14 MAY 24, 2018 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Honor those who served at Memorial Day parades
BY THE RIDGEWOOD TIMES STAFF
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
Before heading out to the beach
or fi ring up the family barbecue,
head out to one of the many Memorial
Day parades and vigils scheduled
across Queens this weekend.
Most of the parades take place on
Sunday, May 27, or Memorial Day
itself, Monday, May 28, and feature
local youth and community groups,
elected officials, marching bands,
troops and veterans organizations.
The star-spangled commemorations
serve as tributes to those soldiers
who gave their lives in defense of
the United States — and celebrations
of the freedoms they fought to
preserve.
Here are details of just a few Queens
Memorial Day marches and ceremonies,
in chronological order (all of
which are scheduled to take place rain
or shine):
FOREST HILLS
The 2018 Memorial Day Parade in
Forest Hills will be held on Sunday,
May 27, beginning at noon and is
hosted by the American Legion. Also
marching are veterans and active enlisted
as well as offi cers of the United
States Armed Forces. Attendees are
asked to gather at 11 a.m. to march on
Metropolitan Avenue between Ascan
Avenue and Woodhaven Boulevard.
All who are marching should wear
either Class A or Class B uniforms or
formal attire.
MASPETH
The 34th annual Maspeth Memorial
Day Parade will begin on Sunday at 1
p.m. at 72nd Street and Grand Avenue,
with memorial services taking place
at 2 p.m. at Maspeth Memorial Park at
69th Street and Grand Avenue.
With a theme of “Maspeth Stands
and Salutes the American Flag,” the
parade will include marchers from
the 319th Statue of Liberty Army Band
among seven other bands, United
Service Organizations, more than
60 Marines, sailors and Color Guard,
fl oats, antique cars, military vehicles
and more.
This year’s Grand Marshals are
Maspeth native Kathleen Nealon and
Vietnam veteran Frank Caruso.
RIDGEWOOD-GLENDALE
The 80th Ridgewood-Glendale Memorial
Day Parade will get underway
at 11 a.m. on Monday morning. As
tradition goes in even-numbered
years, the march will step off from the
Ridgewood Veterans Triangle at the
corner of Myrtle and Cypress avenues,
then head east along Myrtle Avenue
into Glendale.
Leading the way at this year’s
parade is grand marshal Raymond
Whitman, a U.S. Army veteran who
served during the Korean War. He’ll
be accompanied by hundreds of
flag-waving participants along the
1 1/4 mile long parade route to the
Glendale Memorial Triangle, at the
corner of Myrtle and Cooper avenue.
The parade will conclude there with
a ceremony.
The Allied Veterans Committee of
Ridgewood and Glendale sponsors
the annual parade. For more information,
call Paul Schottenhamel at
718-366-1359.
HOWARD BEACH
Howard Beach residents will again
pay tribute to all who served and died in
defense of our country with its annual
parade on Monday morning. The march
steps off at 11 a.m. from Coleman Square,
located at the corner of 159th Avenue
and 103rd Street, and will wind its way
through local streets before returning
to the square for a memorial ceremony.
LITTLE NECK/DOUGLASTON
The Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial
Day Parade, which is widely
regarded as the largest parade of its
kind in the nation, will begin at 2 p.m.
on Monday and run along Northern
Boulevard from Jayson Avenue to
245th Street. Brigadier General William
H. Seely of the U.S. Navy will
serve as grand marshal. The parade
will also pay special tribute to Lieutenant
Commander Frederick Peter
Crosby, a Navy pilot who was killed
during the Vietnam War and missing
in action for nearly 50 years.
RIDGEWOOD TIMES/File Photo
Queens schools eye security boosts following school shootings
BY JENNA BAGCAL
JBAGCAL@QNS.COM/@JENNA_BAGCAL
In the wake of the tragic school
shootings in Parkland, Florida,
and Santa Fe, Texas, over the span
of less than two months, the co-president
of the Community Education
Council for District 24 in Queens
said that parents in the district have
requested that the Department of
Education allowed locked doors in
their schools to increase safety.
Dmytro Fedkowskyj said that
the schools in his community had
committed the months of March and
April to discussing school safety within
the district. The main things that
parents requested were locked doors,
increased camera surveillance and
a front door buzzer system, but Fedkowskyj
said that the DOE has been
reluctant to implement these changes.
Metal detectors were not a huge
topic of concern for the 40 schools in
CEC 24, and the co-president said that
requests for scanners are "dependent
on occurrences" in schools.
Back in March 2018, Mayor Bill
de Blasio held a meeting at the
Vanderbilt YMCA to talk school
safety with children in New York City
public schools, including the use of
metal detectors on the students. Several
students, including ones from
local Queens schools, said that they
did not believe that metal detectors
were benefi cial to their safety, and
instead made them feel "targeted and
criminalized" as reported by Patch.
Two of the Queens high schools
that were represented at the town
hall were Rockaway Park High
School For Environmental Sustainability
and John Bowne High School
in Flushing.
John Bowne High School is a
Queens school that has implemented
the use of metal detectors after
an incident where three teenagers
were charged with stabbing a fellow
classmate. Days later, three other
students were caught with knives
while going through the metal detectors.
Though the school has not
implemented full-time scanners,
the students do undergo "random
scanning" as reported by QNS.com.
According to the nyc.gov website,
the NYPD announced a safety initiative
in July 2016 that required
students at public middle schools
and high schools to pass through
metal scanning devices similar
to those used to screen airline
passengers. The initiative was a
collaboration between the NYPD
and NYCDOE as a "vital security
initiative and significant deterrent
to weapons and violence."
During the 2015 to 2016 school
year, it was reported that there
were 88 scanning sites in the more
than 1,000 public schools throughout
the city. Seventy-nine of these
sites are "full time" while the other
nine are "part time" or "random"
scanning sites. Full-time scanning
takes place on a continuous, daily
basis during school hours and after
school and on weekends whenever
the school is in use. Part-time
scanning occurs on a random basis
throughout the week.
Other schools undergo "unannounced
scanning" where the
NYPD School Safety Division
brings the scanning equipment
down to the selected school to use
for the day. According to information
from the initiative, this type
of scanning is usually randomized,
but sometimes it is implemented
in response to the conditions or
circumstances surrounding the
particular school.
According to an infographic
from WNYC, 20 percent of Queens
students went through metal detectors
in the 2013 to 2014 school year.
Queens is the borough with the
second-to-least amount of students
going through metal detectors.
The borough with the most metal
detectors is the Bronx, followed
by Brooklyn, Manhattan and in last
place, Staten Island. It was reported
that 91,114 students in New York public
schools go through metal detectors
in some capacity.
Photo via YouTube/Andre Christopher Rivera
link
/@JENNA_BAGCAL
