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Community Corner

Millennium, John Jay and Park Slope

Reflections on the community's relationship with the John Jay Campus

A community is like a marriage in the way that it functions and dysfunctions.

Sure, it’s easy to brush difficulties under the rug and easier still to ignore them entirely. But sooner or later, the truth prevails and long-thorny issues must be dealt with.

Last week was that kind of moment for Park Slope and an important member of its community: the .

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The setting was a sponsored by the Department of Education about the proposal to locate the proposed Millennium Brooklyn High School in John Jay’s Seventh Avenue building.

For too long there has been a radical disconnect between the residential community of Park Slope and the schools in the John Jay complex, which serve, primarily, minority students. Few families from residential (white and affluent) Park Slope have opted to enroll in any of these schools, or even tour through them to see what they’re about.

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As expressed at the hearing, the students at those schools feel like barely tolerated guests in the community, at best, and criminals, at worst. In their remarks, students pointed to the metal detectors and constant police presence at the school as evidence of this.

According to many who spoke at the hearing, the lack of diversity, lack of funding, and sense of separation from the residential Park Slope community have created a segregated institution within a community that views itself as enlightened.

The staff and students, who spoke, truly understand this disconnect and expressed how it’s left them feeling “other” and marginalized.

What is really appalling to staff and students and many in the crowd at the hearing was the huge amount of money that will be poured into Millennium Brooklyn High School — funding that has been repeatedly denied to the current schools on the campus. At the hearing, it was further alleged that the John Jay Campus schools were set up to fail by financial neglect.

Millennium Brooklyn High School is part of the DOE’s coveted New Schools Initiative (it will be the eighth in that program) and money is no object for a program that attracts corporate funding.

It seems that the sky’s the limit for Brooklyn Millennium High School while the DOE claims poverty when it comes to improving the quality of life in the John Jay complex — be it improving ancient bathrooms, plumbing, bell systems, classrooms, windows or walls.

Indeed, the John Jay building is an embarrassment and the fact that it exists within progressive Park Slope is even more embarrassing. Many in this neighborhood would never allow their children to attend a school with non-working bathrooms, no electrical outlets and general derelict condition.

Why is that good enough for the children in our district who go to school there?

Even if the opening of Millennium Brooklyn is ultimately a “win-by-association” for the other schools, it is painfully obvious to the staff and students that improvements to the building and the school would NEVER have happened unless a “Park Slope approved school” was going in.

Last week’s hearing was truly a moment in reckoning for Park Slope and John Jay that’s been a long time coming. Issues that have been categorically ignored came flying out — racism, segregation, better schools for the rich, inferior schools for the poor, and a misunderstanding between community and school populations.

Many who attended the meeting were struck by the eloquence and cogency of the students. Rabbi Andy Bachman, senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim, attended the meeting but had to leave before the public speaking period. The next day he wrote on his blog, Water Over Rocks:

“As unfathomable as it may seem, in our own neighborhood in Park Slope, we are likely witnessing, in our time, the historically anachronistic occurrence of a “separate and unequal” educational system which has deprived the John Jay campus of the funding and support it rightfully deserves.  If this is shown to be true, this is a grave injustice that we must not tolerate in our midst.”

Bachman goes on to discuss the concept of separate but equal in a historic context and notes that on occasion African Americans and Jews have fought together for freedom, justice and equality.

“If it’s true that the John Jay campus has been chronically underfunded; and if it’s true that through misleading information the Department of Education has attempted to open Millennium 2 in Brooklyn without a truly fair and equal attempt to improve the John Jay campus for its existing students and faculty, then we ought to raise our voices against this injustice and demand fairness for all students regardless of race, income or background,” he wrote.

Every community, like every marriage, must confront the truth about its situation and strive to change negative dynamics that result in dysfunction, misunderstanding and anger. The hearing last week exposed many serious issues that must be addressed by the DOE—and the Park Slope community.

The time is now to take seriously the demands of the schools within the John Jay Complex for increased funding, a name change and, perhaps, most importantly, the elimination of the metal detectors. City Councilmember Brad Lander has also proposed a Community/John Jay Council as a way to insure understanding, communication and connection.

Representative Jim Brennan faced the crowd at the hearing with these strong and sound words: “This proposal is an egregious insult to the existing schools. Don’t blame the demonstrators. Take Millennium and take it off the table right now…Strengthen and build what’s here before you. Before you do anything new, you must help those who are here.”

 

 

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