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Plan to Move Cypress Hills School Into Boys and Girls HS Postponed: DOE

By Camille Bautista | January 19, 2017 4:01pm
 The Department of Education is considering moving Cypress Hills' Urban Assembly School for Collaborative Health Care into the Boys and Girls High School campus on Fulton Street.
The Department of Education is considering moving Cypress Hills' Urban Assembly School for Collaborative Health Care into the Boys and Girls High School campus on Fulton Street.
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DNAinfo/Camille Bautista

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — A proposal to move a Cypress Hills school into the Boys and Girls High School campus has been postponed to allow more time for discussion, according to the Department of Education.

The plan — which officials have said is not yet set in stone — would move the Urban Assembly School for Collaborative Healthcare to the Fulton Street building in Bed-Stuy.

It was delayed after “substantial and meaningful” feedback from both school communities, the DOE announced this week.

“The DOE decided to postpone the proposal to ensure that Collaborative Healthcare not only had time to plan and create partnerships nearby in the District 16 community, but also Boys and Girls High School had the opportunity to prepare for an organization that could potentially come into the campus,” Tyeshia Smith, Brooklyn director of planning at the DOE, said at a Tuesday meeting.

While there was no official timeline slated for the proposal, officials previously mentioned the possibility of finalizing a plan in early spring 2017.

Now the agency anticipates posting the proposal later this spring and if approved, it would be in effect for the 2018-2019 school year.

At a Jan. 4 meeting, parents, teachers and other community members said they were upset that the DOE had barely communicated them about the possible plan and that the lack of transparency “insulted” them.

The Boys and Girls campus at 1700 Fulton St. currently houses three schools: Boys and Girls High School, Nelson Mandela School for Social Justice and Research and Service High School.

The building has a utilization rate of less than 30 percent, according to the DOE, and moving Urban Assembly from its current Franklin K. Lane campus at 999 Jamaica Ave. to Bedford-Stuyvesant would increase the community’s access to a Career and Technical Education (CTE) school.

Co-locating the health care-focused high school in central Brooklyn would also bring its students closer to several hospitals, officials said.

Stakeholders at the Bed-Stuy high school campus previously said they had nothing against Urban Assembly, but disagreed with the manner in which officials presented the proposal.

Last year, a plan to co-locate Medgar Evers Preparatory High School at the campus was withdrawn after pushback from both school communities.

Locals have complained of a lack of “transparency and trust” with the DOE, saying they want involvement from the very beginning of the process.

Temika Johnson, whose daughter is a senior at Boys and Girls, expressed general concerns about multiple schools sharing a building.

“This is a problem throughout the district, the co-locating and merging. Parents look at this and think, 'I don’t want my child part of this confusion.’ You’re trying to get children acclimated, staffing, all kinds of different variables included,” she said.

“As a parent, I’m looking at it like, I don’t want my child in that.”

Johnson also worried that the postponement of the proposal would mean the possibility of a new plan for the school.

“I feel like they’re just going to try to wait parents out, they may get a new batch in that might not be so vocal and they may try to sit something else in Boys and Girls in the meantime.”

Others said the delay would give more time for the high school to focus on improvements.

“I think it’s a good idea for the board to do that, it indicates that they are keeping the word they had given the school community concerning having some input about the development of the campus,” said Sam Penceal, a member of the High Alumni Alliance, a group dedicated to supporting Boys and Girls High School.

“It gives the new principal an opportunity to develop a plan for moving forward with the development and the advancement of the school. I’m one of those who’s happy to hear that it has been delayed.”

Penceal added that the alumni association has been working with school leaders to recruit more students as well as retired educators to work with teachers.

Officials said the DOE will continue to work with central Brooklyn’s School District 16 community prior to posting a proposal this spring.

“Community feedback is essential to this process and in listening to families we’ve decided to extend our timeline to allow for more opportunities to have meaningful discussions and ensure that each school has the support and resources to best serve their students," DOE spokesman Michael Aciman said.