By Ellen S. Peltonen Evans
I have lived in this neighborhood in Bayside over 50 years, and my two sons went to 205Q when they were children. It was a wonderful school at that time and I understand it still is now.
While I was president of the parents association, we were advised that the Central Board of Education was going to close our school and combine it with PS 188, an older and smaller building.
This did not make any sense to us and we requested a meeting with the Central Board, which they denied us. We held a special parents’ meeting at our school and discussed what we could do to fight this. We rented a bus, went downtown to the Central Board and sat in the street outside the main entrance stopping all traffic.
When the police came, we explained the situation and the officer said if we would wait on the “sidewalk,” he would go upstairs and see what he could do to get us upstairs to speak to the board.
The board allowed three of us upstairs to discuss the matter and we advised them we would never allow them to close our school as their reasoning did not make any sense. You don’t combine two schools by closing the newer, larger building.
As I believe that many people living in the neighborhood now and sending their children to 205Q have no idea what happened years ago, I thought you might be interested to learn of this and all we went through to keep our school open.
Ellen S. Peltonen Evans
Oakland Gardens
