14 FEBRUARY 14, 2019 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Friendly fi re claims life of detective in Rich. Hill
BY BILL PARRY
BPARRY@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@QNS
Two Catholic academies in Brooklyn
just across the border from Ridgewood,
will merged next year, the Diocese of
Brooklyn announced.
The two Bushwick academies, St.
Francis Cabrini Catholic Academy and
St. Brigid Catholic Academy together
will be renamed St. Brigid-St. Frances
Cabrini Catholic Academy and the
school will be located at St. Brigid’s.
The merger was announced on Feb. 8
along with three school closures in the
diocese, including St. Camillus Catholic
Academy in Rockaway Park.
The diffi cult decisions were made
due to declining enrollment and severe
budget deficits that have resulted,
according to the diocese.
The students at all aff ected schools
will be accommodated at nearby
Catholic academies. They will
automatically receive a $500 tuition
assistance grant if they attend an
academy or parish school within
the Diocese of Brooklyn, as long as
they have met all of their fi nancial
obligations. That one-time grant is
made possible by the St. Elizabeth Ann
Seton Trust.
“It’s an emotional time for the diocese
when schools have to close because it is
St. Brigid Catholic Academy on the Ridgewood/Bushwick border in
Brooklyn. Photo via Google Maps
aff ecting the lives of students, parents,
and faculty,” Superintendent of Schools
Thomas Chadzutko, Ed. D, said. “The
decisions come aft er intense analysis
of enrollment trends and the fi nancial
picture of each academy.”
At St. Frances Cabrini, the building
repairs have continues to increase and
last year, the Board of Directors spent
over $200,000 in unexpected repairs.
That along with declining enrollment
there and at St. Brigid Catholic Academy
is the reason for the merger.
“I respect the boards’ decisions in
these matters,” Chadzutko said. “When
resources are constrained, if aff ects all
aspects of the learning environment,
which eventually impacts students and
their needs. Our children are our fi rst
priority.”
Information Night meetings will
begin next week scheduled to close and
administrators and personnel from
neighboring Catholic academies will
be on hand to present their programs
and answer questions that parents may
have.
The merged St. Brigid-St. Frances
Cabrini Catholic Academy will be
designated an Embassy School and
as a result it will receive additional
funding from the St. Elizabeth Ann
Seton Trust. The merged academy
will also receive technology updates
to the infrastructure through DeSales
Media Group, the communications,
and technology arm of the Diocese of
Brooklyn.
“It is the goal of the offi ce to assist
all parents in placing their children
in their neighboring school if they so
choose as well as working with faculty
and staff who have dedicated their lives
to Catholic education,” Chadzutko said.
“It is our hope that these changing
demographics of Brooklyn and Queens
stabilizes so that enrollment in Catholic
academies throughout the diocese can
increase in the future.”
Stringer accuses MTA of lying about subway delay frequency
BY MARK HALLUM
MHALLUM@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@QNS
Aft er an investigation into data
regarding subway delays
since 2015, New York City
Comptroller Scott Stringer is alleging
that the fi gures indicate a “culture of
concealment” within the MTA which
continues to persist despite leadership
turnover in recent years.
The investigation reviewed
internal documents from the MTA’s
Performance Analysis Unit and
conducted interviews of leaders in
the agency and determined that data
has been misleading in nature, for
example the “wait assessment” scores
were considered by the comptroller’s
offi ce as the result of sample error.
“It is an insult to anyone who has ever
been late to work or stranded at the
station that MTA leadership passed
along bogus delay data just to make the
agency look good, even as its own staff
were raising red fl ags,” Stringer said.
“While the new leadership deserves
credit for trying to clean things up, the
MTA still has a long way to go to ensure
accuracy and reliability and to regain
the public’s trust. For too long the MTA
has failed to transparently report what
is actually going on underground, a
problem which can only mean more
delays and more frustration for the
working New Yorkers who rely on the
subway every day.”
Stringer also said the MTA’s
tracking abilities were not up to task,
consistently mislabeling delays as
“overcrowding” on lines and claimed
a 2015 internal memo pointed out that
the cause of setbacks in service was
often reported by the train crews
which were deemed as oft en “suspect.”
Another 2016 memo admitted that
data was “incomplete or unreliable,”
according to Stringer.
The investigation found that “major
incidents” was only defined by an
event that delayed 50 or more trains
and does not include planned work
that causes commuter setbacks to save
face, which the comptroller admitted
has been recognized New York City
Transit President Andy Byford.
But the MTA was not impressed with
Stringer’s fi ndings, claiming that the
information is outdated and not any
indication of the agency’s practices
since reforms were implemented by
Byford upon his appointment in 2018.
“We appreciate the comptroller’s
focus on subway performance but this
report is more history and politics than
news, focusing on rejected practices
of the past while glossing over recent
reforms and NYC Transit’s aggressive
pursuit of additional transparency
and accountability,” an MTA
spokesman said.
The agency denied that any practices
were meant to “cast the agency in a
more positive light,” as Stringer’s
report put it, but that there was no
better way to categorize causes of
certain delays due to “data limitations.”
Delays were tracked whether they
were mislabeled or not in order to
make sure every delay was taken into
account, the MTA said.
The MTA claims there are
“legitimate technological and human
resource obstacles” to tracking delays
as only a third of the systems is on
Communications-Based Train Control
(CBTC), as was recently installed on the
7 train, which makes keeping tabs on
trains in real time a challenge.
Photo: Mark Hallum/RIDGEWOOD TIMES
/WWW.QNS.COM
link
link
link
link
