Parents Irate After Students Denied H.S. Seats
Maspeth High School is scheduled to open its doors this September, but many incoming freshmen who live only blocks away from the campus may not be attending.
The Times Newsweekly was informed by several sources that a host of eighth-graders at I.S. 73 in Maspeth-located about five blocks from the high school being constructed at the corner of 57th Avenue and 74th Street-were informed by the Department of Education (DOE) in writing that their request for admission to the new school was rejected under the Citywide School Admission Process.
Anna Croce, a Maspeth woman whose son at I.S. 73 was denied entry into Maspeth High School, told this newspaper in a phone interview that her child and many other students in the area were devastated by the news.
“Four children on my block who go to I.S. 73 also got rejection letters” from Maspeth High School, she said. She claimed that high school admin- istrators previously assured her and other parents of I.S. 73 students that their children would be “first picked” to attend the local high school.
Instead, many of the Maspeth students were assigned to schools as far away as Far Rockaway, Croce claimed.
Maspeth High School’s first class began in September 2011 in “incubation” while being temporarily based at the Queens Metropolitan High School campus in Forest Hills. Under conditions agreed upon by the City Council and the DOE, the school is zoned to give students living within School District 24’s confines the first priority for seats.
A spokesperson for City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley, Eric Yun, told the Times Newsweekly that the legislator’s office has heard similar complaints from parents of rejected students. The office learned that Maspeth High School “filled up pretty quickly” with students from around the confines of School District 24; there was no evidence to suggest that any students from outside the district were admitted, he added.
The office is now working with parents of Maspeth students who were not admitted to Maspeth High School to see if alternate arrangements could be made, Yun added.
“We’ve been assured that the students accepted to Maspeth High School came from the local area,” Crowley said in a statement on Tues- day afternoon. “I will continue advocating for Maspeth students who have not been accepted so that they have the opportunity to attend their local high school.”
Local civic groups, including District 24’s Community Education Council, repeatedly called for Maspeth High School to be “locally zoned” to give children living in the surrounding area a chance to attend their neighborhood school, but those requests were ultimately rebuffed.
“Unfortunately, it’s a district school. You could live right across the street from it” and not be admitted, “but some other person five miles away could get in,” said Nick Comaianni, CEC 24 president, in a phone interview with the Times Newsweekly. “I always wanted it to be a locally zoned school. We disapproved [of the school’s construction] because that was my fear.”
Comaianni noted that parents and students could always reapply for admission to Maspeth High School during the second round of the admission process, but he cautioned that there is no guarantee that it will improve a rejected student’s chances of getting into the school they want to attend.
“I think somebody should really take a look at the distance that kids are applying from,” he added. “It make sense to give [priority] to someone living a block away.”
Once construction is completed at the Maspeth site in September, the incoming sophomores will join the new freshman class there. Two additional classes will be added to Maspeth High School in the ensuing years, bringing the maximum total to about 1,100 students.
The Times Newsweekly contacted the DOE for a comment regarding the situation, but as of press time, no reply was provided.
