Hearing To Discuss Fate Of Brooklyn School Turns Rowdy
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Tempers flared Friday night at a hearing over the potential closure of a Brooklyn school.
Parents, teachers, and students attended the meeting with Department of Education officials at PS 114 in Canarsie.
The school is deeply in debt and has been struggling to come back from what staff members call mismanagement by a former principal.
The city wants to close the school and replace it with a charter school.
At one point, City Councilman Charles Barron took over the microphone and stirred up the crowd with his remarks about the DOE. He also said he plans to be arrested in an act of civil disobedience outside education headquarters on Monday.
"Since every child in this district is educable, then whoever's not educating them needs to be held responsible, and that's DOE," Barron said.
Some teachers say the DOE should be held accountable for the school's problems.
The school system's second-in-command said the department is committed to fixing what's wrong with the school.
"We do see this school as our responsibility -- five years ago, three years ago, today. The decision that we're considering about how to improve the school is a sincere attempt to think about what is going to work best for the kids in this school and the kids in this community in the future," said Chief Academic Officer Shael Polokow-Suransky.
Polokow-Suransky said no final decision has been made as to PS 114's fate. He also said the DOE would reconsider its proposal before the Panel for Educational Policy's vote on Thursday.