The people’s mic drowned out “Bloomberg’s mic” in the Brooklyn Tech auditorium on Thursday, but it didn’t save two dozen schools from closure.
Two busloads of supporters of a West Harlem school were among the hundreds who came to protest the Panel for Educational Policy, which voted Thursday night to close or phase out 23 New York City public schools.
Parents and friends of the Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing and Visual Arts, on 114th Street between Frederick Douglass Boulevard and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, were among the few that had reason to cheer: Wadleigh’s middle school was taken off the chopping block of schools slated for closure on Wednesday, just 24 hours before the vote.
Wadleigh’s supporters had planned to make the hour-long bus ride from Harlem to Fort Greene before learning that their school would remain open, but they decided not to cancel the trip so as to stand in solidarity with other schools in danger of closing.
After the DOE’s joint public hearing at the school last month and backlash from community members and local politicians, the DOE decided to remove Wadleigh from the list, keeping it from closing this year.
Annette Nanton, who has been active in the movement to save Wadleigh as the school’s Parent-Teacher Association president, said that in the movement to save Wadleigh, she remained unfazed and confident about the power of the neighborhood’s voice.
“I was very optimistic about this turning out the way it did,” Nanton said. “It may sound a little funny, but that’s me as a parent and always being an advocate for my kids.”
The Jan. 26 public hearing, she said, was an instrumental force in persuading the DOE.
“They didn’t expect the outpour that we did that night,” Nanton said. “It was a great outpour of the community saying, ‘No, we aren’t going to stand back and let this happen.’”
Parents of students, church members from nearby First Corinthian Baptist Church, representatives from sister school Frederick Douglass Academy II, and members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People packed on the buses on Thursday to go to the deliberation to close or co-locate schools throughout the city.
Betty Davis, a member of First Corinthian Baptist Church, warned her fellow bus passengers against getting side-tracked by Wadleigh’s remaining open.
“Don’t get comfortable. Share and celebrate for a day, but we have real work to do,” Davis said.
As the Wadleigh supporters arrived in Brooklyn, they joined hundreds of other protestors holding signs and chanting in order to disrupt the meeting before the vote took place.
Chants such as “The people united will never be defeated!” and “Education is a right!” echoed through the building as the Panel for Educational Policy, which is appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, voted on the fates of the 23 schools.
Wadleigh may have been saved, but it still faces the threat of charter school co-location, a situation in which at least two schools must share in a single building, according to Davis and others on the bus.
Julius Tajiddin, School Leadership Team chairman of Frederick Douglass Academy II, suspected that an attempt to avoid co-location could have been the underlying cause of Wadleigh’s bout with possible closure.
“I feel that they went after Wadleigh because the principal is very spirited on this issue from day one,” Tajiddin said.
Last week, Herma Hall, principal of four years, announced that she will be leaving the school at the end of the school day today. Tyee Chin, former assistant principal at Edward R. Murrow High School, will be replacing her starting Monday.
Tajiddin said he was fearful of the repercussions of a charter school sharing facilities with Wadleigh, especially since Wadleigh and Frederick Douglass II already share a building.
“If you put a third school in there and chop up our classrooms, we wouldn’t be able to survive,” Tajiddin said. “You can’t get the contiguous learning space. We’re in the basement, we’re on the roof, we’re down the hall.”
City Council member Inez Dickens told Spectator on Thursday that she is also wary of the threat of co-location. Dickens said that removing Wadleigh from the list of truncations is only half the battle.
“This is a partial win because there are two components,” she said. “One was truncation to Wadleigh Middle School, the second part was co-location of another school to the Wadleigh building.”
“Although this was a great win for the community, the issue of co-location in a school that does not have space for existing schools—that is something we have to fight,” Dickens said.
For now, Wadleigh supporters are emboldened by their school’s reprieve and are staying optimistic about its future.
“We have to recognize that we have the power, and we do,” Tajiddin said. “We have to make them feel uncomfortable. Once we realize that we’ll prevail.”
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