By The TimesLedger
We are quite excited about the latest charter school in New York City. Last week Our World Neighborhood School opened up in Astoria immediately across from the Museum of the Moving Image.
At the moment, the school teaches K-5, but it is expected to expand to eighth grade in the near future. Unlike other charter schools that had major corporate involvement, Dega Omar, 36, a filmmaker from Astoria who was sending her two young children to the school likes the idea that the school is the creation of a small but concerned group of parents. “There is a hard-core group of parents who founded this school, and I’m excited the dream has finally come true,” she said.
The new school will reflect their values and its directors will not be overly concerned about the way things are done in the public school. Hopefully, schools such as this will create a friendly competition that will result in both the public schools and the charter schools changing and improving.
No one should see this as a threat to the public school system. It is not intended to replace traditional public education. We are grateful for the hard work done each day by the men and women teaching in the public schools system. It is our hope that they, too, will benefit from the lessons learned in the smaller charter schools.
Most importantly, the parents living in Astoria and Long Island City now have a choice of where to send their children to school. That alone is worth celebrating.
