Tiffany Rodriguez-Noel\u2019s son attends The Riverside School for Makers and Artists, a K-8 public school on the Upper West Side.<\/p>\n
Now, she is among a group of parents pushing back against a Department of Education proposal that would eliminate the school\u2019s middle grades.<\/p>\n
The Department of Education has declined to call the move a closure, instead describing it as a \u201ctruncation\u201d \u2014 a plan that would remove grades six through eight from the school.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
The DOE is proposing to remove grades 6-8 from Manhattan’s Riverside School for Makers and Artists, calling it a \u201ctruncation,\u201d not a closure
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The plan would relocate another school into RSMA\u2019s middle school building
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Parents say the school needs more support, not cuts, citing staff losses and resources for English language learners
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A public hearing is set for April 13, with a final vote expected April 29<\/p>\n
The proposal also includes relocating the Center School, a grades 5-8 program, into RSMA\u2019s middle school building if approved.<\/p>\n
Parents say Schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels, the former superintendent of District 3, initially proposed the plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not closing any schools. There\u2019s no proposal to close schools. There\u2019s a proposal to resite one school and to truncate the middle school of one of our schools,\u201d Samuels told NY1. \u201cThis plan sets up an opportunity for all of our schools to become robust as opposed to more under-enrolled, underperforming schools.\u201d<\/p>\n
Parents argue the school\u2019s struggles are tied to a lack of support, not performance by students or staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not fighting for a failing school. I\u2019m fighting for a school that has been failed and we want it fixed,\u201d Rodriguez-Noel said. \u201cWe\u2019ve lost 50 teachers in two years. We\u2019ve lost four APs, all because of the lack of support from the district. They\u2019re fully aware of this. One hundred community parents have left because their children weren\u2019t learning, not because our teachers aren\u2019t teaching, but because the district isn\u2019t supporting or giving provisions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodriguez-Noel said the school has enrolled more than 500 Spanish-speaking migrant students over the past three years, many of whom she said are welcomed by the community. According to city data, nearly half of RSMA\u2019s students are English language learners.<\/p>\n
She said teachers were not given adequate support to meet those needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur teachers were given electronic translators, if they were lucky,\u201d she said. \u201cSome received a sheet of paper that said, \u2018Hola equals hello.\u2019 \u2018My name is mi nombre,\u2019 and figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response, the Department of Education said it has taken steps to expand support, including increasing the number of teachers certified in English as a new language and adding staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis includes strengthening in-building capacity by hiring a bilingual counselor, an instructional coach, and additional leadership staff to support teaching and learning,\u201d a spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n
RSMA currently has 126 students in grades six through eight. Rodriguez-Noel said relocating those students could disrupt their academic progress.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you take these same students, 126 middle school students that we have, and they\u2019re already not academically competitive, and we place them in a school where the children are at grade point average, and we add in two modes of travel, what do you think is going to happen?\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re ensuring that these children are not going to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodriguez-Noel said families have already submitted middle school applications and are now in limbo as they wait to see whether the proposal moves forward. She added that joining the Center School has not been offered as an option.<\/p>\n
Samuels said the district will work with families individually.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe district will be working one-on-one with many families to ensure that they find a place, as we\u2019ve done in the past and as we\u2019ve seen be totally successful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mike Robles, another parent at RSMA, said he does not understand the need for the change.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really understand why we have to sacrifice the middle school to save the lower school,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His daughter Ariana, who has an individualized education program, said she hopes she can remain at the school.<\/p>\n
\u201cI finally found the right school for me,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel really good about myself here. I\u2019m doing a lot of work and I\u2019m doing such good things.\u201d<\/p>\n
A joint public hearing on the proposal is scheduled for April 13. The Panel for Educational Policy is expected to vote on April 29.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tiffany Rodriguez-Noel\u2019s son attends The Riverside School for Makers and Artists, a K-8 public school on the Upper…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2476,203,25,2025,67,3691,75,9,24,55,54,12,56,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-191694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-app-community","9":"tag-app-education","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-community-news","12":"tag-education","13":"tag-emma-barnett","14":"tag-manhattan","15":"tag-new-york","16":"tag-new-york-city","17":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","18":"tag-new-york-city-news","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-ny","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}