FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM OCTOBER 8, 2020 • THE QUEENS COURIER 17
Middle Village parents protest outside of PS 128 over
lack of live instruction for blended learning students
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
aacevedo@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Approximately three dozen parents and
kids gathered outside of P.S./I.S. 128 in
Middle Village onTh ursday, Oct. 1, to
demand the school give students the live
instruction they were promised with the
blended learning model.
Parents of the K-8 public school, located
at 69-10 65th Dr., who enrolled their children
in blended learning said they’ve gone
days without teachers giving virtual classes
— and they’ve had enough.
“Th e issue is that we don’t know why
they aren’t able to do a livestream of
the in-person classes for the students in
blended learning,” said one parent who
asked to remain anonymous.
Some parents told QNS that with the
blended model, their children have inperson
schooling once or twice a week
and the rest of the week they are completing
assignments with minimal to no
teacher-student virtual interaction.
Th ey worry their kids aren’t getting the
education they deserve.
“My child’s a sixth-grader, preparing
for high school … there are other parents
who have eighth-graders with the
same situation. How are they being graded?
When it comes time to apply to high
school, do they just give up?” the parent
said. “Nothing is shared with us.”
Some of the parents at the protest questioned
why P.S. 128 was having the issue,
saying they haven’t heard of other nearby
schools going through the same situation.
P.S. 128, which has 900 students and
served as an REC this summer, has a stellar
reputation in the surrounding community.
But during the height of the
COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of
schools in March, some parents said their
children weren’t receiving live instruction
then either.
During the hourlong protest, parents
and kids gathered on the side of the school
to talk about their concerns. Several
school safety offi cers and an NYPD van
were standing by.
A few minutes into the protest, a parent
coordinator came out to speak with the
group of parents.
“We have people here that are listening.
You have to be patient,” they said, before
leaving promptly.
Th e protest was organized by a concerned
parent, who asked to remain anonymous,
with a post that quickly gained
traction on local Facebook groups.
Shortly aft er the post made the rounds
on social media, parents received a letter
from the school’s administration that
aft ernoon saying they are working to remedy
the concerns.
But parents said they’re only getting
answers because of the protest, that there
has been minimal communication from
the school and that even the models they
were presented with — blended, remote
and in-person — weren’t clearly described
to them.
“Why didn’t they organize this better?
Be truthful to the parents,” one parent,
who is an essential worker and asked
to remain anonymous, told QNS. “If you
decided blended, the rest of the week your
child would not have a live instruction.
Explain it fi rst, then we could have organized
this diff erently. I had no idea …
My son is calling me, home alone, waiting
for my 84-year-old mother to come
— she has to take two buses to get over
here and she doesn’t know how to work
the computer.”
Th e parent, who had their child at the
REC at P.S. 128 during the summer, said
that if they knew remote learning would
mean fi ve days of live instruction, they
would have opted for that instead. But
childcare during their work day remained
a concern.
Th is week, the Department of Education
reported that 48 percent of public school
students opted for fully remote learning
this fall.
John Pastor, who has a seventh-grader
at P.S. 128 doing remote learning, said
the school’s principal, Camillo Turriciano,
“needs to do a better job.”
“Th e principal has to voice our concerns
to the Board of Ed. He is our liaison,
not the teachers. Th e teachers are our liaisons
in learning,” Pastor said. “If the principal
comes to me and says, ‘Look, John, I
went to the Board of Ed and they said no,’
guess what we’re going to do? We’re going
to go to the Board of Ed, but he doesn’t tell
us anything.”
Pastor and a group of parents will be
sending a letter to the city and meeting
with local Councilman Robert Holden
this week.
Jonathan Kingston, who has two children
at P.S. 128 doing blended learning,
believes the issue stems from the DOE
and UFT.
“I think the fi sh stinks from the head,”
Kingston said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate,
the way they’re going about this. Th is
notion that we can jump between a live
teacher some days and then some diff erent
teacher remotely sending instructions
diff erent days. Th ere’s no reason why they
can’t livestream the actual class with the
same teacher, same day, and have it be
seamless.”
Kingston added that while he understands
that the argument that schools
need more funding, he asks if the DOE
is appropriately using the resources they
currently have.
“More funding is not always the answer,”
he said. “If you’re going to now have one
teacher doing the job of what one teacher
can and should do, then I would respectfully
submit that more funding is not
the way to go. I think the teachers union
might do a great job for looking out for
teachers, but I think that the interest of
the students always should supersede the
concerns of the teachers union.”
Th e Community Education Council for
District 24 sent an email Th ursday morning
to encourage parents to complete a
survey about their concerns and join their
Parent-to-Parent Zoom meeting taking
place next week. A date has not yet been
announced.
DOE spokesperson Danielle Filson said
they are working on ramping up live
instruction for blended learners.
“We appreciate everyone’s fl exibility and
patience at the start of this unprecedented
school year and our goal is to have in-person
instruction for our blended students
on their in-person days, and to ramp up
live instruction for blended learners on
their remote days,” Filson said. “P.S. 128
was excited to welcome the school community
back this week and is off ering
students rich courses using both in-person
and remote methods. Th e executive
superintendent and superintendent are
working closely with the principal to add
additional staff as quickly as possible.”
link
/WWW.QNS.COM
link
