This Article Was Submitted By a TalkBX Reader.
If You Would Like an Article Posted on TalkBX You Can Send The Article To
TalkBox AT TalkBX.Com or VIA Our Contact Page
Renaming An Old School Make It A New School?
School advocates at the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition were thrilled when they read in Mayor Bloomberg’s school construction plan that the city had built a new, 300-student school in their neighborhood.
They thought it might alleviate classroom overcrowding, but there was a problem: It wasn’t true.
According to City Councilman Oliver Koppell, the city had merely just put a new name on an old school.
“We have a number of schools that are substantially overcrowded,” he said. But instead of building new schools, the city is “trying to placate everybody, trying to make it seem like they’re doing more than they’re really doing.”
Middle School 143 in Kingsbridge had been shut down because of poor performance and the New School for Leadership and Journalism, a high school, had opened in its place.
“This was a shock and a half,” said Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter, a member of the coalition board and the mother of a girl who attends an overcrowded high school. “They say they’re building schools, and we’re discovering that they’re just reclaiming seats.”
Bloomberg’s historic $13.1 billion school construction plan calls for 100 new schools for 63,000 children by 2012.








