Maybe the right question is: How did they get to such a state of neglect in the first place?

For a long time we have known that the students at Brooklyn Comprehensive need more than we can give them. Frankly, the Department of Education should give each of them a settlement out of court.

Our students
1) Have learning disabilities which were undiagnosed
2) Have attended schools which were later closed
3) Have attended schools with high crime rates
4) Have attended schools which were PURPOSEFULLY SEGREGATED. Did you know that NYC offers students in the wealthier neighborhoods surrounding South Shore (the school whose building we share which is also closing) the option of attending Madison High School (which is a safe school in a middle-class, mostly white section of Brooklyn) but only offers the students in the poorer sections of the neighborhood the option of the soon-to-be-closed South Shore High School? It’s true that technically all students have something called, “school choice” – you can attend almost any school in which there is room. First, you need to have the energy and wisdom to start looking around for good schools with room before your kid attends high school. Then, you have to hope there is room when he/she is ready. And of course, the thousands of kids who attended South Shore over the years could not ALL GO SOMEWHERE ELSE.
5) Have come to the only night high school in Brooklyn only to find themselves sometimes mugged on the way.

Many of us have thought of calling the newspapers over the years but we always feared that there would be little sympathy for our kids because they were already so old and had much less than perfect records.

Maybe the story isn’t the closing of Brooklyn Comprehensive Night High School. Maybe the story is and always was how the students at Brooklyn Comprehensive found themselves so over-aged and under-credited even while they attended four years of high school and eight years of elementary and junior high school. We always used to joke and say to students, “How did you get here without knowing _____?”

I’m not trying to blame their teachers or even the schools they went to – but the entire system which worked and spent so much money making it hard for them to get access to a good education.

For all of the internal fighting and differences of opinion, no one has ever criticized the overall quality of our academics at BCNHS-- the criticism now is that we spend too much money on our students -- Why shouldn't we just spend what all there other schools have, but expect different results? Instead, we spent more and those who came got above average scores on State exams, went to college and became successful. So, we were one of the few places where these students could finally get that access. But maybe the story is WHY WERE THEY ALLOWED TO WANDER FOR SO LONG AND WHERE WILL THEY WANDER TO NOW?