Bed-Stuy GED Program Could Be Cut To Make Room For Charter School

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — The city wants to take classrooms away from a local and well-established GED program to make room for a charter school, city records show.

Teachers from Pathways to Graduation — the free high school equivalency prep program located in the Boys High School building on Marcy Avenue — are fighting the Department of Education’s proposal to take away half of their classrooms to make room for up to 450 new charter school students, P2G educator Nicole Greaves told Patch.

“This would surely be a serious blow to our program and diminish the level of services and resources we can offer to our students,” Greaves wrote in an email. “This reallocation of classroom space creates numerous and varied problems.”

DOE officials announced in February their plans to redistribute classrooms at 832 Marcy Avenue, a school complex that currently houses Bed-Stuy Prep High School, Brooklyn Academy High School, and P2G, city records show

Under the new plan, P2G — a DOE-run program for people between the ages of 17 and 21 — would lose four classrooms, an administration office and its storage space, said Greaves.

Bed-Stuy Prep and Brooklyn Academy would be consolidated into one high school while Uncommon Collegiate Charter would take the first, fourth and fifth floors, as well as rooms on the second floor and in the basement, to make room for its middle school, according to Greaves and city records.

The middle school students will be the only children in their age group, and not required to go through the building's metal detectors, which makes Greaves nervous about safety.

"If an older kid gives a younger kid a weapon, threatens him into bringing it into the school," she said, "that could be an issue."

DOE argues in its proposal that both Bed-Stuy Prep and Brooklyn Academy are under-enrolled and, with about 850 students, that the massive building on Marcy and Putnam avenues is underused.

They plan to bring between 410 and 450 Uncommon Collegiate Charter students into the building, which means that, starting this fall, approximately 1,300 kids would be sharing common facilities.

But P2G teachers worry that city will be slashing a program that has been providing the neighborhood with vital resources — such as access to mentors, tutors, counselors and even an after-school workshop that teaches student to recycle bikes — for more than two decades.

"Many of our students are immigrants, new to the country," said Greaves, listing off services P2G provides them, such as ESL courses, internship programs and help filling out college applications.

"Some have a lot of disfunction at home, but when they come here, it’s warm, it’s safe and there's food."

The city will host a series of public hearings to debate the DOE proposal, which the Panel For Education Policy — a 13-member board within the Department of Education — is slated to vote on when it meets on April 25, records show.

The first public meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Monday night at the 832 Marcy Ave. campus, organizers wrote.

“We're trying to get parents, students, politicians, anyone and everyone who will listen, to support us," said Greaves. “Don’t squeeze us out!”

A Department of Education spokesperson did not immediately respond to Patch's request for comment.

Photo courtesy of GoogleMaps/Sept. 2014