WITH OCTOBER 29 DEADLINE APPROACHING, MAYOR DE BLASIO BLOCKS NEW SUCCESS ACADEMY HIGH SCHOOL IN BROOKLYN
**For Immediate Release October 26, 2021**
Ann Powell, 646-894-6407
Ann.Powell@successacademies.
WITH OCTOBER 29 DEADLINE APPROACHING, MAYOR DE BLASIO BLOCKS NEW SUCCESS ACADEMY HIGH SCHOOL IN BROOKLYN
Parents Sent Thousands of Emails to Mayor Seeking A Simple Transition of Existing Middle School Classrooms to Open a Much-Needed High School
New York, NY — Once again, Mayor de Blasio is blocking the opening of a new Success Academy school, this time subverting a plan that has no space impact on the school community. The request to City Hall is simple, and one that has been granted several times before: use SA’s existing classrooms at SA Ditmas Park Middle School, a previously approved co-location for over 1,000 SA students, to open a new high school to serve the network’s 15 Brooklyn schools: SA High School of the Liberal Arts–Brooklyn.
For families of 360 Brooklyn eighth graders who won’t otherwise have a high school next year, it seemed like a no-brainer: no change in space allocation between SA and the co-located school; simply allowing somewhat older students to occupy those same classrooms. In fact, about a quarter of the students expected to enroll in the proposed high school next year are current students in the building today. But Mayor de Blasio, never one to willingly support charter schools, is not budging.
“We know you care about children and their education, so please do what is right for our children as you would for your own,” wrote Janice Mckenzie, SA Ditmas Park MS parent, in one of more than 3,000 emails parents and staff sent to the mayor last week.
The deadline for getting this simple proposal posted and on the December agenda of the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) to approve is only days away: Friday, October 29.
“We did not give up on our Queens middle schoolers, and we’re not about to give up on a high school for our Brooklyn families,” said Eva Moskowitz, Success Academy founder and CEO. “It’s unimaginable that the mayor would oppose a great new high school in Brooklyn.”
Success Academy’s high schools have a strong track record: 100% of the first four graduating classes have been accepted to college, many to selective and highly selective campuses, including Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Tufts, and University of Chicago. Last year, 71% of graduates received at least one college offer meeting full financial need.
This space transition from one school type to another has previously been approved by the de Blasio administration and the PEP in multiple instances when they have been unwilling to approve new co-locations, including:
- Earlier this year, a Success Academy middle school at 509 W. 129th Street in East Harlem, was approved to become the network’s second high school.
- In 2018, the DOE and PEP approved the transition of an SA elementary school in Bed-Stuy to a middle school (SA Lafayette MS).
“Honestly, you identified yourself as a mayor for children and equality, but your treatment of a rare and brilliantly successful school has been disappointingly dismal,” wrote Success Academy parent Justine Llop-Allevik to the mayor. “After the year we’ve had, how is this not a priority?”
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ABOUT SUCCESS ACADEMY
Founded in 2006, Success Academy Charter Schools are free public K-12 schools open to all children in the state through a random lottery. With 47 schools across Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens, Success Academy enrolls 22,000 students, primarily children of color from low-income households in disadvantaged neighborhoods: 74% receive free or reduced-price lunch, 94% are students of color, 16% have disabilities, and 8% are English language learners. In 2021, 100% of SA’s fourth and largest class of 129 graduating seniors were accepted to college; 71% received at least one offer from a college to meet full financial need; 75% of the class will be the first in their families to attend college.
For more information about Success Academy, go to successacademies.org.
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