10th Precinct
Deputy Inspector:
Chelsea is \u2018one

Deputy Inspector Elisa Cokkinos is no stranger to the 10th Precinct where she assumed command on January 4. In 1997 she was a sergeant in the precinct that covers Chelsea and part of Clinton up to 43rd St. west of Eighth Avenue.

\u201cIt\u2019s changed, the clubs were not as big as they are now. There are a lot of new things and I\u2019m excited to be back,\u201d she told a visitor last week.

Coming to a precinct with two major New York City Housing Authority proj-

ects (the Robert Fulton and the Elliott-Chelsea Houses), Cokkinos is also in famil- iar territory. \u201cI came here from P.S.A. 6, the housing police command in Northern Manhattan,\u201d she said. As a housing police captain she had occasion to meet Phyllis Gonzalez\u2014president of the Elliott-Chelsea ten- ants association and Miguel Acevedo\u2014president

of the Elliott-Chelsea tenants group.

On Tuesday night, March 23, the Panel for Educational Policy voted unanimously to relocate Quest to Learn in the Bayard Rustin Educational Complex, 351 W. 18th St. The vote came on the heels of a public hear- ing held March 11 at BREC on the Educational Impact Statement regard- ing the school\u2019s move next September.

Members of the Q2L school com- munity arrived at what will be their new home brimming with enthusiasm and relishing the prospect of mov- ing into a building embellished with stained glass, marble and murals of historic and artistic signi\ufb01cance.

\u201cI really appreciate being relocated to a building that has a gym, an audito- rium, a pool, and I feel Quest to Learn

is very lucky to be able to move into such a great facility,\u201d gushed Nadine Clements, a Q2L sixth-grader.

Quest parents, however, began to temper their enthusiasm with surprise and dismay as they listened to members of the BREC community.

Seth Rader, a teacher at the James Baldwin School and member of the School Leadership Team, introduced what would become the most conten- tious issue of the evening: the loss of almost half the seventh \ufb02 oor, which is dedicated to physical education, when it is converted to classrooms for Q2L. \u201cThe elimination of that space means even less gym space and we\u2019re already not able to meet the needs\u201d of the cur- rent students, said Rader.

believes it has an ace in the hole. BREC has a swimming pool that has been empty and in need of repair for more than a decade, but Gregg Betheil of the Department of Education assured the Q2L PTA that repairs to the pool have been budgeted and approved, and that BREC will have a fully working pool by the beginning of the next academic year. Thus Q2L expects to compensate BREC students for the loss of their physical education space on the seventh \ufb02oor with the restoration of the swim- ming pool.

Spurred by the deep skepticism of current faculty at BREC that the pool would ever be repaired, Chelsea Now conducted a thorough perusal of the

by politicians have com- pelled the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to reconsider their decades- long ban on gay and bisex- ual men who wish to donate blood.

Enforced since 1985 as a precautionary measure to protect transfusion recipients from HIV-positive blood, the current policy stipulates that any man who has had sex with another man (MSM) since 1977 is permanently \u201cdeferred\u201d from donating blood.

A February 25 press release from the Gay Men\u2019s Health Crisis (GMHC) noted that the policy \u201cdoes not con-

sider the potential donor\u2019s HIV status, frequency or risk of sexual activity, or if he is in a monogamous relation- ship.\u201d These and other ineq- uities are documented in a GMHC report (also issued on February 25). \u201cA Drive for Change: Reforming U.S. Blood Donation Policies\u201d can be accesses at accessed at www.gmhc.org.

GMHC also notes that the stigma created by the FDA ban is often magni\ufb01ed at blood drives, which occur at workplaces or schools. Sexually active gay and bisexual men are eliminated as donors based on answers to a standard questionnaire\u2014

On Tuesday evening March 16, La Plaza Cultural community garden at Ninth St. and Avenue C was the setting for a jump over \ufb01 re to celebrate spring\u2019s arrival. A prelude to the Persian New Year, the event is part of Chahar Shanbeh Suri, an ancient festival dating back to Iran\u2019s Zoroastrian past. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the day has also become one of resistance throughout Iran. On Tuesday, three small \ufb01 res were lit at sunset, and people bravely hopped over them, as Kourosh Tavakolian, 8, did above. According to tradition, people bound over the \ufb01 res to face their ultimate fears as an act of cleansing before spring\u2019s start, which was Saturday.

2010-2014 Five-Year Capital Plan Proposed 2010 Amendment issued by the School Construction Authority. The document con- tains not a single item pertaining to BREC\u2019s swimming pool.

Yet Thomas Taratko, executive direc- tor of the Of\ufb01ce of Space Planning at the Department of Education, assured Chelsea Now that construction is in the works and the pool will be restored, despite the lack of a speci\ufb01c budget item in the SCA capital plan. \u201cIt\u2019s a planning document,\u201d he said. \u201cChanges happen all the time.\u201d

At the EIS, Philip Sylvester (Athletic Director and physical education teacher at Bayard Rustin) revealed that the space slated for conversion is not only used daily for physical education, but also serves as a practice facility for the school\u2019s outdoor sports teams, because \u201cOur boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 soccer teams, softball, baseball and girls\u2019 tennis teams do not have an outdoor facil- ity on campus or nearby to use for prac- tice.\u201d In addition, said Sylvester, \u201cBlood drives, health fairs, district-wide college fairs, school-wide special events, dances, carnivals, parties, award ceremonies\u201d all make use of that space, as do drill teams, dance groups and the badminton club. \u201cIn my experience,\u201d said Sylvester, \u201conce PE space is turned into classrooms, it will never be replaced. The play area is not idle space. This space is used by our students too often to have it reorganized as classrooms. Our students deserve better.\u201d

Without space to practice, asked Baldwin junior Hahillah Ahmed, \u201cHow are we sup- posed to win our games and represent our school? This playground is our home,\u201d said the athlete. Because Baldwin shares the gym with the other schools in the building, \u201cWe don\u2019t really have so much gym time,\u201d and \u201cwe usually have to ask permission to use the gym,\u201d she said.

\u201cI empathize with all of you,\u201d said Ralph Morales, Q2L parent. \u201cI too want my son to bene\ufb01t from the good things that are in this building. I want him to have a gym. I want him to be able to go swimming. I want him to be able to do sports.\u201d But, he said, \u201cI wish I could feel that my son is going to be welcome in this school. I don\u2019t feel that right now.\u201d

Like Sylvester, who alluded to the thera- peutic effects of exercise, especially in the light of schools chancellor Joel Klein\u2019s \ufb01 nd- ing that over 40 percent of the city\u2019s students are overweight or obese, Christine Olson, co-director of James Baldwin, stressed the importance of physical education not only for the health of the body, but for that of the mind. It\u2019s a \u201cway to relieve stress,\u201d she said, \u201cwhich plays a great role in reducing violence in the building. It also has a huge impact on their academic achievement and their ability to focus.\u201d

Not only the students stand to lose. The Gotham Volleyball League (a sports and community organization) has \u201ccalled BREC its home for 30 years,\u201d said its com-

missioner, Seth Eichenholtz. He expressed surprise that there is \u201cabsolutely no men- tion of Gotham\u2019s involvement\u201d in the com- munity impact section of the EIS. Gotham has over 1,000 members and alumni, said Eichenholtz, most of them local residents. Besides volleyball, Gotham does community service. \u201cWe take our role as a community member here at Rustin very seriously. Each year we sponsor two PSAL volleyball tour- naments\u201d and semi-annual school supplies drives, he said. The organization secured a grant in 2007 for the construction of a computer lab on the \ufb01 fth \ufb02 oor, provided $2,000 in scholarships for Rustin students, paid $1,300 for buses last spring for a school trip for distinguished graduating seniors and paid for a renovation in the girls\u2019 gym in the spring of 2007. \u201cWe are a part of this com- munity, and want to continue to be,\u201d said Eichenholtz, but \u201calmost all of our activities would not be possible without the facilities on the seventh \ufb02 oor.\u201d

The vice commissioner for Gotham, Josh Christiansen, added, \u201cWe\u2019ve looked for other space: it just doesn\u2019t exist.\u201d

Q2L parent Wylie Sticklow reacted. \u201cWhile on an individual level I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll treat our children nicely, [I feel] that the school itself is not welcome here.\u201d They are \u201cpromising us a seventh-\ufb02oor space that you guys don\u2019t want to give up, so they\u2019re creating con\ufb02ict within the system already that I don\u2019t know how it goes away without having somebody or some people being left unhappy and with ill will.\u201d

Christina Kemp, a history teacher at Humanities Prep, another of the \ufb01ve schools at BREC, countered. \u201cYou really just need to expand your idea of what space means.\u201d At her school, they\u2019ve gone outside. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a gym, but we used the local playground, we used the YMCA, we used Chelsea Piers.\u201d The school has a sailing club, but not a dance program, so those that want dance takes it at Hunter College. Kemp also addressed the concern that small schools don\u2019t have the resources to offer a large number and variety of programs. When we didn\u2019t have a theater, she said, we found a grant and had a performance at a theater on 42nd St. The school doesn\u2019t have enough students for the AP classes quali\ufb01ed students can take for college credit, \u201cbut the kids go to Hunter College, the New School, NYU\u2014all for free,\u201d she said.

Another cause for concern was the safety of Q2L\u2019s younger children. BREC PTA co- president Danette Barno believes that the 11- and 12-year-old students need a separate entrance to the building and should be on a separate \ufb02 oor so that they won\u2019t have con- tact with the older students, some as old as 21. Rhem Irby, a parent at the Manhattan Business Academy, also housed at BREC, said middle-school children \u201creally should not be on a high school campus.\u201d

Rader cited the inadequacy of the school\u2019s infrastructure and \u201chow things are run.\u201d Important pieces of mail are inexplicably lost, he said, and \ufb01 re drills are poorly coor- dinated as one school bumps into another

on their way to their assigned locations. A \u201cdangerous situation,\u201d he said, especially as more schools are added to the mix. There will be seven in September.

The lack of coordination extends to the sharing of common spaces, such as the library, where the meeting was held. \u201cWe have wonderful spaces like this that never get used, because it\u2019s not clear who\u2019s account- able to this space, who\u2019s allowed to use it, who do we talk to when we need to use it. Same with auditorium and other common spaces,\u201d said Rader. \u201cWe don\u2019t communicate with each other,\u201d he lamented.

Echoing his complaint, Baldwin junior Ahmed said, \u201cWe usually have to ask per- mission to use the gym, to use the library. I never used this library in my life. Being here for three years, I never was allowed to come up here.\u201d There are \u201ctalent shows in the auditorium,\u201d but \u201cmost times we\u2019re not allowed to do that, because we don\u2019t know who to ask or where to go.\u201d

The principals of all the schools co- located at BREC have met to discuss ways to iron out the problems that arise when seven schools share one building, said Elisa Aragon, principal of Quest to Learn. \u201cWe are creative collaborators,\u201d she said. They are requesting an assistant principal whose function will be to coordinate their needs and work out viable plans for sharing com- mon spaces.

\u201cI think we can really make it work,\u201d said Sue Tse, co-president of the Quest to Learn PTA.

Not everyone is so sanguine. Rader said, \u201cI believe in small schools, but I believe that we lose so much that a comprehensive school used to offer with spaces like this [library], music rooms, science labs, that now are being converted into classrooms.\u201d High school students in New York City have to spend their entire day in a small classroom space, he said. \u201cWhat we\u2019ll end up creating is these little enclaves on one little half a \ufb02 oor.\u201d

Principal of the Baldwin School Elijah Hawkes struck a positive note. Hawkes said he\u2019s \u201cwilling to think very creatively

about the seventh \ufb02 oor.\u201d The conversion of the physical education space \u201cneeds to be acknowledged as a signi\ufb01cant potential loss. Change is loss,\u201d he said, \u201cwhether you\u2019re gaining something or losing something,\u201d but especially \u201cif you\u2019re losing something.\u201d He hoped that with \u201csome time to think this through, maybe we can \ufb01nd some ways around it.\u201d Like Aragon, Hawkes believes \u201cIt just takes a little bit of effort and col- laboration.\u201d

Yet there is another \u201chuge issue in the building\u201d\u2014its technological de\ufb01ciencies, according to Rader. Bandwidth is severely lacking, and \u201cThere\u2019s power outages when we try to plug in more than one thing into the wall; sockets are falling apart; some rooms only have one place to plug things in,\u201d he asserted.

The community of Quest to Learn, which specializes in technology, was riveted by this disclosure. Sticklow, who serves on Q2L\u2019s relocation committee, expressed his amaze- ment. \u201cIt\u2019s incredible,\u201d he said, \u201cthat this is the \ufb01rst time we\u2019re hearing about\u201d the broadband issue. \u201cWe\u2019ve been through a big process ourselves trying to come to terms with what has been presented to us as a sort of done-deal situation. Whatever we may want or not want, this is where Quest to Learn is heading, and so we\u2019ve had to sort of accept that and learn to be happy about it.\u201d

Sticklow need not worry about the lack of bandwidth. The 2010-2014 Five-Year Capital Plan has budgeted improvements in classroom connectivity (i.e., broadband) as well as to the telephone/intercom system at Bayard Rustin.

Chelsea Now asked a number of faculty members about their experiences with the small learning communities at BREC, but not a single one was willing to go on record. There is a notable climate of fear in the building. All were distinctly unhappy about most of the changes they have witnessed, but all fear retribution from the administra- tion for going public with their opinions because they have witnessed their colleagues suffer as a result of openly criticizing school policy.