SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

Source: NewYorkCricket.com

I played cricket once. I was in New Zealand, and my host family decided to show it to me in the backyard. All I remember is: 1) I sucked, 2) Holy crap! Is that a wooden ball? Why are they throwing it at me so hard?! 3) I sucked.

Compared to a lot of Brooklynites – or Americans, for that matter – this amount of cricket knowledge makes me an expert by comparison. Outside of specific immigrant communities, the sport is merely an exotic staple of places like Marine Park.

Well, thank goodness our children will be better educated. Kingsborough Community College has launched a cricket program for their College For Kids offerings. College For Kids is a daytime program for kids ages 6 to 12. (It’s fun. I did it one year as a kid, and learned useful skills like how to draw cartoons and make deformed vases…)

Here’s some useful information from NewYorkCricket.com that’s more relevant than my blathering:

Now, cricket stands alongside baseball, soccer, tennis, and swimming, as part of the college’s CFK active programming. The cricket program has attracted 31 girls and 49 boys between the ages of 8 and 13 years old. Some 95% of the boys and girls have never played cricket, while 50% have never even seen or heard of the sport. Coached by USA national cricket coach Linden Fraser and USA national female cricket player Triholder Marshall, the program is gaining traction in popularity among the young players and is expected to be included in the college’s fall CFK programming, on weekends only.

Coaching sessions are conducted indoors and outdoors, using cricket safety sport equipment designed for the age group in attendance. From all reports, the enthusiasm of the young athletes has been very encouraging, more so when the similarity between baseball and cricket is pointed out to the students.

Coach Fraser, who has extensive experience coaching players from youth to the under-19 levels and beyond, said it was a bit challenging at first getting some of the athletes to resist the baseball approach to swinging the cricket bat, as well as the motion of pitching as opposed to bowling. He however stated, “…one would be surprised at how well most of the participants have adapted to the rudimentary techniques of the “new” sport of cricket.”

Stringent new standards for grading state English and math exams are leading to reduced grades, forcing principals to cut many students from gifted programs that no longer meet the requirements.

Below is an excerpt of a New York Times article detailing the problem. With 29 schools offering gifted programs in Education District 22 – which covers Sheepshead Bay – it seems likely that many area schools could be calling up parents to deliver bad news. Have any readers’ families been affected by the new changes?

Here’s the excerpt:

LINDA L. SINGER, the principal of Public School 255 in Gravesend, Brooklyn, has some phone calls she is dreading to make.

Among them: informing 10 families that their children, scheduled to enroll in gifted programs, will no longer qualify, because of new, tougher grading on state English and math exams. And letting the rest of the teachers know that their A-graded school, which had shown consistent progress for years, plunged to a 65 percent passing rate in English, from 85 percent, according to standardized scores released last week.

“When I got these scores I thought I would die,” Ms. Singer said, echoing the feeling in many principals’ offices throughout the city. “Everything is changed.”

There were large drops in passing rates across New York, reflecting new requirements intended to correct for years of inflated results. The exams, state education officials said, had become too easy to pass, their definition of proficiency no longer meaningful. Citywide, the proficiency rate in English fell to 42 percent, from 69 percent last year; 54 percent reached grade level in math, down from 82 percent.

As the plummeting scores sunk in, principals planned strategy and contemplated the unraveling of other achievements, which they were suddenly informed were illusory. In New York City, where test scores are the cornerstone of school accountability, the new numbers, principals feared, could mean the end of their A grades from the Department of Education; a rise in negative teacher performance reviews, which are based partly on state tests; and substandard principal performance reviews.

Read the rest of the New York Times article.

A Kingsborough Culinary Arts student at work

If you’ve ever watched Hell’s Kitchen or Top Chef and said to yourself, “I wish that was me” – this is your chance to develop some real culinary skills for free!

It goes without saying that our economy is in a difficult time. With so many qualified applicants flooding the job market, younger and less experienced job applicants can find the search daunting. If you’re not currently employed or a full-time student, then the CUNY Young Adult Program has a wonderful opportunity for you to add to your skill set and open up a career path. The program is providing free Food Service/Culinary Arts training to eligible people at KBCC. The program is being advertised via Facebook and Craigslist in an apparent bid to appeal directly to 18- to 24-year-olds.

We told you about Kingsborough’s newly-launched Culinary Arts major back in May. The new kitchens, expert faculty and innovative program make this a bargain for young adults.

View the full advertisement and get more info

Photo by Leon L.

P.S. 254 students and their leaders hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday morning for the new school playground. With just a few weeks before summer vacation, the finished playground made its tremendous debut with dignitaries giving speeches and a full day’s program.

Borough President Marty Markowitz came without his light saber, while Congressman Anthony Weiner came without his goat (although he did take jabs at his own expense making reference to his latest political “injury”).

After the speeches, dances, and special performances were out of the way, the kids assembled with their physical education coordinators to show their parents just how much fun they plan on having in their new playground and garden area.

When the playground was demolished back in September 2009, we were told that the work could be done as early as October. But though that never happened, it seems the kids’ suffering without a schoolyard has paid off with the brand spankin’ new fixtures, fields and artwork. And this is a project the larger public can enjoy; the park will be open from dawn to dusk, including weekends. [Corrected]

View the photo gallery

A student prepares hors d'oeuvres for the crowd

Melisa Carbajal’s relationship with Kingsborough Community College is coming around full circle. After finishing an Associates Degree program at the school in 2007, the student is returning to be a teacher. She’ll be one of a handful of chef-instructors in the school’s budding culinary arts program, where she’ll teach healthy cooking for cancer patients and survivors in a partnership with CookforYourLife.org.

“So many good things have happened,” Carbajal said in front of a crowd of about 100 people at Kingsborough last night. “I couldn’t have started in a better place than Kingsborough Community College.”

But had it been a few years earlier, Carbajal never would have had the opportunity.

The group Carbajal spoke to was celebrating the launch of the Associate’s Degree in Culinary Arts, the latest – and biggest – step towards maturing a program that was only born in 2001.

Keep reading to learn more about Kingsborough Culinary Arts program’s development

Daily News is reporting (though only in print, apparently) that Kingsborough Community College Psychology professor Juann Watson is the most attractive teacher in the nation. Watson received the highest score for attractiveness from students on review site RateMyProfessors.com. Kingsborough is proudly bandying about the announcement on its blog.

Here’s the article from the Daily News (click for larger version):

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) filed a lawsuit to stop the closing of 19 public schools, including Sheepshead Bay High School and three other area schools.

The city announced late last month that Sheepshead Bay High School at 3000 Avenue X, Franklin D. Roosevelt High School at 5800 20th Avenue, John Dewey High School at 50 Avenue X, and William E. Grady Vocational High School at 25 Brighton Fourth Road were on their list of “persistently lowest achieving” high schools. The schools on the list would receive federal funding to close or restructure in one of four models put forth by the Race to the Top program.

Teachers and parents are riled up at the city’s betrayal, as the Department of Education moves to abandon students to charter and private interests, rather than fix public education.

City Councilman Lewis Fidler and Assemblyman Alan Maisel, both of whom attended Tilden High School which closed in 2007, are joining the UFT lawsuit.

“When your proposals can affect the futures of so many, you can’t just go through the motions and ignore the letter and spirit of the law,” Fidler told Courier-Life. “Unfortunately, that’s what has happened here. We’re talking about public education. The Department of Education should be listening to people, investing to fix schools they feel are broken, not abandoning them.”

Courtesy of Wikipedia

We haven’t been able to confirm it, but GerritsenBeach.net is reporting that Sheepshead Bay High School, John Dewey High School, William E. Grady High School, and FDR High School are set to close by the end of 2010.

We first wrote in November that administrators were considering Sheepshead Bay H.S. (3000 Avenue X) for closure, but at the time the principal denied the claims. Since then, the city’s list of “persistently lowest achieving” high schools swelled from about a dozen to 34, including the addition of the three other southern Brooklyn high schools.

The list of targets was created as part of a proposal for Race to the Top, a federal grant program aimed at encouraging states to be aggressive in fixing or closing their lowest performing schools. New York State stands to gain about $500,000 for every school it reforms using one of the federal government’s four models. New York Times describes them as follows:

Continue Reading »

P.S. 222 parents say Roll-N-Roaster shortchanged children after a fundraider
(Photo courtesy of irockiroll via Flickr)

Iconic Sheepshead Bay restaurant Roll-N-Roaster is playing Scrooge this holiday season and barking a mighty “Ba humbug” to needy children, according to parents at a local elementary school.

Parents Association leaders at P.S. 222 in Marine Park say Roll-N-Roaster failed to deliver promised donations after a December 1 fundraiser, going as far as accusing the restaurant of “pocketing” money.

“I think we were set up. They were never planning to give us as much as they promised, but we didnt know that,” PA Co-president Mardie Sheiken said.

But while Sheiken and P.S. 222 officials say Roll-N-Roaster shortchanged the school children of hundreds of dollars, the restaurant’s general manager, Ayet Karce, says event organizers violated the agreement and their contribution was “generous.”

Ultimately, Roll-N-Roaster outraged organizers with a paltry $471.00, about half the amount it receives from similar fundraisers at McDonalds. Sheiken said the event was “standing room only” for all three hours, making it impossible that $471.00 was the full 10 percent promised from the agreement.

Continue Reading »

Allison Musacchio (Courtesy of Daily News)

With an ongoing investigation into two teachers allegedly caught naked together on school property, a third teacher at James Madison High School is now also being investigated for inappropriate behavior with a student.

In what Daily News is now calling “Horndog High,” Madison High School is the scene of two shocking revelations in as many days. Today it was revealed that social studies teacher Allison Musacchio, 31, was caught with more than 200 calls and texts to a male student on her cell phone record. Musacchio denies the allegations.

More from the Daily News:

School sources said they learned of Musacchio’s alleged antics in March, after a female James Madison student saw her ex-boyfriend’s phone number on the tenured teacher’s cell phone.

Officials found more than 200 texts and calls between the teacher and the male pupil and yanked her from the classroom, sources said. They said the amount of contact was inappropriate.

Musacchio, 31, was also investigated for having a fling with a former student but the probe was dropped because the teen was of legal age and no longer at the school, school sources said.

Attempts to reach Musacchio at her home were unsuccessful Wednesday, but she has told a neighbor the allegations were untrue.

“She said, ‘Absolutely not,’” the neighbor said. “She said, ‘Are you crazy? With my Greek background, I would never do something like that. I have morals and respect.’”

Meanwhile, Alini Brito and Cindy Mauro, the two teachers caught naked by a janitor during a school recital, appear to be getting a Facebook following. At least two groups have popped up with a combined 800 members.

One group, “Stand Up For Mauro & Brito,” seems to be started by students looking to dispel some of the out of control rumors in the media and defend the well-liked instructors.  That group has a little over 400 members, with present and past students swapping fond memories of the teachers, and expressing support.

On the flip side, “We Demand Justice (and pics) for Alini Brito and Cindy Mauro!!” has almost as many members, but is largely filled with desperate men demanding more photos of the duo, and token revocations of the janitor’s “man card.”