Mayor de Blasio has whacked this American Dream in the knees.
A proposed dual-language charter school aimed at helping immigrant Latino kids in grades 6 to 8 prepare for college can move into a South Bronx public-school building — but must cut enrollment by 25 percent, the city Department of Education announced last week.
The decision means a crippling funding loss to the American Dream Charter School, said its founder, Melissa Melkonian.
“The bomb dropped on me,” Melkonian told The Post, saying she is now deciding whether the school can survive.
The school is one-of-a-kind and independent, not part of a network like Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy.
Ironically, American Dream promises to fulfill one of de Blasio’s main goals — to “improve school programs for students who don’t speak English.”
De Blasio’s Web site says 150,000 public-school kids need help learning English, and less than half graduate: “There has been no systemwide program to bring their achievement up to the level of other students,” it says.
American Dream’s mission is to do just that in the Mott Haven section of The Bronx, where 25 percent of students are English-language learners, 90 percent of them Spanish speakers.
“They are the most under-served population in New York City,” Melkonian said. “They perform the lowest on state tests and have one of the highest dropout rates.”
Bronx mom Yvette Saccone, who applied to American Dream for her son Isaiah, 11, is stunned that de Blasio would slap a program he promotes.
“If this was his intention, it’s in his hands right now,” she said. “But he’s letting it slip away — and he’s letting children slip through the cracks.”
The social worker added, “I was ecstatic when I heard about this new school in the community. I work with parents in the community, so I know the need.”
Isaiah, who attends the K-5 Bronx Charter School for Children, speaks English, but Saccone wants him to study Spanish as well.
“By the time he graduates eighth grade, he would be fluent in both. That’s a big asset for college and the job world.”
Sofia Raya, a Mexican immigrant and mother of three, including 11-year-old Leslie, agreed. All her children speak Spanish at home.
“A good education in both Spanish and English could help them get a really good job. On top of that, I believe it is really important to develop the language of your roots,” Raya said in Spanish.
With Leslie graduating from the same Bronx Charter as Isaiah, Raya also wants to keep her in a charter school for the “higher level of education” and better discipline, she said. “I really hope that the school opens. I hope the mayor gets behind this.”
Melkonian is the daughter of undocumented Mexican immigrants in El Paso, Texas. It wasn’t until the fifth grade that she started getting help in school to learn English, she said. Then she was thrown into English classes, and had no program to develop her native tongue.
Despite the hurdles, she went on to college and became an NYC Teaching Fellow. She taught for the DOE three years before joining the Bronx Preparatory Charter School as a teacher and assistant principal for 10 years. She has a master’s degree in bilingual and special ed from Mercy College.
The DOE’s dictate would force Melkonian’s American Dream to cut the number of classes in each grade from four to three, and limit the number of kids in each grade to 75 instead of 100.
The downsizing means more than a 25 percent cut in funding. Charter schools receive $13,527 in taxpayer tuition per student, plus some additional funds for poor kids and those with disabilities.
“I could afford to run the school on 100 kids; 75 was not realistic,” she said. “My entire budget would essentially be to hire staff, which leaves little money for textbooks, computers, furniture, everything you need to run a school.”
Now she’s crunching numbers and is “not sure” whether the school can get off the ground. She expects 250 families to enter an April 1 lottery for admission.