New York Teacher
Brooklyn HS ‘being oversized into the ground’
Feb 17, 2005 1:00 AM
Science Skills HS educators march to Region 8 headquarters to protest oversized classes.
About 30 educators from Science Skills Center HS in Brooklyn braved the cold on Jan. 28 to march to Region 8 headquarters to protest oversized classes.
The demonstrators dropped off copies of an arbitrator’s neglected order, issued on Nov. 19, to reduce class size to a maximum of 34 students.
“Not only did the school not comply with the order, but the classes have gotten bigger,” said Charles Friedman, the UFT district representative for Brooklyn and Staten Island high schools.
Science Skills, which has 850 students, concluded the fall semester with 69 oversized classes, 15 of which had more than 40 students, according to Friedman.
Representatives from the school and the region skipped most of the hearings on the issue, he complained.
The entire high school had to be reprogrammed four times in September, according to the demonstrators, as administrators futilely struggled to balance classes. As late as Nov. 1, they said, 11 teachers were notified of further program changes.
“The school is being oversized into the ground,” said math teacher Graham Ross.
Dance teacher Pat Asante complained that she had to teach 50 students in a dance studio built for 32. “You can’t give the students the individual attention they need when classes are that large,” she said.
Chapter Leader Emily Francis, the school’s librarian, said that the jumbo classes were hardest on the new teachers.
“Many of them are overwhelmed by the large numbers in their classes,” she said.
UFT President Randi Weingarten and Vice President for Academic High Schools Frank Volpicella were unable to join the demonstration because they were at a union meeting in Albany that day.
City Council Member Letitia James, who represents the Brooklyn district where the school is located, marched with the protesters. She said that the oversized classes were unfair to teachers and students alike.
The demonstrators also complained about the school’s recent shift in focus from advanced skills to basic skills.
“Our school used to have extremely high standards, but they are being watered down,” said Ross.
Science Skills, which specializes in math, science and technology, excessed its only physics teacher in September and reduced its offerings of Advanced Placement calculus from two full sections to half a section, Ross said.
Friedman said that it was ironic that the Department of Education was treating Science Skills so poorly when it is a model of the small, theme-based high schools championed by Chancellor Joel Klein.
There is no resolution of the problem in sight. Science Skills began the spring semester with 50 oversized classes, Friedman noted.
