I am a lifelong New Yorker and mother who lives in the North Bronx and, quite honestly, I don’t know much about the politics of public education in New York City. What I do know is I have a five-year-old daughter who is starting kindergarten next year and I want her to go to a great school.
When I started asking around about where she should go, the answer I got was Success Academy. The director of my daughter’s preschool was particularly insistent. She sends her child to a Success Academy in Manhattan, but she said to me, “It doesn’t matter which Success Academy she goes to, just get her into one.”
So I started doing some research. The schools — with their excellent academic curriculum and focus on extracurriculars — were just what I wanted for my daughter. At the same time, as the primary parent who works long hours, I can’t handle a long commute and the locations of existing schools were just too far. I was thrilled to learn that Success is planning to open a new school next year in Williamsbridge, close to my neighborhood. I applied, and that’s when I started learning about the politics involved in our public schools.
It turns out that the city’s Panel for Education Policy (PEP) has to vote on whether this new Success Academy school can open next year, and their decision is in doubt. Earlier this month, I attended a public hearing on the school, where I heard opponents to the new school make a bunch of arguments for why it was a bad idea. None of them made sense to me.
The main argument was that there is no space in the building for the new school. But according to the NYC Department of Education, the building has space for almost 1,000 more students — so even with a Success Academy school, there would be plenty of room for the existing schools to grow. The other argument seemed to be that somehow a new school would prevent the existing schools from offering special programs and enrichment. But I know from growing up here that most city public schools are co-located with other schools — including the middle school I attended — without negative effects.
Then there were the truly wild claims. Teachers from the existing schools expressed fear they would lose their jobs if Success joined the building; students had been told Success Academy would report them to the police for going on the first floor! It was shocking to realize that someone had purposely lied to stoke the fears of children and teachers.
At the hearing, I also heard Success Academy parents speak in support of the new school, saying they wanted more children to have the opportunities their own children had. They testified about how their children had blossomed at the school and found passions — how teachers had partnered with them. The idea that my daughter could attend a school that provides all these supports right here in her Bronx neighborhood seemed like a dream come true.
I never got to go to a school in my neighborhood. There was a feeling among my parents and their friends back then, in the early 2000s, that it wasn’t a good idea to send your children to a public school in the Bronx. Most of my friends went to Catholic schools, but my mother was able to enroll me in a good district middle school in Manhattan, near where she worked. I then went on to the highly sought-after Eleanor Roosevelt High School.
It wasn’t great having to commute one hour each way to school, but talking to friends, I realized that I was getting opportunities they weren’t. At my high school, all students had to take a college prep class to guide us through the college application process and parents had to meet with a college counselor. At the public schools my friends attended, no one asked what they were doing after high school.
The Bronx is a different place today. It’s a safer and more appealing place to live. There are also more good school options than there used to be, but there is still large, unmet demand for more high-performing schools in the North Bronx. Last year alone, there were 912 applications from District 11 to Success Academy schools; 500 children from the district attend Success schools as far away as midtown Manhattan. Voting yes on a new school seems like a no-brainer: There is clearly space and clearly demand.
My daughter, like all kids in the North Bronx, deserves a school where teachers give her the foundation she needs for a choice-filled life. And she, like her friends and neighbors, deserves to have that school in her community — not in a distant neighborhood far from her family and friends. Success Academy is offering this and I hope our leaders will embrace this opportunity to do the right thing for Bronx kids, families and communities.
Nicole Lawrence is a prospective Success Academy Charter School parent and resident of the Bronx.
