Teachers: Jamaica students left out in the cold

At the Ida B. Wells School in downtown Jamaica, special education teacher Frank Walker grew so desperate to stop the cold air blowing into his classroom that he covered the ceiling vents with heavy-duty garbage bags.
“It’s difficult to try to keep students engaged when they’re complaining that they’re cold and uncomfortable,” he said, describing how the young women in his class bundled themselves in winter scarves and coats for weeks in an effort to keep warm.
But Walker’s students weren’t the only ones left out in the cold.
The school, which operates in a leased building managed by Solil Management, serves young mothers enrolled in the city Department of Education’s (DOE) Living for the Young Family through Education (LYFE) program. The program, which helps students obtain their high school diploma, also provides on-site day care for the infants and toddlers of enrolled students.
According to teachers who work there and teachers’ union representatives, there has been no heat on the third and fourth floors of the building where the classrooms and cafeterias are located since at least December. However, the second floor, where the day care center is located, has remained heated.
Work on the roof to repair the heating system has been ongoing for the past few months, according to the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). However, in the past month, with the onset of colder weather, attendance has dropped dramatically.
Union officials have been lodging complaints to the DOE since the week of January 29, according to UFT President Randi Weingarten. At a press conference on Tuesday, February 6, Weingarten said that the DOE had been promising since then to move the students to an offsite location, but that it has yet to be done.
“This is the first we’ve heard about it,” said DOE spokesperson Margie Feinberg. “We didn’t hear about it before and we’re taking action now,” she continued, stating that as of Wednesday, February 7, students would be moved.
Their children, however, will remain behind at the school in their heated day care.
Weingarten called the solution “a stop gap at best.”
“It is not a good solution to go somewhere else. We want people to be able to get back here as soon as possible,” she said.
Weingarten referred to the school as a “hovel” and noted that there have been problems with its elevator and broken doors in addition to the lack of heat for the last few months. She also said the DOE has withheld rent payments recently.
“Obviously there is some kind of fight because the Department of Education hasn’t paid rent in two or three months.”
Feinberg said that the lack of heat was an issue between the building’s landlord and the contractor repairing the rooftop heating system.
Solil Management LLC could not be reached in time for comment.
“If the Department of Education would focus on what happens in the classrooms and the day to day workings of the school rather than trying to reorganize the world, I think things like these would be fixed more easily,” said Weingarten.