14 OCTOBER 8, 2020 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Middle Village parents protest 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
on Thursday, 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 Drive, who
enrolled their children in blended
learning said they’ve gone days without
teachers giving virtual classes
— and they’ve had enough.
“The issue is that we don’t know
why they aren’t able to do a live
stream 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 in-person schooling once or
twice a week and the rest of the week
they are completing assignments
with minimal to no teacher-student
virtual interaction.
They 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 hour-long 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.
The protest was organized by a
concerned parent, who asked to
remain anonymous, with a post
that quickly gained traction on local
Facebook groups.
Shortly after the post made the
Photo by Angélica Acevedo
rounds on social media, parents
received a letter from the school’s
administration that afternoon 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
first, then we could have organized
this differently. 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.”
The parent, who had their child at
the REC at P.S. 128 during the summer,
said that if they knew remote
learning would mean five days of
live instruction, they would have
opted for that instead. But childcare
during their work day remained a
concern.
This 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 seventhgrader
at P.S. 128 doing remote
learning, said the school’s principal,
Camillo Turriciano, “needs to do a
better job.”
“The principal has to voice our
concerns to the Board of Ed, he is our
liaison, not the teachers. The 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 fish stinks from the
head,” said Kingston. “I don’t think
it’s appropriate, the way they’re
going about this. This notion that
we can jump between a live teacher
some days and then some different
teacher remotely sending instructions
different days. There’s no reason
why they can’t live stream 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.”
The Community Education Council
for District 24 sent an email Thursday
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 flexibility
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 offering
students rich courses using
both in-person and remote methods.
The Executive Superintendent and
Superintendent are working closely
with the principal to add additional
staff as quickly as possible.”
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