Public Officials Break with Bloomberg on Mayoral Control for March 1 PEP

For Immediate Release:                                                                      Contact:

Wednesday February 29^th, 2012                                                         Luis Garden Acosta

                                                                                                            718-387-0404

                                                                                               

Public Officials and Major Civic Leaders Break with the Bloomberg Version of Mayoral Control

Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, Councilwoman Diana Reyna and a host of other public officials and high profile leaders will take the unprecedented step of breaking with the Bloomberg administration control of the public school system. A press conference is scheduled for tomorrow, March 1^st, 2012 at 5:00 p.m., Brooklyn Tech High School, 29 Fort Greene Place, Brooklyn NY, (set up at S. Elliot Street and DeKalb Avenue) prior to the Panel on Education Policy (PEP) public meeting at Brooklyn Tech High School at 6:00 p.m.

Coming on the heels of a disturbing meeting with public school Chancellor Dennis Walcott, public officials as well as church and community leaders will charge the Chancellor with “Academic Malfeasance” and call for an end to the PEP process that they decry as the antithesis of good government practice.

Church and community leaders of the Southside Community Schools Coalition* will be present to denounce the Bloomberg administration handling of schools as irresponsible, lacking integrity and a failure for District 14 (Williamsburg, Greenpoint and Bedford-Stuyvesant) public schools in general, and Williamsburg Southside schools, in particular. 

High school students from at least four high schools will rally across the street against the “closed back room dealings” of corporate driven charter networks that do not emanate from the communities they propose to serve, are not accountable to those communities and who are backed by the Mayor’s autocratic rule in the use and abuse of public school space.

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*Southside Community Schools Coalition (SCSC) partial listing:

Brooklyn Legal Services Corp., Churches United For Fair Housing, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez,  Councilmember Diana Reyna,  District 14 Community Education Council, El Puente, First Spanish Presbyterian  Church, The Make School Planning Collaborative,  Los Sures (the Southside) United HDFC, Nuestros Niños Child Development Centers, Occupy Williamsburg, Parents of P.S. 19, Parents of P.S. 84 Dual Language Program, Parents, Teachers and Staff of M.S. 50, Progress Inc.