Sunday, February 06, 2011

A Student's View: How Not to Close a School

From: "Portside Moderator" <moderator@PORTSIDE.ORG>


Date: Thu, February 3, 2011 9:18 pm


To: PORTSIDE@LISTS.PORTSIDE.ORG


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A Student's View: How Not to Close a School

by Melissa Kissoon



January 31, 2011





http://insideschools.org/blog/2011/01/31/a-students-view-how-not-to-close-a-school/

I was victim of a high school phase out. Do you know what


it's like to have four new schools come into your school


building?


The first year after the Department of Education announced


that my school, Franklin K. Lane High School in Brooklyn,


would be closed, we weren't allowed to set foot on the


fourth floor anymore. The next year, the DOE split the rest


of the floors in halves. So, if your classroom was around


the corner, you could no longer just walk over to your room.


You'd have to go upstairs and around and back down stairs to


make it to your class. As a result of this, many students


were late for their classes. Students missed class time and


got in trouble because our school was chopped up and our


building was divided!





The great teachers we once loved either switched to the


other schools in the building or left. There is no longer a


library in the building, because Lane doesn't have enough


money for a library and the other four schools have small


budgets. Students with essays due and no printer or computer


can't print - then they struggle to figure out how to pass


their class.





Almost all the after school activities belong to the other


schools, including the sports and the ROTC. Two of my


friends are in their last year at Lane. One of them is only


taking one academic class. He scored well on his SAT and is


applying to Brown University but there are no Advanced


Placement classes for him to take and he is done with school


every day at noon. My other friend was told last year that


he had enough credits to graduate. He was 16, a junior and


not ready for college. There is a difference between having


enough credits to graduate, getting a rigorous education,


and being prepared for college.





The phase out has failed us all, hundreds of us in Brooklyn


and thousands of us in New York City. I was a cheerleader,


so school pride was important to me. There is no longer


school pride, there is no encouragement, there are no


familiar teachers, there are no resources to help us pass.


All that remains is a push, a push out of the school by any


means possible.





I graduated and I'm in college now, at City Tech. But I look


back at the last four years of my life and I feel robbed of


my high school experience. My school was no longer MY


school; I was basically being kicked out of a school that


made a promise to support me and give me all I need to pass.


If the Department of Education is truly committed to


students, they must include us in decisions about OUR


education.





[Melissa Kissoon is an 18-year-old graduate of Brooklyn's


Franklin K. Lane High School, which will close this year.


The school began to "phase-out" to make way for new small


schools while she was a junior. She is a youth leader with


Future of Tomorrow and the Urban Youth Collaborative. This


blog post was adapted from the EdVox.org website.]





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