7 BRONX WEEKLY March 8, 2020 www.BXTimes.com
Hunts Point charter school facing imminent closure
BY JASON COHEN
Facing impending closure
at the end of the school year,
a charter school in the south
Bronx hopes it can win its fi -
nal appeal next week and stay
afl oat.
Heketi Community Charter
School, located at 403 Concord
Avenue in Mott Haven, is a dual
language kindergarten through
fi ve school chartered by SUNY
Charter Schools Institute. In
December SUNY offi cials notifi
ed principal David Rosas they
would be shuttering Heketi.
The school opened in 2012
and has been embraced by the
community, Rosas said. SUNY
offi cials evaluated the school
in 2017 and gave it a partial renewal
for three years, not the
typical fi ve.
“It came as a surprise,” Rosas
said to the Bronx Times. “Here
we are making this growth and
putting changes in place based
on the recommendations that
they made.”
The state agency was worried
about poor test scores, however
even after improving the numbers
in 2019 and outperforming
the public schools in School District
7 last year, it still was not
good enough for SUNY. English
test scores increased from 21 to
38 percent and math 26 to 47 percent.
In November 2019, SUNY
representatives observed several
classrooms and spoke with
some teachers. The SUNY observers
did not like what they
found the principal said: they
took issue with poor classroom
behavior and disapproved of
the students using English and
Spanish in class, instead of focusing
on one language.
Specifi cally, the reps did not
like when a teacher asked questions
in Spanish that were answered
in English.
“They continued with this
narrative that the dual language
program is not strong,”
he said.
The classrooms may sometimes
appear out of control, but
in actuality they are just letting
them take a break, he explained.
“Our mission here is not
to produce robots,” Rosas remarked.
“It is very hard to
have visitors who don’t work in
school say what it should look
A teacher with a student at the Heketi School.
Photo by Wendy BarraleHeketi School
like.”
On Monday, December 16,
Rosas was notifi ed the school
would be closing. He told the
teachers immediately and sent a
letter to the parents on Wednesday,
January 8.
A day later, moms, dads and
kids arrived at school crying
and asked why it was happening.
“It was a grieving process
and still is,” he said. “I myself
had a little bit of an emotional
moment. We all thought we
were going to get a fi ve year renewal.”
On Tuesday, January 28,
the school appealled its imminent
closure with SUNY and in
February they learned it was
denied. Their last and fi nal appeal
is Tuesday, March 10 in
Manhattan. Many parents are
concerned and will be joining
Rosas next week at the hearing.
Parent Teacher Association
president Dolores Hook and
Stephanie Caban have sons in
the second grade and are both
devastated about the news. Hook
said the teachers know the kids
by name and called Heketi Community
Charter School a special
place.
“I’m very upset about this
happening,” Hook said.
Caban, whose son Tyler
started at the school in October,
was despondent when he heard
about the closure.
“I went straight to the principal
and said what can we do to
fi ght,” Caban said.
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