By Ivan Pereira
Leaders and advocates for keeping IS 59 as it is in Springfield Gardens rallied Tuesday morning to condemn the city’s proposal to place a separate all-boys campus within the same building.
City Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans) joined half a dozen parents and instructors outside the school grounds at 132-55 Ridgedale St. before the first bell to voice his concern over the city’s decision.
Although he has no problem with setting up an Eagle Academy institution in southeast Queens, the councilman said he did not agree to place it within IS 59’s campus because of space problems.
“This community deserves to have a fully developed middle school and an Eagle Academy in another facility,” he said.
The Eagle Academy has taught boys from inner-city communities from grades six through 12 at two other campuses in Brooklyn and the Bronx for the last decade. The city Department of Education has been hoping to bring Eagle to southeast Queens and had eyed possible locations at Jamaica and Campus Magnet high schools, but decided to put it in IS 59, according to Comrie.
DOE officials noted the middle school could accommodate the 500 Eagle students since it has a 600-seat vacancy.
The councilman said the DOE did not adequately analyze its proposal and warned that Eagle will overcrowd the building.
“If you really look at the physical confines of the school, Eagle Academy cannot fit inside [IS] 59,” he said.
Corey Terry, a parent of a seventh-grade girl at IS 59, said he did not like the idea because there could be safety concerns created by putting the younger students and Eagle high school students together.
“Why would you come into our ‘A’ school, mess everything up and cause disarray?” he asked.
A vote for the proposal by the city Panel for Educational Policy was supposed to take place Feb. 26 but was postponed because there was no majority vote. Three of the 13 panel members did not attend the hearing; six of the members, all of the mayor’s appointees, voted in favor of the proposal; and the Queens, Bronx and Manhattan members rejected the proposal while one of Bloomberg’s appointees abstained.
The rescheduled vote is set for sometime later this month, according to the DOE.
Comrie has looked at three closed-down parochial schools — St. Gerard Majella at 188-04 91st Ave. in Hollis, Dominican Commercial High School at 161-06 89th Ave. in Jamaica and Holy Trinity School at 90-20 191st St. — as sites for Eagle Academy, but the DOE has said it is committed to using IS 59’s space.
Reach reporter Ivan Pereira by e-mail at ipereira@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4546.
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected since publication because the name of the public school was incorrect. It is IS 59.
