I am a proud parent of a third grader at P.S. 184Q in Whitestone. Over 70 parents attended an emergency PTA meeting held June 17th to voice their frustration over budget cuts that are forcing our principal to increase our class sizes to 35 students in both fourth and fifth grades by removing a class from each.
This coupled with the fact that P.S. 184 has had no instruction in music, art, library, and physical education for years because we have no adequate funding. To make matters worse, we were told recently that the Science cluster is also being taken away just when fourth graders will be taking science state exams next year.
So many neighboring schools in our area are able to have these programs and more made possible by the Department of Education (DOE) or grants that support instruction. For years, we have been told that the salaries being made by the P.S. 184 community are too high resulting in disqualification from obtaining the funding we need. This is shocking and untrue.
The neglect and lack of concern by the DOE is unacceptable and borders on neglectful abuse. In our case, the “No Child Left Behind” slogan needs to be changed to “EVERY Child left behind.”
While the P.S. 184 administration hurled obscure DOE formulas at the angry parents attending this PTA meeting about how we are lacking the numbers to support a third class, it only exacerbated our outrage into a pro-active stance to take our fight further up the DOE chain of command, to our government officials, and to the media.
We believe that any organization that forces a school to increase class sizes at such a young age and does not recognize the importance of having the aforementioned programs is not worthy to run a school system.
We are determined to bring P.S. 184’s issues to the forefront and request all parents of P.S. 184 to advocate for our children’s education by calling 3-1-1 to file a complaint with the DOE. They should also be writing to City Councilmember Tony Avella, Assemblymember Ann Margaret Carrozza, and our State Senators Toby Ann Stavisky and Senator Frank Padavan requesting they petition the DOE to restore cuts to P.S. 184 before the 2009-10 school year begins.
