Fear Impact on Learning
School Staff Protest A Move Downtown

By MEREDITH KOLODNER

Teachers and Principals are outraged about plans to uproot a highly successful set of schools on the Upper East Side and relocate them 40 blocks south to make way for Hunter College's new science building.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow 'WHY MESS WITH SUCCESS?': Terry Weber, a Teacher and union representative at the Urban Academy, questions the wisdom of the Department of Education's agreement to move it 40 blocks downtown to accommodate Hunter College, noting the concerns of staff members that new facilities won't be as conducive to learning.

A letter protesting the move was signed by all six Principals and United Federation of Teachers representatives in the building declaring their "unequivocal support" for staying put, but the Department of Education is standing by the plan.

Reasons for Concern

Educators at the elementary school, special education school and four high schools located inside what used to be Julia Richman High School say the move will disrupt the community connections they have built. Many believe that the promised state-of-the-art facility will pale in comparison to the space they currently inhabit, and they fear that their carefully crafted learning methods will be torn apart by the changes that will accompany the move.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow SUSPICIOUS OF THE SYSTEM: Urban Academy Co-Director Ann Cook contends that the Department of Education would not have been so amenable to moving the school more than two miles south if most of the students were white, while Teacher Avram Barlowe laments, 'Everything we have done here has been accomplished in direct struggle with the central bureaucracy.'

"If you have a school that's successful, why would you mess with it?" said Terry Weber, the UFT chapter chair who has been teaching at Urban Academy, in the Julia Richman Educational Complex (JREC) since 1996. "Aren't they saying that the kind of results we're getting is what they want from every school?"

Ten years ago, Julia Richman was referred to as Julia Rikers by most who knew it. It had 3,000 registered students and an actual attendance that often dipped below half of that. With a senior class of 200 students, the school was awarding 25 diplomas, and the mostly Black and Latino students clashed regularly with the wealthy white residents surrounding the school's East 67th St. location.

Today, the schools that moved into the building are recognized nationally as a model of success. The Gates Foundation's education funders called the school "the best example of a multiplex in the country." Graduation and attendance rates are near the 90 percent mark, as is the college acceptance rate for the Urban Academy's racially diverse student body.

But the city says the planned move is a win-win situation. "We're getting a new school for free," said DOE spokesman David Cantor.

Hunter College's plan is to sell the one million square-foot complex at its East 25th St. Brookdale campus to a developer who will build a new school while developing the rest of the land for other uses. Hunter will then level the JREC and construct a new science and health professions building in its place.

Teachers say they do not trust that the schools they have nurtured will retain their culture or even their existing composition if the plan goes through.

"Everything we have done here has been accomplished in direct struggle with the central bureaucracy," said Avram Barlowe, a history Teacher who has been with Urban Academy since its inception in 1986. "We don't have much faith that they will suddenly change the way they operate."

Hunter's Needs

Hunter says that it needs the new building in order to remain competitive and that some of its grant funding is jeopardized by the quality and current size of its health and science facilities, which are split between its East 68th St. and 25th St. campuses.

JREC leaders suggest that Hunter remodel the site at the Brookdale campus instead of the JREC building, but a college spokeswoman says that plan would not meet its needs.

"It is important that we consolidate the science community and health professions within proximity to the main campus at Hunter," said Hunter College spokeswoman Meredith Halpern. "It creates logistical problems for people who are doing labs and research and have to shuttle between the two campuses."

Ms. Halpern added that locating all health and science research at the Brookdale campus would make more difficult ongoing collaborations with institutions near Hunter's main campus, such as Memorial Sloan Kettering, Rockefeller University and New York Presbyterian.

Size Matters

But JREC educators say the harm that will come to their schools with the move could be irrevocable. They fear that the small schools they have created, each housing 300 to 400 students, will be enlarged against their will.

Several years ago, the Department of Education told the JREC schools that because 3,000 students used to be registered at Julia Richman High School, the city was going to add 1,100 students to the existing six schools to make up the difference. The plans were halted by vociferous community opposition.

The city points out that relatively few of the students live near the school. "It's not like a core piece of the neighborhood is being ripped out," said Mr. Cantor.

Educators say it's true that the majority of students come from Harlem or Brooklyn, but they say connections with the community are an integral part of the students' experience.

Allies Among Residents

They say the once-hostile residents, who wanted the school shut down in the mid-1990s, now participate in community service programs alongside the students and are a part of the life of the school. Residents have spoken out against the move at recent Community Board meetings, though some residents have said they support the plan because of the benefits it would bring to Hunter College students.

Educators also say that a significant number of the parents whose children go to the Ella Baker elementary school work at hospitals and schools in the neighborhood. Teachers doubt that many of those students will be able to stay at the school if it is moved two miles south with a longer walk from the subway.

They add that the positive relationship between the diverse student body and the mostly white neighborhood is rare and should be used as a model, not terminated. And some see race and class playing a role in the city's willingness to move the school.

"If the kids in this school were white, we wouldn't be having this conversation," said Ann Cook, co-director of Urban Academy and project manager for JREC.

Mistrust of DOE

Educators in the building, some of whom were worried about giving their names for fear of reprisal by the DOE, said they did not believe that the city understood enough about the conditions needed for effective learning to be able to guarantee that the new space would give them the same opportunities as the current building.

The hallways inside JREC are wide, with space for couches and informal teaching. The school houses a dance studio, a teaching kitchen, a brand new library, two gyms and a 1,400-seat auditorium. A large, child-friendly room is used as a nursery for students' babies. Each school has its own entrance and stairways so that students remain within the small school environment throughout the day.

Mostly, educators say that the move could derail the painstaking progress they have made, and they say that the DOE is mistakenly trying to impose a business model onto their educational institution.

"We have a multi-millionaire who hired a lawyer and now they're just trying to make widgets," said Mr. Weber, referring to Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein. "We don't trust what they will do. Children are not widgets."