Parents and elected officials are blasting the city’s plan to put an elementary school inside Marine Park JHS a few years after they killed a similar plan in the same under-utilized facility.
Two years ago, parents defeated a proposal that would site the Hebrew Language Academy charter school in the building on Stuart Street between Avenue S and Fillmore Avenue. More recently, parents gave the thumbs down to putting a small high school within the building, again citing concerns about mixing age groups.
“How many times are they going to make the same mistakes?” asked Christopher Spinelli, the president of the School District 22 Community Education Council, a volunteer group that represents parents in the district. “They keep pulling from the same playbook. The community is getting tired of that.”
During a public hearing on how the city should use the 300 empty seats, parents overwhelming recommended opening a program for middle school students with autism that they say is needed in the neighborhood and that the school administration had already requested.
Called a “NEST” program, the autism classes would fill a void, said Councilman Lew Fidler (D–Marine Park) and Assemblyman Alan Maisel (D–Marine Park) in a Jan. 20 letter to new Schools Chancellor Cathie Black,
“As students from this area must currently travel either to Downtown Brooklyn or Queens to attend a NEST program, the need for a southern Brooklyn location clearly meshed with the available space within IS 278,” they wrote.
Parent Louise Quinlan said that parents would be meeting soon to mobilize their opposition to the city’s latest plan.
“We don’t roll over,” she said. “And we will not shut up.”
By press time, Education officials had not responded to a request for comment.
