The Home Reporter and Sunset News recently published a story on how the Sunset Park community organized to advocate for the first high school in the neighborhood. Here are some excerpts of the article:
“It has been a long haul filled with a lot of challenges,” said Julie Stein Brockway, chair of the Sunset Park High School Task Force
Stein Brockway was among the community representatives who greeted Mayor Bloomberg and City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein when the two men visited the high school site on March 1.
The Sunset Park High School Task Force, which was organized a few years ago at the behest of Community Board Seven, is composed entirely of volunteers representing a cross section of the neighborhood.
The task force which counts among its members students, parents, longtime Sunset Park residents, and business owners, meets once a month at Board Seven’s office at the Sunset Park Court House on Fourth Avenue and 43rd Street. The group is taking special pride in the opening of the school, according to Stein Brockway, who said members are pleased that the New York City Department of Education agreed with many of the members’ suggestions on the structure of the school and the types of enrichment programs it will offer to students.
“The DOE actually listened to the needs and preferences of our community,” said Stein Brockway, who serves as the co-director of the Center for Family Life in Sunset Park and has a background in social work.
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The school will be composed of three smaller academies which will share the building.
The three academies are: Performing and Visual Arts, Health and Human Sciences, and Business and Entrepreneurship. But while there will be tree academies, the building will have just one principal, Corinne Vinal. The task force and Board Seven pushed hard for the idea of having one principal in charge of the school.
“I like to say that we wore DOE down on the one principal concept,” Stein Brockway said.
In other schools in which three academies share a building, DOE officials usually assigned three different principals.
But it was important to maintain Sunset Park High School as a unified entity, Stein Brockway said.
She recalled a presentation made by School Construction Authority officials when the school was still in the planning stages. At that time, the design called for three separate entrances to be used by students in the three academies.
Community residents balked at the idea.
“People were tapping me on the shoulder and telling me, ‘This isn’t what we want,’” Stein-Brockway said. The task force expressed a strong desire “not to create wall between parts of our community but to build bridges,” Stein Brockway said.
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The task force also advocated for the high school to have an afterschool program as well as a youth employment program.
These features were hammered out during dozens of meetings Stein Brockway and task force members had with Dept. of Education officials over the past couple of years.
Stein Brockway, who has spent 26 years working in Sunset Park, said she is proud of the job done by the task force.
The working structure of the task force was also positive, she said.
“Every voice was heard. Any new person could join. Everyone actively participated. We got teens talking to older adults. And every part of the community was brought into the process. When we had townhall meetings, we had information printed in English, Spanish, Chinese,” Stein-Brockway said.
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Borough President Marty Markowitz, state Assemblyman Felix Ortiz and Councilwoman Sara Gonzalez were among the officials joining the mayor at the high school on Sunday.
“It is wonderful that after years of hard work, finally we are getting closer to a moment of history in our community,” Ortiz said.
As a key community partner, Center for Family Life will offer meaningful activities during the school day and after school for students at the new high school. The Center’s staff and teachers will work together in designing and implementing the school’s advisory curriculum. You can read more about our “Life Lines” Community Arts Project and Youth Employment Program that will provide activities at the new school.
