What Message Does It Send When a New Principal Doesn't Show Up for Parent-Teacher Night?

There were 2 days scheduled at different times to make it easier for families to come in:

1. Thursday March 22 for a full school "day" (Teachers in from 2-10pm, parents and anyone who is considered family by the student could stop in any time between 4 and 10pm or
2. Friday March 23between 1 and 3pm.

At least I met some family members who are willing to work with those of us who are curious about using this year extra year we have managed to win back to put together a quality proposal for a better transfer school, a BCNHS 2.0, perhaps, as I have called the project that some of my students are working on.

I gather that having a partner institution with comparable vision is key.

Obviously, I do not want to work with my current principal again. No one I have spoken with wants to. In fact, she sent a colleague to the "rubber room" based on hearsay that was corroborated by not one of the many witnesses within close earshot, including myself. I am the next to be excessed. That colleague was responsible for getting a lot of the press coverage that garnered political pressure for keeping our school open an extra year, thereby allowing a fair number of our students to graduate who would otherwise have aged out of high school (we have a special exemption from the gym requirement) if forced to transfer to a school requiring more credits or would possibly have simply dropped out, out of frustration. Some of this second group is starting to trickle back now that word is spreading that we will be open through June of 2008 for students who need that time to earn more credits to graduate.

Did our current principal in any way contribute to the rush to close BCNHS? I will not point fingers at one person because there is a limit to the motivation and power of one person.

I will say this: Our current principal claimed to be surprised by the December 2006 announcement of our closing. However, she had already submitted an application to the Dept. of Education's Office of New Schools to start a brand new transfer school...in the DAY TIME. (She has always hated the nighttime hours.) Perhaps I will quote it here for laughs sometime. THE ENTIRE APPLICATION PAPER IS UNDERLINED, QUOTATIONS AND ALL!

Our CURRENT principal was not awarded her own transfer school. Neither was our FORMER principal, who also submitted a proposal at the urging of a someone at the Region. Unlike the Current, the Former chose not to replace night classes with days, but rather to expand BCNHS to include both. Needless to say, BCDNHS Intergenerational Center did not win either. The Office of New Schools, headed by Josh Thomases, "lost" the application. Guess who is taking the space in the building we are using. The Brooklyn Bridge Academy, in partnership with New Visions, who work closely with -- guess who -- Josh Thomases' MOTHER. No wonder their application did not get "lost" like ours did, despite our 17 years of experience and our need only for expansion funds, not start-from-scratch funds.

Some of this makes it into the papers, and BOOM, a colleague who mailed hundreds of press releases and made many phone calls on behalf of our need for an extra year, ends up in the Rubber Room within days. Hmmmm. Fishy? Or, a warning to the rest of us? Is this kind of thing indicative of why BCNHS is closing to begin with, instead of serving as a model for the many brand-new transfer schools who might be glad for someone to call with questions?

Just some thoughts to chew on.

We Won!! (one more year!)

Now almost every student can graduate before we close.


That's what we were fighting for. Several teachers and at least one guidance counselor, who is also our union representative, worked creatively and poured much effort into this goal. Students wrote essays that are prominently placed on the homepage of the website www.bcnhs.org, and some spoke to the press. Almost every outreach had to be done under the radar.


That's because -- imagine this -- our principal and our local superintendent told us there was absolutely no chance to stay open. What kind of role models were they setting? One of active, involved citizenry? Our principal actually said aloud that we must not allow the students to express territoriality, as if the students are animals who might mark up the place, or worse. But a few ordinary people over a few weeks worked a miracle for the sake of the students. You have no idea how much resistance there was at the Department of Education. But the press was horrified, and THE PRINCIPAL REFUSED TO SPEAK TO AT LEAST 2 REPORTERS FROM DIFFERENT MEDIA.


I guess the principal didn't want to be recorded answering these questions:

1) When did you learn the school might close? What actions did you take to save it?
2) When you submitted a proposal to the Office of New Schools for a separate daytime transfer high school to be built in this building, did you know BCNHS was likely to close? Did you think of connecting the daytime transfer school to BCNHS so that both schools could possibly exist?
3) You are widely quoted as having said that you were ready to close up and leave in June, that you were not thrilled about the addition of the extra year added on. Would you comment please?


It was an outrage that administrative types at Tweed -- standing firmly on the sturdy shoulders of the local level administrators I know personally -- were exploiting our students by closing our "last chance" school a year earlier than promised, leaving over 100 students to transfer to yet ANOTHER high school, after they had settled into a place they were successful, BCNHS. (For some students, we are their 5th high school.)


Also, we are the last high school that allows students to graduate with under 40 credits, because we were chartered with a special dispensation allowing us forgo the gym requirement, which was holding back a lot of students at the time we were founded. Transferring to a school requiring more credits would make some of our students too old to graduate if the rules are enforced by traditional interpretation, so the Department of Education did not look too concerned about education when it insisted on closing us a year too early.


But, we won, meaning that the students won. Now we need to decide whether to decide something else. Should we use this year to design and propose a BCNHS 2.0?

"When they made you, they broke the mold."

LEGEND
they : 3 definitions

1. NYC Dept. of Education
2. Region 6
3. high schools

the mold : 3 definitions

1. The Brooklyn Comprehensive Night HS (22K585)
2. the platonic ideal form of transfer high school
3. the original concept or format of a transfer high school

____________

Well, "they" are about to "break the mold" and close our school with a 1-semester warning. Why? What "they" tell us -- low attendance -- makes no sense in the context of...

1) LACK OF SUBWAY ACCESS to our relocation site (our 3rd "host")

As a transfer school, we attract students from all over Brooklyn and the rest of the city, especially because we offer classes at night. Many work during the day. To stay attractive we have to make it easy to attend, and that means being located within walking distance of a subway station. By removing us from subway access -- by moving us out of our well-located but overcrowded host building in Sept. 2005 -- the DOE deciders had an obligation to place us near a transit hub. Instead, someone in the recent Region 6 at the Dept. of Education guaranteed a steep decline in our attendance beginning in Sept. of 2006.

2) LACK OF OPPORTUNITY TO AVERT ATTENDANCE DECLINE ($, time)

June 2005 - Staff informed of mandatory relocation, hurried to pack. No time or money for staff retreat, to anticipate and respond to challenges such as attendance. Sept. 2005 - School opened in new facility.

Jan. 2006 - Longtime visionary Principal retired. Childhood friend of Region 6 LIS became Principal from ranking Assistant Principal position.Dec. 2006 - Staff informed that the school would close.

3) BCNHS' PASSING SCORE ON THE BRAND NEW QUALITY REVIEW.

If low attendance is what they are telling us,

what are they not telling us?