Dozens of New York-based Guyanese students and their parents have joined other communities in rallying to save the New York City public schools which are slated to close by the end of the school year in June.
The city’s Department of Education will vote by this weekend on whether to close these schools. Among the schools slated to close are Richmond Hill High and John Adams High located in the heart of the Richmond Hill community where tens of thousands of Guyanese are settled.
These schools have an enrollment of over 4,000 each and their closure will result in severe hardships for the large immigrant population as there are no alternative schools nearby.
Saving the schools has become the three-word mantra of education protests all over the city. Rallies, town hall meetings and public hearings have all served as a public rebuke of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s educational policies.
Parents, teachers and elected officials feel the closures — known as “turnarounds” by the DOE — of Flushing, William Cullen Bryant, Long Island City, Grover Cleveland, August Martin, Newtown, Richmond Hill and John Adams, all in Queens and all having a large percentage of Guyanese American students as well as teachers, will breed chaos and uncertainty for everyone involved.
The DOE has been vague on the particulars of what the ‘Turnaround Plan’ will entail, but it is likely that the eight high schools will be broken into smaller institutions and given new names.
Elected officials and community leaders spoke out against the closure of the schools and tensions are running high because teachers, students and elected officials believe the schools are not actually failing. Officials say that Flushing earned a “D” on its latest report card, though graduation rates have been rising over the past three years.
“It’s so unfortunate that in this community, we have to continue to fight because the mayor does not understand. He doesn’t care,” State Sen. Shirley Huntley (D-Jamaica) said.
State Sen. Mike Gianaris (D-Astoria), a graduate of LIC, said that he has yet to hear one specific reason why closing these schools is in the best interest of the students. “The schools are making slow but steady progress and are headed in the right direction,” Gianaris said. “There is no reason to take such a drastic step.”
Assemblywoman Aravella Simotas (D-Astoria) also expressed concern over the planned closures. “You have to look at who attends these comprehensive public high schools, and the majority of them are immigrant students,” said Simotas, herself a graduate of Bryant.
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