At John Jay, War Rages On

As the sun set and temperatures dropped on Tuesday, more than a hundred students, teachers, alumni, and parents marched in front of the John Jay Campus on Seventh Avenue, carrying signs and chanting slogans like “They say cut back—we say fight back!” and “Integrate, don’t segregate!”

The rally was only another battle in a , when the Department of Education proposed adding a selective new school to the building, which is currently populated by mostly-minority students who travel from outside Park Slope to attend school.

The new school, Millennium Brooklyn, would open next fall in the image of Manhattan’s popular college preparatory school, Millennium High School, with an added special education program for students on the autism spectrum. The school would receive significant start-up funding—money the John Jay campus could have used years ago to fix problems such as leaky roofs and asbestos that have long plagued the building.

"Why does the new school have to come in so the building can be
renovated?" asked Jessica Rios, an 11th grade School of Research student attending the rally.

While many local families are pleased at the prospect of a new option in the neighborhood, the students at the existing John Jay Campus schools resent the neglect that their campus has faced until now.

They fear that the elite new school will ultimately push them out to make way for wealthier white students, and point to the DOE’s concurrent proposal to eliminate two of the three middle schools in the building.

"I feel like this is racism. We don’t understand why they can’t put the new kids throughout the building instead of separating them and making them a whole new school for the people in Park Slope," said Antasia Brown, a senior at the School of Research. "It makes us feel like they supposed to be better than us or something." 

Tuesday’s rally preceded a public hearing on the proposal in the school’s auditorium. The hearing offered the community a chance to make its case for or against the new school, after which the DOE will compile and analyze the arguments. The matter is then put to a vote by the Panel for Educational Policy.

As the hearing began and moderators from the local Community Education Council introduced the proposal, loud boos erupted from the crowd at the mention of the Millennium School.

A moderator calling for civility was shouted down with the chant, “Whose meeting? Our meeting!”

Representatives from each of the three secondary schools were quick to remind the audience of longstanding neglect and lack of funding.

Though the building is no longer plagued by crime as it once was before the original John Jay High School dissolved, the present campus still suffers from a low graduation rate and, as the representatives pointed out, lack of funding.

 “I want to say that the Millennium proposal is an absolute egregious devastating insult to the institutions here,” Assemblyman Jim Brennan said to wild cheers and applause. “I’m going to ask the DOE to take this Millennium School off the table right now.”

 The public comments period stretched on for more than three hours.

Damar Ayee, a senior at the school for Research, stepped up to the microphone wearing a DePauw University Sweatshirt and thanked the teachers who helped him gain a scholarship to the university next fall. Other students accused DOE officials of racism. Teachers from the John Jay schools praised the determination of their students. Teachers from other schools exhorted the audience to read the World Socialist Website and the communist newspaper the Challenge.

 By the time Councilmember Brad Lander took the floor, the crowd had grown restless in the auditorium’s heat. “Mr. Bourgeois Politican!” a teacher from another Brooklyn school called out as Lander approached the mic. “You’re gonna apologize for the system, that’s what you’re gonna do.”

As Lander gave his statement, students in the audience called him a racist and shouted “Time’s up, yo!” Lander persevered and presented a set of recommendations which included eliminating the school’s metal detectors, implementing capital improvements for all the schools, and spreading investment equally. 

Toward the end of the evening, after most of the high-school students had left, a weary-looking Lisa Gioe took the mic and gamely tried to make the case for the new school she would lead as principal. She outlined the ASD-Nest program and spoke of plans to collaborate with the other principals. “I’m about creating strong communities,” she said.

 Gioe was followed by a handful of parents with children in special education programs, several of them at Gioe’s current school, M.S. 447. They praised Gioe’s ASD-Nest program and lamented the current options for high schools catering to special-needs students in Brooklyn. Among these parents was Brooklyn Community Board 6’s own district manager, Craig Hammerman.

 By the time the last speakers had their say, it was nearly ten o’clock and snow was falling steadily.

“I think the schools did themselves some serious harm today by creating an us versus them world,” said CEC President Jim Devor, whose own statement had been interrupted by heckling.

Lander was more sympathetic, though he faced a similar challenge from the audience. “It’s a fairly rigged process,” he said. “The mayor appoints a majority of the Panel for Educational Policy, and the mayor’s team made this proposal.”

 Yet Lander remains hopeful that the hearing could do some good. “I think a lot of people expressed real deep anger, frustration, and sadness,” he said.  “And on the other hand, they expressed a strong set of demands about what the DOE has to do to make this building work, and I will be working very hard to make sure they live up to those things.”

 In a statement issued following the hearing, the DOE extolled the virtues of its new propoal. "Brooklyn families want more high quality choices, and the new Millenium Brooklyn will be an excellent new option for the community,” the statement said.

 A second hearing will take place tomorrow evening to address the proposed middle school truncations.

 “I don’t know how much was necessarily going to be achieved,” said John Jay history and special education teacher Diane Hodson, stepping out into the snow that was already blanketing Seventh Avenue. “But as a teacher, we need to set the example—you can’t go down without being heard.”