Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza announced that he will hold a town hall meeting on Community Education District 24 in December in Maspeth.
The timing of the town hall comes as a tense moment for the district after the Queens district attorney’s office announced in September that it was investigating accusations that Maspeth High School engaged in grade fixing and cheating.
The forum is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 17 at P.S. 58 School of Heroes, located at 72-24 Grand Ave. The gathering will be followed by District 24’s monthly meeting at 7:30 p.m.
The grade fixing debacle is far from the only issue in the school district, which contains 55 public schools and stretches over Ridgewood, Maspeth, Glendale, Middle Village, Elmhurst, Corona, Woodside, Long Island City and Sunnyside. District 24 has the fourth-highest level of overcrowding in the city, according to a report released by the City Council in 2018.
The host site, School of Heroes, is an example of this trend. According to an enrollment report, the school is currently 37 students over its target capacity.
On top of that, Councilman Robert Holden, whose council district overlaps with the most of the school district, has recently been clashing with the chancellor over a number of issues.
Holden has played an instrumental role in publicizing accusations made by several MHS teachers that the school’s administration of intimidating them into passing all their students. At the end of October, Holden called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the entire Department of Education for inflating grades around the city.
Two weeks ago, the councilman organized a protest aimed at Mayor de Blasio and Carranza over the proposed homeless shelter on Cooper Avenue, which he has been advocating to turn into a school for special needs students for years. He accused Carranza of personally killing his plan to build a new school, before one of Holden’s staffers mounted the stage to call Carranza racist.
The town hall will provide Carranza an opportunity to address these issues and concerns among others. To register for the town hall, visit the Eventbrite site.
