Letter to the editor of NY Teacher

Brooklyn Night also on chopping block
Mar 1, 2007 3:50 PM
To the Editor:
The Department of Education is not closing five high schools, as you report in the Jan. 18 issue [“Unanimous support for 5 high schools on DOE chopping block”]. It is closing six! It is also closing the Brooklyn Comprehensive Night HS.
It’s bad enough that we did not even get mentioned in the articles in The New York Times and the Daily News or in the television news media. But not to even be mentioned in our own union’s newspaper is unforgivable.
The Brooklyn Comprehensive Night HS is not a failing school. Our Quality Review Report, performed this October by a company from Cambridge, England, retained by the DOE was Excellent.
Over the past 17 years, several thousand students have received their high school diplomas from the BCNHS. The vast majority of those BCNHS alumni would have received a GED at best, or possibly nothing, if the BCNHS had not been in existence. Yet the DOE has decided to close the Brooklyn Comprehensive Night HS without any justification.
Are we just “collateral damage” since we are housed in one of the traditional high schools that is being closed?
How can our union allow this to happen? What is our union going to do for the faculty and the students of the Brooklyn Comprehensive Night HS?
Jim Ferentino,Brooklyn Comprehensive Night HS
EDITOR’S NOTE: The UFT is talking to the DOE to ensure that members’ rights are protected and that students are well served.