Parents Charge Unsafe
Conditions at Boerum Hill School
Read the updated story, ‘Toxic’ Brooklyn Preschool Parents Wonder: Where’s the Money?
By Mary Frost
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BOERUM HILL — No heat, exposed wires, unpainted walls and noxious fumes emanating from newly installed carpeting.
These are just a few of the conditions parents say they found when they dropped their toddlers off at Brooklyn Children’s Academy Preschool (BCAP) at 25 Dean St. last month. The preschool moved to the Dean Street location on Nov. 5 from its original facility in a brownstone on Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights.
When Hemalee Patel, mother of a 3½-year-old, brought her daughter to the new building, “it was a disaster,” she said. “No heat, dirty, the walls weren’t painted, no water, no security at the gate, and fumes that would kill an elephant were coming off the carpet.
“We found out that there is no license to operate from that facility,” Patel said, adding that most of the parents have withdrawn their children from the school. “But they’re still taking money. They fired all the assistant teachers last week; all the head teachers have resigned.”
Another mom, Amy Huggans, said in an e-mail to the Brooklyn Eagle, “On Nov. 9, an inspector from the NYC Department of Health ordered the school to close until all violations were corrected. 25 Dean St remains closed; BCAP left families in the lurch for a month while they looked for a temporary location.”
The Eagle on Monday contacted the New York City Department of Health’s Bureau of Day Care, which confirmed that BCAP did not yet have a license for their new location. When asked to give an opinion about the preschool, the representative said, “Go with your gut — they opened up illegally over there.”
Huggans said that efforts to force accountability from Andy Lewis, executive director of Better Brooklyn Community Center, the parent organization that runs BCAP, have failed. “Phone calls, e-mails and certified letters to the Executive Director have gone unanswered. We wrote a letter to the board members of Better Brooklyn Community Center (BBCC), only to find that most of them said they had either resigned from the board or never been on it in the first place.”
A call to the chairman of the board of BBCC was not returned by press time.
Bouncing Checks
“It’s such a mess,” said Carolynn DiFiore-Balmelle, a parent of a 2-year-old. “There were 42 parents — they all left,” She says that parents also learned that teachers’ paychecks have “been bouncing since last summer.”
Former head teacher Colleen Walsh confirms the parents’ story. “Once we got into the new building, the fumes just overtook us,” she told the Eagle. “There are no windows in the space. I chose to send my students home that day. It was not a safe place for them.
“I talked to some parents in the other rooms to express my concerns. The executive director yelled that I was not allowed to speak to the parents because they were upset enough.” Parents are paying more than $1,200 a month for the school.
Walsh said that she and at least one of the other two head teachers resigned. “About five weeks worth of back paychecks came back as no good. I’m still owed for about 20 days worth of work.”
Executive Director
Denies Claims
Executive Director Andy Lewis denies many of the charges that the parents are making. “It’s not true that there was no running water or toilets,” he told the Eagle Tuesday. He also said that there were no exposed wires as of Tuesday in the facility, though the Eagle did obtain a photo of exposed wires Tuesday morning.
“I completely understand where the parents are coming from — they had no childcare. But, he added, “They should be trying to help the school rather than bring the school down. We were very honest, very transparent” about the difficulties the organization was having with the Building Department, he said.
After the preschool lost its lease on Pierrepont Street, he said, “We had to move. The Department of Health said the space was viable since day one.
“A lot of this is a paperwork process. City departments do not work together. If we had until January at Pierrepont, we wouldn’t be in this difficult situation … it was uncontrollable on our part.”
Lewis said that he would fax the Department of Health’s preliminary approval to the Brooklyn Eagle. The Eagle did not receive the fax by press time.
“Forty-three kids have not pulled out. About 17 people have pulled out of the program.” Lewis went on to say that the school has set up a temporary location at Our Lady of Lebanon’s parish hall, at 113 Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights. “We have a permit for 90 days from the Department of Health. We expect to open by the end of January on Dean Street,” he said.
Responding to the charges that he did not return the parents’ phone calls, Lewis said, “I return every single phone call. I’ve sat on the phone for over three hours, getting nothing accomplished. People have called me at midnight. At some point I’m not going to answer my phone.”
Amy Huggans denied this. “He agreed to have a conference call Friday, Nov. 23. He never dialed into the call.”
Ex-teacher Walsh agreed that it was hard to get in touch with Lewis. “I tried to track him down at BBCC’s administrative office at 900 Fulton St. on Nov. 22. It looked like it had been abandoned for a week or more.”
© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2007
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