Protesters walk out of ‘sham’ PEP meeting

Miller Photography

Some 2,000 parents, students and educators storm out of the Feb. 3 Panel for Educational Policy meeting. View more photos >>

Calling the process a sham, some 2,000 parents, students and educators on Feb. 3 stormed out en masse from a meeting of the mayor’s Panel for Educational Policy before it voted to shutter 12 struggling New York City public schools.

Equipped with whistles and a foghorn, they also delayed the meeting’s start and at various points before their walkout brought the proceedings to a standstill, drowning out the panel chair’s calls for order with chants of “save our schools” and “Black must go.”

Met with tremendous applause and enthusiastic chants of “UFT” from the crowd, UFT President Michael Mulgrew in his testimony challenged the legitimacy of the school closure process.

“There cannot be a legitimate process for anything unless there is a plan for schools to succeed first,” Mulgrew declared. “All we see is a plan for failure. So as far as the UFT is concerned, this panel and this process are illegitimate.”

Miller Photography Once they left, there were few on hand to watch the panel vote to close 12 more schools. Mulgrew took aim at the DOE’s failure to support struggling schools, which union officials and educators claim have been intentionally starved of resources.

“Every school, no matter how they are performing, should be getting support from the Department of Education,” Mulgrew said. “If you cannot do that, then we do not need a Department of Education.”

Also speaking before the walkout, politician after politician took aim at the panel, the mayor and the DOE.

Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries said he could not decide whether to give the DOE a “D for disaster” or an “F for failure.”

“Mayoral control is out of control,” he said. “It has not done justice for our students.”

Queens State Sen. Tony Avella asked where special needs students and English language learners from Jamaica HS, in his district, will go once their school is shut down. “To another overcrowded school that you’ll then close down,” he surmised.

“Give the schools the resources they need and the students will perform,” Avella said.

The panel, which had originally been slated to vote on 25 school closures in all, deferred votes on PS 114 in Brooklyn after the DOE requested more time to review public comments, and PS 30 and PS 231 in Queens, where the school hearings were postponed because of bad weather.