By Michèle De Meglio
Was it a hoax? Parents are wondering if the meetings the city Department of Education (DOE) held to hear the public’s opinions on which small schools should share space at Lafayette High School were all for nothing. Causing the trouble is the department’s admission that the school Bensonhurst residents were hoping would end up at Lafayette never had much of a chance to open. According to a department spokesperson, the World Vista International Studies Secondary School will probably never be housed at Lafayette because one of the members of the committee that proposed the school is a current Lafayette staffer. “Historically, we don’t site leaders in buildings where they came from,” Melody Meyer explained. That’s because, in the past, doing so “has not allowed for a fresh start to allow the school to succeed,” she continued. The DOE says officials will work with the team behind World Vista to open it at another city school in 2008. According to a source, a school with a similar theme of promoting diversity and offering extra help to English Language Learners could be placed at Lafayette in coming years. But that did little to comfort angry community activists. “It was almost as if they knew the school as planned was not going to be placed,” asserted Mark Treyger, president of the United Progressive Democratic Club. “Why wasn’t that told to us at the community input meeting?” “I am disappointed,” Assemblymember William Colton said. “The overwhelming majority of members of the community were pushing for an international studies school.” The school was strongly backed by the United Chinese Association of Brooklyn (UCA), which called for change at Lafayette after several Asian-American students were brutally attacked a few years ago. Steven Chung, president of the UCA, said the school would “promote cultural exchange between the local students and the immigrant students.” Richard Mangone, a social studies teacher at Lafayette and the school’s United Federation of Teachers (UFT) chapter leader, agreed that the World Vista school would have been a good fit in the new Lafayette Educational Campus. “With the predominately African-American and Asian-American population in our school, I do not understand why they did not have the international school,” he said. The schools that will open at Lafayette in the fall include the Expeditionary Learning School for Community Leaders. The school will be partnered with Outward Bound, which offers adventure-based education programs that take students on camping trips to develop in them a sense of teamwork, as well as leadership skills. The building will also house a small school with a focus on film and music. The High School of Sports Management, which is in its third year at a temporary location, will relocate to Lafayette. The school is expected to utilize Lafayette’s state-of-the-art athletic field. Depending on space availability, one or two more small schools could open at Lafayette in 2008.
