SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

Commuters might bemoan this week’s chilly weather, but students of Kingsborough Community College’s culinary arts program took it as an opportunity to hit the beach and chisel some ice.

We went down to the school (2001 Oriental Boulevard) yesterday to pick up some papers at Community Board 15′s office – which, by the way, is temporarily without phone or internet service – and had the good luck of running into Chef Thomas Smyth, one of the head professors with their culinary arts program.

Smyth told us the 16 students of his cold-kitchen class spent four hours on the beach, chiseling away at the giant blocks of ice. Smyth himself wielded the chainsaw to bring the blocks down to size, and the blocks were sculpted into a penguin, a whale and two items that the students jokingly described as ashtrays.

“They get a survey of everything they could do in a cold kitchen,” including creating these decorations, Smyth said.

It’s the first time Smyth and the culinary arts program have been able to do ice sculptures at the school, since the ice supply has been an ongoing problem.

“Actually, this is the first year we managed to get the bloody ice,” Smyth said. “Just to get somebody to deliver a couple of blocks of ice to Kingsborough was a big deal, but now we’ve got that figured out.”

Next year, we demand the class make an ice sculpture of a Sheepshead fish. You hear me, Smyth?

View photos of all the sculptures and the class.

Yesterday was Martin Luther King Day, and while many people stayed home and enjoyed their day off, others rolled up their sleeves and answered Dr. King’s Call for Service. Over 600 volunteers came to Sheepshead Bay High School to paint, cobble and clean for the 10th annual MLK Day of Service.

“The students and teachers that work here and attend school here, live in communities that were most affected [by Superstorm Sandy],” said Erica Hamilton, executive director of City Year New York, to CBS 2 News.

Among the good deeds performed by the volunteers, which culled together students and community members, were the painting of murals designed by students and the building of benches and bookshelves to help spruce up the Sheepshead Bay High School. They also painted handbags and made cards for special needs students.

The murals, all painted by students, reflected different themes including careers, performing arts and literature.

View the photos from the event.

Sheepshead Bay High School students protesting the city’s closure attempts in the last school year. (Photo: Robert Fernandez)

We reported in November that the New York Department of Education was once again looking to close Sheepshead Bay High School, including it on an “early engagement” list. This week, the school popped up on yet another list of low performing schools targeted for closure, according to an article in School Book.

The planned closing of Sheepshead Bay High has been fought for some time, and teachers and administrators have thus far been successful at keeping the school open despite mounting pressure from city officials. This time around, though, the DOE doesn’t appear to be pushing an immediate closure at the end of this school year, but “phasing out,” meaning no new students can enroll at the school.

According to School Book, the High School’s closing hasn’t shocked its staff:

Robin Kovat, a social studies and law teacher at Sheepshead Bay High School, said the announcement Monday did not surprise her.

“The D.O.E. has been trying to close us for nine years. They are finally succeeding. Even though we knew it was coming, it is still so sad,” Kovat said.

Sheepshead Bay was one of the high schools the city wanted to “turn around” this year. Despite a new principal and additional support systems, Kovat said one year was not enough time to demonstrate results.

“A lot of us put our hearts and souls into the school and into the kids and really know that we made a difference in their lives. You know, maybe the numbers aren’t reflecting that,” she said. “At the same time as our statistics are going down, we have rising stars. Seriously.”

Despite the disappointment from teachers and administrators, Deputy Chancellor Marc Sternberg and the DOE are taking a hard stance against struggling schools.

“We expect success,” he said in a statement. “After a rigorous review of academic performance, we’re proposing to phase out a select number of low-performing schools. We’ve listened to the community and provided comprehensive support services to these schools based on their needs. Ultimately, we know we can better serve our students and families with new options and a new start.”

UFT President Michael Mulgrew, though, called shenanigans on the idea that DOE provided comprehensive report, noting to School Book, “Large comprehensive schools like Lehman and Sheepshead Bay have been further undermined by DOE policies that led to increased concentrations of high-needs students, but with no increase in the services such students need.”

Source: Lisa Willner

In commemoration of World AIDS Day, which is held every December 1, Edward R. Murrow High School is displaying international AIDS Quilts all week to students.

The displaying of the quilts has become something of a tradition at Murrow, having now entered their 19th consecutive year of display. Three of the quilts are of the international variety, coming from the Dominican Republic, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz gave a speech to students on Monday, stressing the importance of preventing HIV infection through education. Other guest speakers came on behalf of the Gibb Mansion and the Lutheran Family Health Centers, commemorating those who have passed while providing valuable facts to students about the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The event, otherwise known as the AIDS Project Foundation, is hosted by the H.E.A.R.T. Club and Global Quilts. Students are scheduled to view the quilts through their health and physical education classes.

Souce: Lisa Willner

Sheepshead Bay High School students protesting the city’s closure attempts in the last school year. (Photo: Robert Fernandez)

The third time’s the charm? New York City’s school administrators seem to hope so.

For the third time in three years, the Department of Education has again set its sights on closing Sheepshead Bay High School (3000 Avenue X), including it in a list of 24 high schools slated for closure as early as the end of this school year.

The “early engagement” list, reported on yesterday by Gotham Schools, is comprised of schools that the Department of Education says comes up short on student test results, attendance rates, graduate rates and college preparedness. In addition to high schools, it contains 36 elementary and middle schools.

Sheepshead Bay High School is one of seven high schools on the list that the city tried to close last year using the “turnaround” plan, which mandates closing the school, firing the staff, reopening under a new name and hiring a maximum of 50 percent of the teachers from the previous administration. Courts threw the brakes on the plan, though, after the teachers’ and principals’ unions successfully sued, claiming that it violated their collective bargaining agreement with the city.

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Leon M. Goldstein High School. Source: InsideSchools.org

If you are a reader of the New York Daily News, you might have noticed a peculiar trend emerging in their regular coverage: an unending fascination with sex and high schools.

Just last month, we covered such a story, more out of an obsessive tendency towards providing sweeping coverage of all things Sheepshead Bay than for the sort of sensationalism the Daily News is aiming for.

Today, we have a similar story from the News to report, and as it concerns Leon M. Goldstein High School, we still feel obliged to give you a heads up, despite the questionable ethics in such tawdry reportage on display.

The story revolves around a 35-year-old male security guard for Kingsborough Community College who started a relationship with a female student from Leon M. Goldstein High School, which shares the same campus grounds as the college, at 2001 Oriental Boulevard. The guard has since been fired from his post once the mother of the student complained to school officials.

Despite poor judgement on the part of the guard, both parties were of consenting age, and nothing illegal or grossly immoral took place. The guard was an employee of the college, not the high school, and he was not the girl’s teacher or supervisor.

The guard’s firing was based solely on the premise of his behavior being a “bad idea,” and not representative of expected conduct for a school employee.

The Daily News then goes on to tie this story with the one we previously mentioned, concerning  a reassigned Goldstein assistant principal who was accused of having an inappropriately close (albiet non-sexual) friendship with a student.

The dots the Daily News is ostensibly trying to connect, proclaiming Leon M. Goldstein High School as a “hotspot for illicit love affairs,” is both lazy and unfair, especially considering the swift actions taken on part of the school administers in dealing with both matters.

P.S. 253 in Brighton Beach (Source: Google Maps)

New York City has worked hard to reopen all public schools as quickly as possible since Hurricane Sandy battered them with flooding, blackouts, and damaged heaters and equipment, but progress has finally taken a significant step forward in recent days.

For the first time this week, students were finally able to return to their actual schools, as opposed to the replacement transfer schools located in other districts, and attendance has surged to over 90 percent according to a story by NY1. That is a massive increase for a school like Brighton Beach’s own P.S. 253, for which only 12 percent of students showed up at their temporary location in Flatbush.

Part of the problem with the temporary locations set up by the city was the lack of reliable transportation. Many parents had no access to cars or the subways in the weeks following the storm, and a citywide school bus shortage limited the amount available pickup sites.

Even in areas where the regular schools have not reopened, like for Coney Island’s P.S. 188, a return to normal school bus service yesterday helped the replacement location at P.S. 281 in Bensonhurst receive an 80 percent attendance rate. While bus service has increased, so has the chaos that ensued for parents and children trying to figure out a way to navigate to their new destinations.

“A bunch of kids screaming, a little girl screaming,” said one student to NY1. “It was confusing.”

Crowding, chaos, and confusion aside, the return to normal attendance numbers is an encouraging sign for students of Southern Brooklyn looking for any kind of normalcy.

Approximately 20 volunteers came out last night to greet the 24-foot-long truck and unload its haul of donations for Sheepshead Bay residents. (Photo: Erica Sherman)

A group of friends and family living around P.S. 52 have worked hard to bring needed supplies to Sheepshead Bay while others have overlooked our hard hit waterfront. They sent me this e-mail, requesting help distributing supplies dropped off last night by former residents in a jam-packed 24-foot truck.

We need walkers, runners, and bikers to distribute supplies in stranded Sheepshead Bay!

Vote, volunteer, and take home needed supplies!

Volunteers are needed in Sheepshead Bay Tuesday, 11/6 (Election Day!) from 9am to 3pm, and Wednesday and Thursday from 4-6pm to help distribute much needed supplies that just arrived from North Carolina in a 24′ truck.

Come to the Nostrand Avenue entrance between Voorhies Avenue and Avenue Z of the Sheepshead Bay Elementary School (PS 52) to hand out supplies at the school and to fan out into the neighborhood (which still has no heat, power, cell phone service, internet, access to gas, or subway service) on foot or bicycle and distribute desperately needed supplies like food, water, clothes, and toiletries that just arrived in a 24′ truck from North Carolina.  If you have a hand truck or cart, please bring it!

Locals are welcome to come to the school to pick up what they need.  (Please bring your own bags!)

Since you may now vote at any polling place, you can also do that at the school!  We also hope you’ll stay, if only for an hour hour two, to help.

These supplies were collected and delivered by George and Pat Aswad, former Sheepshead Bay and Gerritsen Beach residents who relocated to Havelock, North Carolina, where they opened a restaurant, Crabby Patty’s.  They have no political affiliation; they are just neighbors helping neighbors.  The Aswads and their friends had initially headed to the Rockaways because that is where the media indicated there was most need.  Luckily, they were turned away, but had just enough gas to get to Sheepshead Bay, where they were welcomed with open arms.

Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Walcott at P.S. 195

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Department of Education Chancellor Dennis Walcott visited P.S. 195 (131 Irwin Street) in Manhattan Beach this afternoon, touting the city’s snappy repairs and the return to school of thousands of students across the city.

The elementary school was hard hit by Hurricane Sandy, flooding its hallways with several feet of water and rendering its 70-year-old boiler system inoperable. The Department of Education, working with the janitorial and school engineering unions, pumped out hundreds of gallons of water and installed an emergency boiler over the past week, prompting the mayor to declare, “This school’s in good shape.”

However, other schools in Zone A evacuation zones did not fare so well. Nearby I.S. 98 Bay Academy (1401 Emmons Avenue) remains closed with heavy damages, as do schools like Mark Twain Junior High School (2401 Neptune Avenue), John Dewey High School and P.S. 277 Gerritsen Beach. As of this writing, 23 schools in Brooklyn remain closed.

“Some of these schools we could not get open and those students we’re going move to other schools if things aren’t fixed by Wednesday,” Bloomberg said.

Still, 94 percent of schools are open today, according to Bloomberg, and the preliminary attendance estimate is 86 percent.

“That’s about the same as the Monday before election day as last year, and we didn’t have Sandy last year, so that’s great,” Bloomberg said.

There are 16 more schools that are still being used as emergency shelters, which the city intends to relocate by Wednesday – although they acknowledged that won’t be the case for every location.

Chancellor Walcott noted that the system’s 8,000-strong school bus fleet was largely undamaged, and 7,400 buses were on the streets today. Metrocards were also distributed to students staying at the city’s emergency shelters.

On Wednesday, even more students are expected to return to school as those in relocated institutions are shuttled to other schools. For that, the mayor referred to today’s transportation situation as a “dry run.”

“In the context of trying to move lots and lots of kids, it was a relatively successful first day. We’re going to look at what works and what didn’t work,” he said.

Bloomberg added that there will be buses at closed schools on Wednesday for those families who didn’t get the news that their school was closed.

The flooded auditorium of P.S. 195 in Manhattan Beach (Source: GothamSchools.org)

Hurricane Sandy didn’t just devastate local homes and businesses, it also took its tolls on approximately 200 school buildings. P.S. 195 in Manhattan Beach and Bay Academy Junior High School were both under water. Others are still without power, or are acting as temporary shelters for hurricane victims. And, yet, classes across the city will resume on Monday for the first time since Hurricane Sandy struck.

Many schools, however, aren’t yet coming back online, and classes will be relocated. Students in these schools will not attend class on Monday, November 5, or Tuesday, November 6, but will attend class at their new temporary location on Wednesday, November 7. Teachers and staff should report to their new temporary location on Monday, November 5, at their regular start time.

The Department of Education has put together a website so that you can find the condition of your child’s school and determine if it will be open or closed, and, if relocated, where the host school will be.

One note: We found that P.S. 195 in Manhattan Beach is listed as open and students are expected in class on Monday. As one of the worst hit schools in the area, we find this hard to believe, and are awaiting confirmation from the city. If your child is a student at P.S. 195, please check this space later.

UPDATE (6:30 p.m.): The Education Department confirms that P.S. 195 will be open tomorrow.