Thursday, April 17, 2014

Packin' them in at Bayside High

Received in my inbox:

The DOE is not responding to parent demands that it not further overcrowd Bayside High School, a school that already has 1,000 more students than it was built to house.

The DOE is planning to overcrowd the already packed popular Queens high school that services students from all parts of Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn to clear space for new schools co-locating at the downsizing Flushing and Martin Van Buren High Schools - schools that do accommodate far fewer students - according to Bayside PTA Co-President Edward Tang.

Bayside High School, rated "A" by the DOE for three years in a row, is bracing for over 1,000 new students this Fall, expected to bring its enrollment to over 3,600 - 170% of the building's capacity.

"Bayside is a victim of its own success and of the DOE's unresponsiveness to this community," said Alex Lee, a Bayside parent and member of the Citywide Council on High Schools. “The school received 14,000 applications due to the great results it produces for families and now the DOE wants to bury it to accommodate Bloomberg's leftover plans to downsize Van Buren and Flushing. The school already has students from all parts of Queens as well as the Bronx and Brooklyn!"

"If this goes through, Bayside would be second only to Forest Hills High School's in percent overcrowded while more than half of Queens’ high schools operate below 100% capacity," echoed Bayside parent Judy Rossman.

“Here’s the thing, overcrowding is not good for students or administrators. It forces a school to reduce support services, increase class sizes, and reduce safety measures. We have reached out to the Chancellor and our local elected officials demanding that no more than 750 new students be admitted. We will still be way overcrowded but not as bad as the DOE is planning," added parent Jaya Sarkar.

"No response from the DOE to the parents has been forthcoming. Our position is logical. We will not stand idly by if the Chancellor turns a blind eye to our situation and undermines the very success that we have worked so hard to achieve. Increasing Bayside’s enrollment to over 170% capacity is not logical and would not be a good decision for quality education or for our children’s futures.”

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Between bayside, Cardozo and Francis Lewis....there are 12000 kids between the three schools! How insane is that? Not only does the doe need to start doing it's job but so does the dob.... the dob allows the zoning laws to be broken by foreigners and they live 4 families in two family houses! I think they should both be held accountable for the downfall of bayside.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps all these people should stop having so many kids - boom - overcrowding problem fixed!

NYC has too many people!!!! Especially Queens - every immigrant has 3+ kids - white people have none, 1 or 2.

I love that an Asian is quoted in the article! Flushing and Bayside were pretty nice until they came and ruined both neighborhoods - Flushing more so - but they're fucking up Bayside now.

Really - an Asian complaining about overcrowding - hah!

Anonymous said...

Why does Bayside HS admit so many more kids than it has room for?

Anonymous said...

The dumbing down of NYC marches on.

Go to last Sunday's NY Times and read an Op-Ed piece that advocates parents having a "hands off" approach to the education of their children and leave it all to the state.

In the future we will be awash in a Tsunami of stupidity.

georgetheatheist said...

"Go to last Sunday's NY Times and read an Op-Ed piece that advocates parents having a "hands off" approach to the education of their children and leave it all to the state."
_________________________________

That article was written by Keith Robinson an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas, Austin and Angel Harris, a professor of sociology at Duke.

See? How important sociological commentary is? Just like the wunnerful sociological commentary we always find, here at the Queens Crap blogsite.

BTW, the authors dont intimate that the education be left to the "state" because much of education is in private schooling. The authors' research shows that basically parents get in the way of schooling, public AND private.

Anonymous said...

George:

Try reading the article instead of guessing what it says.

georgetheatheist said...

The authors' research does not distinguish between public and private schooling.

Anonymous said...

George:

"...much of education is in private schooling."

Please. You have no idea what you are talking about.

georgetheatheist said...

[I gotta get outta here. Let's see...hmnnn, if I face him and then take one step forward and then two steps back, he'll think I'm moving toward him when actually I'll be moving away from him. That's it. That's what I'll do.]

Anonymous said...

Your parents must have tried to educate you.

Me said...

And we're surprised that Ms. Carmen Farina is unresponsive to this situation because??? This is what the DOE is made up of, folks... layers upon layers of bureaucracy with incompetence at every level, from the pittance-paid part-time school aide right on up to Ms. 400K herself.

Anonymous said...

If you live in North Flushing or near the Bayside-Flushing border paying either high rent or high property taxes and trying to get you children in Bayside High School you'll hear all kind of excuses for them not to be accepted in the meantime inner city school kids can openly get accceptance. What the F???

Anonymous said...

And in a decade all written communication will consist of two and three syllable words. Maybe even one.

Anonymous said...

There's a Bayside-flushing border? Where is that? I thought there were other neighborhoods in between. Where are these 'inner-city' kids coming from that they get open acceptance at Bayside? Where is North Flushing?

Anonymous said...

"And in a decade all written communication will consist of two and three syllable words. Maybe even one"

-- Isn't Chinese pretty much like that already?

Anonymous said...

"Where is North Flushing?"
From Wikipedia
Broadway-Flushing a sub-neighborhood of "North Flushing", is a suburban residential section of Flushing, Queens in New York City. The neighborhood comprises approximately 2,300 homes. It is located between 155th and 170th Streets, bounded on the north by Bayside and 29th Avenues, and on the south by Northern Boulevard and Crocheron Avenue.

The last remaining area of Queens that resembles what a suburb should look like. Unfortunately it's under attack by greedy developers and is slowly turning in "Queens Crap" !

Anonymous said...

These schools have no say in how many kids or what kids are enrolled into them. That is 100% the job of the DOE office of enrollment. All the schools can do is cope with the numbers but the parents and community have the power to push back.

Anonymous said...

If it is so overcrowded, I am sure a call to 311/FDNY will be in order. More of a life safety issue here.

Anonymous said...

The problem is you have other students BORROWING ADDRESSES to get to that high school!

They should do what LI does.. they know how many houses (single family or multifamily) and then they survey how many kids..and then 10 house x 2 kids each = 20 kids.. so they make room for 30 (10 as a buffer).

I get annoyed at ppl doing the borrow addresses. I know someone who lives in jackson heights in a 3 family house they bought, but because they want good schools as to borrow another person address for HS. because they bought cheaper 3 family houses for rent income also while that other person bought a 1 family a bit more expense just for the school. If so they shouldn't borrow. They should get punish for greed over the quality ed of the kids. You don't think people know how to do what you did too! FKING ANNOYING.

The should penalized them.

Anonymous said...

DOB and zoning legislators should be investigated for recent practices in Bayside, Bay Terrace and Auburndale. INS and Census are to blame for not enforcing laws and checking on those supposedly seeking political refuge. IRS should be checking who is paying taxes and who is notoriously collecting "Cash Only"