P.S. 9 students head to Citi Field
Special needs students from Maspeth school get treated to fi rst experience at Mets game
Bobby Ross, a District 75 student, was one of many treated to Mets tickets by the team. Photo: Mark Hallum/QNS
BY MARK HALLUM
It’s not every day that students
who attend District 75
schools, such as P.S. 9 Walter
Reed in Maspeth, get to hang
out and watch the Mets play at
Citi Field — but this was not a
normal day.
The students, who suffer
with disabilities that range
from autism to other psychological
disorders, received a
sponsorship of 175 tickets from
the Mets to see their team play
the Marlins; for many, it was
their first game.
Though Sharon Roberts, a
teacher at P.S. 9, did not know
how many of the students, parents
or paraprofessionals looking
after the children would
be able to make it to the 7 p.m.
game, the event would seem
like an ample excuse to get the
physically disabled kids out of
the house.
“It’s our first one, so we’re
really nervous to see how everything
goes which kids are
coming. Some of them are
wheelchair bound, most of
them – and I can guarantee
– have never been to a game
before. That’s why it’s so exciting,”
Roberts said. “A lot of
them come in from Jamaica or
Maspeth, it’s hard.”
With eight sites for District
75 learning across the city,
Roberts and other staff from
P.S. 9 did not recognize many
of the students. Some of the
children were familiar faces,
however, being students who
had improved to the point
where they could attend regular
public school with or without
a “para” present.
Paraprofessionals, according
to Roberts, are a critical
component to teaching in her
classroom.
Often, there are almost as
many adults as children in
Roberts’s class with students
have individual education
plans that call for “one-andone”
attention throughout the
day. P.S. 9 is currently undergoing
massive renovations from
the city Department of Education
.A
fter the facility got traction
in the media for its poor
state, the city began pumping
money into the 100-year-old
school set within an industrial
section of Maspeth.
The staff did not get the
hype, however. Roberts argued
that, yes, while the school was
in poor shape, it was not unlike
any other facility of its age
under the purview of the DOE.
Mike Goldstein, the assistant
principal at the school,
said he felt as though the attention
the facility was receiving
in the media was mostly due
to the political goals of Councilman
Robert Holden who
referred to the school as “Willowbrook
2.0.”
For Goldstein, whose parents
had met at one of the
groups homes that resulted
from the closing of Willowbrook
in the early 1970s, having
his school compared to
the notorious Staten Island
facility where widespread
abuse took place was an affront
to work he and his staff
do at P.S. 9.
At Willowbrook, the issue
was less about the facility and
more about the staff committing
abuse to the mentally ill
residents. Goldstein thought of
the comparison as inappropriate
and a misrepresentation of
the staff.
The August 2019 New York
Post story was not the only
account of staff at the P.S. 9
taking umbrage to Holden’s attempts
have the school moved.
In October 2019, staff confronted
the councilman at a
Juniper Park Civic Association
meeting in which Holden
discussed the effort to move
the children from the school
and negotiate with the Department
of Homeless Services to
convert the building into a
homeless shelter.
According to Roberts, it was
not that they saw a problem
with receiving a new facility.
It was two years it could take
to build the new school and the
subsequent displacement of
the students until then.
Goldstein, however, is
pleased the DOE has set aside
$16 million for renovations
which take place after session
lets out.
QNS covered Councilman
Holden’s effort to have a building
currently slated for a homeless
shelter at 78-16 Cooper Ave.
instead be used as a District 75
school over the course of the
past year as part of a citywide
objection to shelters being
built in neighborhoods.
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