A new charter school for high school students with no shot at getting an education anywhere else is set to open in Longwood in September, over the objections of many at the two high schools that already share the building with a medical and dental clinic.
Not so fast, said several members of Community Board 2’s education committee at a late March meeting with the new principal of ROADS High School, who came seeking a letter of support.
Although the letter would be symbolic, since the city’s Department of Education has already made its decision, board members expressed their unhappiness with the plans to include classrooms for the ROADS students, some of whom face pending court cases, on the same two floors with students from Schomburg Satellite Academy and Bronx Regional high schools on Rev. James A. Polite Ave.
“This school is really going to encroach on the existing schools,” said committee chairman Richard Sherman.
Some board members see a pattern, and believe city officials want to leave residents on the sidelines while they decide the fate of schools.
“We were dissed as a community board because no one came to us. The mayor wants to destroy public schools” said board member Joyce Campbell-Culler, angry that no education officials from the planned school addressed the board until the evening of the education department’s vote to confirm the project.
“Charter schools have money to build elsewhere,” she said, adding “I’m keeping an eye on the public schools in this district because we’re at the bottom of the totem pole in everything.”
The school’s principal, Seth Litt, who has led IS 216 on Fox St. since 2008, told the committee he chose to make the move to the new school to serve students who most desperately need a degree, but who are prone to give up.
“I see former students of mine at the train station who look down at their shoes and admit they’ve dropped out,” he said.
Under charter school guidelines, ROADS’ doors would remain open eight hours a day. The longer school day will benefit older students who are behind, Litt said, allowing them to graduate sooner than they would if they attended ordinary public high schools.
Students between 15 and 17 who are homeless, in foster care, have been held back a year or are involved in the court system, are eligible to enroll. Litt said 195 applications have been received so far for 150 spots. Along with academics, the school would focus on preparing students for the workforce once they graduate.
“We’re trying to create a school for the most at-risk students,” he said, adding that standard schools “don’t want to get stuck with them” for fear of their standardized test scores being lowered.
But the idea that the students will create problems by intermingling with students from the other schools in the building is being overblown, Litt told the board.
“The pot of fear has been stirred,” he said.