Daily News - Brownsville parents...

Brownsville parents and teachers outraged over students sharing PS 140

BY RACHEL MONAHAN DAILY NEWS WRITER

Tuesday, July 1st 2008, 10:56 PM

Brownsville parents and teachers are outraged over plans to put two transfer schools - for overage, undercredited students - into a building where middle schoolers attend classes.

They're also asking why Brownsville isn't slated for a high school for neighborhood teens.

"The parents are extremely angry," said Yolanda Hector, Kappa V Middle School PTA president. "[We] are not comfortable with the transfer high school because of the age difference."

"My feeling is that, yes, all students deserve an education, but it's inappropriate to put 16- to 20-year-olds in the same building as middle school [students]," said teachers union district representative Karen Blackwell-Alford.

The transfer schools, Brooklyn Democracy Academy and Metropolitan Diploma Plus High School, are slated to open this fall in the Rockaway Ave. building where Kappa V and Public School 140 are located.

"The question we have for the mayor,: Why two transfer high schools and not a regular high school?" said Ualin Smith, who teaches seventh-grade science at Kappa V. "We just want a decent high school that the kids of Brownsville can apply to."

Parents also expressed concerns about their childrens' safety with older students in the building.
"God forbid the system brings [the older students] there and they [hurt] my son," said Lafleur Edwards of Brownsville, whose son, Dylano, 11, will be a Kappa V seventh-grader. "When I'm done suing the [Department] of Ed, they'll be bankrupt."

"My school is District 75 students," said Robert Berger, who teaches at PS 140, of his special education students. "Many of them have emotional issues....It [isn't] a good idea."

Department of Education spokeswoman Melody Meyer said students will be kept separate, not even sharing time in the cafeteria and gym.

Agency officials have held at least two meetings with parents, Meyer added, and school officials have discussed combining resources to buy computer equipment or to renovate.

"We've been working very closely with the parent leaders of the schools," Meyer said. "That said, there is a need for transfer schools in Central Brooklyn."

But parents said the Department of Education was taking away their choices.

Frita Mendez, mother of sixth-grader Seremmay, 11, and eighth-grader Iseinie, 13, said she chose Kappa V over a sixth-through-12th grade school because she was concerned about her daughters being in school with older students.

"I didn't sign on for something like this," she said.