Parents raise concerns about Arabic school's new home

A week after giving up on their attempt to place a new dual-language Arabic school in a Park Slope elementary school, Department of Education (DOE) officials came under fire last night at an emergency meeting at the building now slated to take in the school.

The PTA at MS 447, the Math and Science Exploratory School, in Boerum Hill called the meeting after learning that the new school, Khalil Gibran International Academy, will occupy space in the Sarah J. Hale building, which MS 447 already shares with the Brooklyn High School of the Arts (BHSA), beginning in September.

More than 100 parents were joined by a host of school and community leaders, including Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott, City Council member David Yassky, and Garth Harries, the CEO of the Office of New Schools, as well as by a few outside agitators aiming to stir alarm about Khalil Gibran’s focus on Arabic culture.

The meeting underscored parents’ anger at the DOE’s pattern of announcing plans without first soliciting parent opinion and by the way that schools are routinely asked to share space with new schools, sometimes compromising their own programs.

“[The] DOE doesn’t have the greatest record lately of really listening to parents,” said Jill Harris, a representative from City Council member Bill de Blasio’s office.

According to a letter to parents from MS 447 Principal Lisa Gioe-Cordi, currently on maternity leave, the school first learned it was being considered as an option for Khalil Gibran at the end of April. On May 8 the decision to place the new school in the building was announced, before school officials could consult parents about the plan. “The school administration was not given a say in the DOE’s decision,” Gioe-Cordi wrote.

Khalil Gibran will occupy the building for two years, using two classrooms and one office space in its first year and two additional classrooms in its second year, DOE officials said. At most, the plan would introduce 120 new students into the building, they said, although the New York Times noted that Khalil Gibran has yet to enroll a single student for its first year.

Rewards for sharing space

At the meeting, Harries offered parents an incentive of sorts, saying that adding Khalil Gibran to the building would create an "opportunity for attention from the highest level of the Department to make improvements in the building."

But parents pointed out that the DOE’s promises to the school when it moved to the building in 2005 –that it would build new science and technology labs and a separate cafeteria– had not been fulfilled.

A parent questioned the DOE’s "shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later mentality," asking: "What recourses do the parents have" if the Department does not follow through on its promises?

Another parent wondered: "Are we now going to be the incubator for every new school?" after Khalil Gibran leaves the building.

"The answer is clearly no," Harries responded. "We are prepared to put that in writing." He also said the DOE would "absolutely" commit in writing to the two-year limit for Khalil Gibran’s presence and make whatever improvements to the building the schools and the DOE agree on.

Space already tight in host schools

According to the DOE, the building will have more than 600 seats to spare next year, even taking into account the fact that MS 447 is adding three classes to meet demand for the successful school. Harries noted that the department wants to maintain space for BHSA’s arts programs and will “honor and protect” both schools’ reduced class sizes.

Parents said space is already tight, with lunch starting for some children at 10 a.m. and limited gym access. The high school uses the gym for its dance program.

BHSA leaders were more tolerant about the prospect of sharing space. “We had to open our hearts and our space” to MS 447 two years ago, Principal Bob Finley said. “We had some misgivings but we knew we had to do the right thing.”

The meeting highlighted issues inherent in the DOE’s vigorous school-creation initiative in which more than 200 new schools have opened in the last four years, most in space shared with existing schools. Throughout the city — at NEST+M on the Lower East Side, PS 36 in Manhattanville, JHS 157 in Queens, and most recently at PS 282, where Khalil Gibran was originally scheduled to open — organized parents have derailed DOE plans for new schools to be placed in their buildings.

To develop a written plan for the transition, DOE and school officials will walk through the building again tomorrow to identify specific spaces that can be shared. Once that plan is finalized, MS 447 PTA vice-president Tom McMahon said parents could “learn it won’t work and have the opportunity to block it.”

Fears about Arabic focus

Although DOE and PTA officials asked parents to focus on space and security concerns and worked hard to maintain a respectful tone, a few attendees attacked Khalil Gibran’s Arabic theme, which has made the school a target of right-wing attacks in newspapers around the country and world.

“Will the school teach Sharia law?” one attendee asked, referring to Islamic law. A parent shouted out, “Will Israel be on the maps?” “It’s not about space, it’s about indoctrination,” shouted another.

For her part, Debbie Almontaser, principal of Khalil Gibran, did little to refocus attention on how the school is similar to all public schools, instead reading aloud a letter from a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq who categorized those who don’t want to learn Arabic as ignorant. She did not directly address concerns posed by parents.

Recent press reports have defended the school’s right to exist. “ There’s already a Chinese-themed intermediate school in Manhattan’s Chinatown, but no one’s complaining about that,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle managing editor Raanan Geberer wrote. And in the Daily News, Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history at NYU, wrote: “ There's no reason to think that the Gibran academy would turn patriotic Americans into Al Qaeda sympathizers. In fact, to win the war on terrorism, we're going to need many more people who know Arabic, get the difference between Sunnis and Shiites and understand the complex culture of the Middle East.”

Philissa Cramer, May 15, 2007

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