Chants of protest rang through the streets of Fort Greene yesterday afternoon, as thousands of New Yorkers gathered to urge local officials to vote against closing 20 public schools. After two hours of protest and nearly nine hours of public comment, the Panel for Educational Policy approved the phasing-out of 19 of the schools. It will vote on closing the 20th school, Alfred E. Smith Careers and Technical Education High School in Bronx, next month.

“Keep schools open,” the crowd chanted as United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew took the stage at the 4 p.m. rally, his image broadcast on a jumbo screen stretching down Dekalb Avenue along Fort Greene Park for protesters to see. “We cannot continue with an educational policy that says, ‘we will no longer fix schools, we will close schools,’” he said before leading the crowd in a chant of “help not harm.”

When the rally came to a close, community members lined up along South Elliot Place to enter Brooklyn Tech High School’s auditorium for the 6 p.m. meeting of the PEP. The line buzzed with discussion.”Statistically we were just one year on the Schools in need of Improvement list and this is only the second year with our new principal,” said a teacher from Global Enterprise Academy, a school slated for closure. “We didn’t see it coming, we were punched in the head.”A student marching band made its way down the line, drowning out conversation.

The school’s two-story auditorium quickly filled to capacity. As PEP members took their seats on stage, community members remained on their feet, waving banners with slogans such as “keep the public in public education,” while chanting “save our schools.”

The crowd quieted as the panel approved minutes from its previous meeting. The panel chairman then asked Chancellor Joel Klein to provide an update. Boos filled the auditorium. “As I’ve said many times, our first obligation is to our children. The sad reality is that the schools that we present tonight are schools that are not meeting the standards that we need to meet for our children,” said Klein. “It saddens me that there are people here who are unprepared to listen and people who do not listen are typically people who are not concerned about the guideline and only about shouting people down.”

Hundreds of community members were allotted two minutes to speak. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer was one of the first to approach the microphone. “The people who build our schools over generations have been the communities, neighborhoods, parents, students,” he said. “If we agree that [the community] are the stakeholders, how could you possibly be the only ones to decide what schools remain and what schools close?” The panel chairman shut off the microphone at the two-minute limit, launching the crowd into a chant of “let him speak” — a chant that would be repeated throughout the evening.

An hour later, Dr Annie B. Martin, president of the New York branch of the NAACP, stepped to the mic. “To close these 20 schools, the DOE will disrupt the lives of the students, parents, and the very fiber of their communities,” she stated, “These are our public schools. They are a part of our communities.” Dr. Martin’s microphone was also shut off at two minutes. The crowd once again broke into a chant of “let her speak.” A community member later allowed Dr. Martin to finish her statement during his comment period.

Community members expressed concerns regarding the impact of school closure on students, the metrics by which the DOE judges whether a schools is “failing,” the PEP’s lack of teaching experience, and the influence of economic concerns on education policy, among other issues. Community members spoke until 2:45 a.m., when the panel began its vote. The closure of 19 schools was approved.

For more information:

Brouhaha in Brooklyn: Live Blogging the PEP’s school closure vote, Gotham Schools
Education panel axes 19 city public schools, NY1
Themes from the tumult of school closings, New York Times
Education Department panel votes to close 19 failing New York City schools, Daily News