Parents tell DOE, ‘Keep charter school out of Seth Low!’
Hundreds turn out for public hearing
A plan hatched by the Department of Education (DOE) to put a Success Academy charter school inside Seth Low Intermediate School in Bensonhurst and have the two schools co-exist in the same building was met with vociferous opposition by parents, teachers and elected officials who spoke at out a raucous public hearing on Sept. 30.
Opponents charged that the charter school will take away much-needed classroom space from Seth Low students and prevent the school from expanding its enrichment programs in the arts. Parents also expressed concern that the presence of the charter school would set up a class system in which the charter school’s students would be given the best of everything, including iPads, while their Seth Low counterparts are left to languish in overcrowded classrooms with five-year-old textbooks.
“Why put a charter school in a neighborhood that didn’t want one? It doesn’t make any sense,” Councilman David Greenfield (D-Borough Park-Bensonhurst-Midwood) charged.