Put them in trailers, put them in an empty schoolhouse, put them anywhere but in our building – because it’s bursting at the seams.
That was the resounding message last night from scores of parents from a Brooklyn middle school and high school who insisted a city plan to place up to 120 students of a proposed Arabic-language secondary school in their building would squeeze their children out of a sound education.
“I think our country needs to better understand Arabic culture and this is a wonderful way to do it, but if it’s at the expense of future artists, scientists and mathematicians, then that’s wrong,” said Janet Filemyr, a parent of a sixth-grader at the Math and Science Exploratory School in Boerum Hill.
Her argument and those of parents from the Brooklyn HS of the Arts have become a familiar refrain to the fledgling Khalil Gibran International Academy, which was so unwelcome by parents at its original proposed site that the Education Department caved to the pressure and dropped that plan last week.
The overwhelming objection from parents at the initial location, PS 282 in Park Slope, was the same: They said they embraced the concept of an Arabic language and culture program, but not the resources it required.
Education officials and the principal of the Arabic school sought to allay such concerns last night at what was deemed an “emergency” parent meeting in the schoolhouse on Dean Street.
But after 90 minutes of being told that the plan was firm and that their building had the space, many parents walked away feeling ignored.
“I think we’re just being railroaded,” said middle-school parent Cherry Carter. “They tried this in Park Slope and they were pushed out. Now they’re throwing it down our throats.”
The academy would open with 60 students in the sixth grade and expand to a seventh grade before vacating the building for a permanent home in two years.
The school would need four classrooms and one office.
Garth Harries, chief of the department’s Office of New Schools, said the agency estimated there are 600 seats available in the building.
Khalil Gibran Principal Debbie Almontaser said she was sympathetic to the parents, and remained hopeful that the transition would be smooth.
“I feel for the parents,” she said. “I understand what they’re going through.”