 2008 data from the New York City Department of Education.

Chancellor Klein called the improbable honor proof that the Bloomberg Administration’s policy of creating new small schools was working. Urban Assembly admits less than 100 students per grade, and according to a June 2009 report by the New School, it is one of 200 new small schools opened under Klein’s tenure since 2002.

“It’s so clear to me these schools are effectively creating options in places where there are very few options,” Klein said following the awards ceremony.

The chancellor’s embrace of small schools like Urban Assembly in Morrisania – one of 22 Urban Assembly schools, each with its own theme – indicated a dramatically different phase for a vision that began as a radical grassroots movement. The idea of creating small schools was first championed by leftist educators and community activists, who envisioned these schools as hubs for social change in poor communities. Mayor Bloomberg seized upon this idea in 2002, when he first took office and placed educational reform at the heart of his legacy.

As small schools have sprouted up across the city, some activists say that the movement’s original ethic of innovation and empowerment has been lost. Roughly 58,000 of the city’s 300,000 high school students now attend small schools, according to a report by the New School.

“The bureaucratic proliferation of small schools feels more like a management strategy,” said Michelle Fine, a Distinguished Professor of Urban Education at the City University of New York and longtime small schools supporter.

Advocates such as Fine doubt that a citywide decision to establish small schools can produce the sense of community that she said is essential in order for these schools to succeed.

Fine’s misgivings point to a broader concern: whether Urban Assembly represents a model of the small schools initiative, or an exceptional case trumpeted by the chancellor to mask a policy that has lost its moorings.

Bringing Math to Morrisania

In a 10th grade Alegebra II section at Urban Assembly, teacher Tim Jones taught his class about piecewise linear functions.

“As you know, I am Senator Jones,” he said. “You are my advisers and you need to tell me which is the best tax policy.”

The class was split up into two rows, preparing to face each another in debate. One group advocated a flat tax, an unchanging linear function, while the other promoted a progressive tax, a piecewise function for which the formula changed in each tax bracket. To get points in the debate, students had to back up their claims with references to graphs handed out by the teacher.

The students’ arguments were longer on social policy than on algebra. “The money from the rich can be used to help the poor,” said one student on the progressive side.

Still, Jones kept bringing them back to the graphs.

Assistant Principal David Krulwich said that the approach showed the school’s broader strategy for teaching seemingly abstract concepts such as piecewise functions.

“This is a really boring topic that no one wants to learn,” said Krulwich. “But tax policy debate is what makes it interesting too. To teach kids to think about a graph and make a logical argument based on it, we would argue, is much more important than learning to manipulate variables.”

The school has introduced a number of these types of innovations to spark students’ interest in mathematics. The key program is the school’s unique, internally developed curriculum that pairs math with a more traditional liberal arts subject such as architecture or social justice. This allows the students to think of math outside of its usual confines of equations and graphs and to see how it’s applied to real world settings.

The school has also adopted block scheduling to allow math to be taught in 102-minute periods. These longer classes provide laboratory-style lesson plans with more time for hands-on learning.

“We get to do activities to help you understand the math,” said 7th grader Iliana Lopez, 12, at the Intel award ceremony. “As you hear it, you can also visualize it.”

In addition, the school tries to build its community by sending teachers on home visits to the families of all incoming students.

Recent test scores and city assessments have shown that Urban Assembly’s approach seems to be working. Roughly 82 percent of its students scored at or above grade level in math, with 92 percent of parents attending parent-teacher nights, according to the Intel Foundation. The school’s most recent assessment from the New York City Department of Education also cited “a dynamic and talented principal,” “hard-working and fully committed” teachers, and a “challenging and stimulating” curriculum.

In Tim Jones’ algebra class, he stopped his students on several occasions as they tried to interrupt each other in the tax policy debate. The material seemed to have captured their interest – even if the enthusiasm was not devoted just to piecewise linear functions.

The Small Schools Movement

In New York City, the movement for small public schools first picked up steam in the 1990s. The campaign, said CUNY’s Michelle Fine, was a grassroots effort driven by parents, educators and community groups who wanted to promote equal opportunity and civic engagement in poor neighborhoods.

Deborah Meier, who created a network of small schools in East Harlem and was a founding figure in the movement, emphasized that school size was a means to creating communities where teachers can learn from experience and develop new practices accordingly. “Small schools give teachers the opportunity to use their minds,” said Meier.

As small progressive schools reached a critical mass in New York, the idea caught the eye of a new mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, who had pledged to apply the management acumen that earned him billions in the corporate world to improving city government. In 2002, Bloomberg won mayoral control of the schools and launched a sweeping initiative to open new small schools to replace failing high schools. The campaign was backed by outside funders, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation has since contributed more than $78 million to the program.

For many of the movement’s initial backers, the victory was bittersweet. The centralized initiative seemed to undermine the spirit of local empowerment that their movement had advocated.

“Somehow Bloomberg and friends and Gates took small as though it were the point rather than a vehicle,” said Fine.

The Urban Assembly School in Morrisania was founded as part of the wave of new schools launched by Bloomberg and supported by the Gates Foundation, in a program called the New Century High School Initiative. Serving in his first job as a principal, Baum has led the school since it opened its doors in 2004.

Baum is a strong believer in the virtues of small schools. He said that the current system has not inhibited him from developing a creative curriculum.

“This award by Intel is outside recognition that not only are we doing things that are innovative, those things are working,” he said.

So far, the data has suggested that small schools have been getting results. An Oct. 2007 report prepared on behalf of New Century Initiative Schools found that the small schools graduated students 78 percent of the time, 17 percent more often than comparable larger schools. New Century schools also graduated students on time at a 20 percent higher clip than city high schools generally, at 78 percent rather than 58 percent.

But questions about their sustainability and their mission remain unresolved.

“A lot of the new small schools have been sort of splashed together without the critical elements of having educators and parents shaping and owning the school,” said Fine.

A 2006 report by the New York Immigration Coalition and Advocates for Children also found that small schools were not providing equitable access to English Language Learners or legally mandated bilingual services.

As the debate on small schools continues, the Department of Education is forging ahead. Department spokeswoman Ann Forte said that all 13 high schools that the city opened in 2009 were small schools. At the Intel award celebration, Chancellor Klein vowed to expand the program during Mayor Bloomberg’s third term.

“There is no question in my mind that it has improved graduation rates,” said Klein. “We are going to continue to create small, rigorous schools.”

“It’s just a mess,” said Evelyn Curry, 75, a retired social worker who has lived in the neighborhood since 1971.

Agnes Johnson (left), a Highbridge resident, and Nadine Foster (right), the principal of Public School 126, have a discussion after the public hearing at P.S. 126 on Dec. 8, 2009. Photo: Delphine Reuter.

The city’s proposal is aimed at making all 10-year-olds start middle school on the same level. In Highbridge, there is no middle school and only one K-6, Public School 126, which will be truncated to a K-5 if the proposal is approved. About 125 children will be sixth-graders next September, according to the principal, Nadine Foster. She added that the pupils would have to travel outside the neighborhood for their next classes. Anxious parents say bullying and other problems are likely to occur on these long trips.

“I’m not ready for my 9-year-old granddaughter to take the bus by herself,” said Yvonne Montague, a 47–year-old nurse and Highbridge resident whose grandchildren attend P.S. 126.

Montague and Curry were among about 150 people who attended a public hearing at the school on Dec. 8. Community leaders, parents, pupils and residents asked Dolores Esposito, the community district superintendent, to convert the school into a K-8.

“This would be a wonderful opportunity for the kids,” said Foster.

It would also go against the standardization wanted by the education department.
But the Highbridge community is growing. Even though a new middle school is slated to open in 2013, it will only offer 389 seats when 2,000 are needed, said Chauncey Young, a community activist who volunteers for United Parents of Highbridge.

“Having a K-8 would give more space,” Young said. “P.S. 126, as a K-6, has always been a refuge for kids who would otherwise have to travel outside the neighborhood.”

Highbridge is bordered by the Cross Bronx Expressway to the north and the Grand Concourse on its eastern side. The pupils cannot reach their schools outside the neighborhood without taking the bus. The impact assessment made by the education department for the K-5 proposal concluded that middle schools like the Science and Technology Academy, three blocks east from the Grand Concourse, should be able to host Highbridge sixth-graders.

Some residents parallel the decision to reduce P.S. 126 activities to the general lack of resources in Highbridge: a year and a half ago, the public library was closed, and it has been years since they could walk to the post office or to a bank. Today, they need to drive there.

Agnes Johnson, a teacher and activist who used to live in Harlem, said the clock was ticking and the community had to work as one.

“You have to tell the people: ‘We cannot afford to live like this anymore,’” she said. “The community has to make their issues a priority for politicians, and not an afterthought.”

Nancy Santiago, parent coordinator at P.S. 126, said the school’s principal could be trusted to raise people’s awareness about the proposal, especially since the fight to get a new middle school has gathered a lot of interest over the past years.

“People are here even if they don’t fully understand,” said Santiago.

Ted Garcia, president of the Community Education Council of District 9, which comprises Highbridge, is confident that people will oppose the city’s proposal with their own.

“If parents don’t stand up for their kids and their rights, the city will do what they want,” he said. “And parents are organizing right now.”

The city’s decision will be made public on Dec.17.