By Sarina Trangle
The city said it reached a compromise with Richmond Hill High School over space changes, but school leaders contend the city schools chancellor should have come and extended the olive branch herself.
Students, staff and parents have been protesting the city Department of Education’s plans to hand over an annex currently used by Richmond Hill freshmen to a new district high school during the 2014-15 academic year.
So they welcomed city Public Advocate Letitia James’ announcement in early April that Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña had accepted her invitation to tour the campus and see how children learn in the 22 trailers parked near the main campus.
“I told the chancellor, ‘Please join me at Richmond Hill High School … and see for yourself the conditions of these trailers,’” James said during an April 8 town hall meeting. “She took me up on the challenge. And she’s going to visit Richmond Hill with me and with your elected officials.”
No such visit has been scheduled to date, according to Parent-Teacher Association Co-President Vishnu Mahadeo.
“It showed gross disrespect to this community and I am saddened to say that because she comes with a wonderful reputation, but her reputation is not doing us any good,” he said. “They are playing a numbers game with us.”
The DOE did not respond to a request for comment.
James’ office also did not answer questions about the previously announced visit.
The DOE released May 23 a revised proposal that would allow Richmond Hill HS to retain part of the annex, at 94-25 117th St., and educate 200 students in the former parochial school building for another year. The remainder of the annex would be used by EPIC High School North, a new school previously slated to operate in the entire annex.
The plan also commits to removing the trailers clustered near the main campus, at 89-30 114th St., by the 2016-17 school year.
Still, Mahadeo and the school’s United Federation of Teachers chapter leader Charles DiBenedetto said the compromise failed to allay concerns about overcrowding.
“They’re going to repurpose some new classrooms, turn some facilities that were used as storage facilities into classrooms,” he said. “But getting it done before September — it remains to be seen whether or not that is feasible.”
Ahead of the June 17 city Panel for Educational Policy vote on the matter, the DOE released an educational impact statement touting the revisions as a compromise negotiated by so-called campus squads dispatched to collaborate on how schools share space.
The document said the DOE would admit fewer students and reduce Richmond Hill’s enrollment by 420 to 460 students over the next four years. The DOE believes this would ensure that the school can comfortably accommodate students without trailers and help staff concentrate more on each pupil.
But DiBenedetto said Richmond Hill expects its roster to grow by about 200 next year and intends to stagger school days to help absorb the influx.
Reach reporter Sarina Trangle at 718-260-4546 or by e-mail at strangle@cnglocal.com.
