Senator Smith Seeks A New Role For Education

State Senator Malcolm Smith held a town hall meeting at York College on April 15 to discuss education and quality-of-life issues. He stacked the list of speakers with fellow elected officials who spent a considerable amount of the evening discussing the state of the citys schools and the status of the expected windfall from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit.
Two days later, the senator hosted an open house at the Church of the Nazarene for parents interested in enrolling their children at his new charter school, which will open its doors this fall in Far Rockaway. In May, Smith is planning another town hall meeting to discuss changes taking place at Springfield Gardens High School.
Educations Role
"Everybody has a purpose in life," the senator told The Queens Courier when asked about his offices emphasis on education. "If I can educate them, at least they can find out what that purpose is."
Senator Smith is the first elected official in the city to start his own charter school, the Peninsula Preparatory Academy School, and bear the weight of its responsibility.
Come September, when the inaugural student body opens its books, success or failure will lie squarely on his shoulders. And he openly accepts the challenge.
"I wanted to start a school that I was responsible for," he said. "Instead of just complaining about the system, I wanted to do something."
And, having personally gone through the entire application process to start one, hes confident that he can create a successful charter school for K through 5th graders.
"He fully understands he is not a figurehead for the school," said Sean C. McRae, a longtime educator and the chairman of Senator Smiths Education Advisory Committee. "He has actually gone through the process of applying and has been grilled by the Department of Education."
New Charter
School
The $2 million charter school, which will operate out of PS 53, will start with grades K through 2nd and, based on its success, will expand each year until it reaches the 5th.
Smith started the preparatory academy to address underperforming test scores in his district. Its also the reason that hes taking an active role at two other schools in southeast Queens: Springfield Gardens High School and Intermediate School 192 in Hollis.
He and Congressman Gregory Meeks have used their clout as public officials to help obtain grants to reorganize the high school into three smaller charter schools and to convince the Queens Public Library to extend its hours of operation for an after-school and literacy program for the middle school. Smith and his committee are also trying to educate parents about the sweeping changes affecting their children.
"Our focus has been to work with parents in the community in terms of educating them and enlightening them," said McRae.
Three Prep Schools
Springfield Gardens High School is in the process of dividing into three smaller preparatory schools. In February, with money from the United States Department of Education and a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, DOE opened two smaller schools within the high school for freshmen. In the fall, a third, smaller school will open. The three will be filled with freshmen and sophomores until the current juniors and seniors graduate. Then, the schools will encompass all four years.
McRae said the main focus of the three preparatory schools will be to provide individual attention to students. Each day students will have a 45-minute advisory period with their teachers, in which they can learn study habits and life skills.
Smith and McRae acknowledge some parents reservations. In the last few weeks, parents and teachers protested the replacement of the high schools principal, Robert Hickson, before the end of the school year. Hickson stepped down on April 19 and took a job as an assistant principal at a school in Brooklyn.
PTA president Charmaine Ricketts, who helped organize rallies for the outgoing principal, said local politicians never gave Hickson the support he needed to improve test scores and pacify violence. She said that she had spoken to Senator Smith and Councilman James Sanders in the past, telling them that the group homes and transitional shelters in the area affected the schools performance. The children at these shelters are zoned for Springfield Gardens, but many have been low-performing level ones and twos. Moreover, since shelter stays are temporary, these students do not set down roots in the school. But nothing, aside from a town hall meeting, was done about their concerns, she said.
"It was totally impossible for him to do his job with the support he got from the politicians," she said.
Although Ricketts welcomes the preparatory academies, she believes that, despite the setbacks during his tenure, Hickson made some headway at the school, noting that math scores improved enough to keep the school off the State Education Departments Schools Under Registration Review list.
Though he noted that the DOE has not informed him or McRae about the nature of Hicksons departure, the senator said protests are partly the reason he is holding a town hall meeting next month.
"We all want to make the kids perform," said Smith. "Clearly the current system is not working. "