Monthly Archives: December 2008

Postcard from the Slope

NY Mag Reasons to Love NY: Red Hook Wine

It’s #32. Here’s an excerpt from NY Mag:

Wine distributor Mark Snyder is determined to restore the faded
tradition of Brooklyn winemaking—once practiced routinely in kosher
wineries and Italian-American basements—and to utterly transform it.
And he’s doing it in Red Hook, with Long Island grapes. If that’s not
zany enough, consider his co-conspirators: Bob Foley of Robert Foley
Vineyards, maker of cult Napa reds like his signature Claret and
Charbono, and Abe Schoener, whose quirky Scholium Project label claims
East Coast devotees like chef Colin Alevras, who’s been helping out in
Red Hook in his spare time. Even in this year of the urban winery, with
the more commercial City Winery and Bridge Vineyards opening in Soho
and Williamsburg respectively, the prospect of Foley and Schoener
fermenting and blending wines in an unmarked Red Hook storefront might
be the oenological equivalent of Alice Waters opening a little café on
Van Brunt Street. Unexpected, bizarre, and more than a little thrilling.

Postcard from the Slope

Slope Couple Now Homeless: City Did Not Offer Housing

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Here’s an update from Jenifer Epelbaum, the Slope resident who has been advocating on behalf of Frances and Frank, a local couple recently evicted from a St. John’s Place apartment building and offered a $40,000 settlement (which in a special needs trust).  The woman is mentally disabled and the man is elderly.

Epelbaum’s note contains sad news. The couple, who were refused housing by the city’s "Eligibility Investigation Office" yesterday, now have nowhere to live. They spent the night riding the subway to stay out of the rain.

The elderly man and woman I wrote to you about were transported by car
today to the homeless intake facility in Manhattan. They were taken
there by the guardian for the woman (a social worker representing the
legal guardian to be precise). I was permitted to come along as well,
since the couple wanted me there for comfort and assistance.

The
staff at the intake facility were exceptionally kind and helpful.
However, after about an hour of waiting, the couple and the woman’s guardian were called into the "Homeless Diversion Unit."

There we met
with a very nice woman who asked to see the papers documenting the
homelessness. After reading the "Notice of Settlement" and other legal
papers the guardian provided, she told the couple and the guardian that
she did not believe the couple would be found eligible for shelter. She
pointed at the $40,000 settlement and asked why that money could not be
used now to shelter the woman. She also asked about the woman’s
government support checks (also apparently now controlled by the
guardian).

I
had to leave after about four and a half hours of waiting, before the
couple and the guardian were seen by the next person, whom I was told
would be from the "Eligibility Investigation Office."

During the
long wait, I asked the guardian’s representative why the couple was not being housed temporarily in a hotel with money from the settlement.
He replied that he appreciated my advocacy on their behalf, but he
preferred to wait and argue the case of their eligibility for a
homeless shelter. I was sorry I had to leave before the matter could be
resolved, but I had to return to Brooklyn to pick up my youngest child
from school.

I was busy this evening with another of my
children, and returned home late to very sad news. The couple did not
receive housing from the city. The woman (who is mentally impaired) I
am told stormed out in frustration after much waiting. The message I
received is that they are riding the subway tonight, for shelter from
the rain.

They
are out of their home, and Frances does not control her government
support checks nor the settlement, which was due to be paid into a
special needs trust (the $40,000 agreed to if she left her home by
12/15). Frank has tried valiantly to assist Frances in meeting the
terms of the settlement, since she stood to lose much of the settlement
if they failed to leave by 12/15.

Frank is 74. He is a native
New Yorker, born on Elizabeth Street in Manhattan. He is a kind and
intelligent person who is devoted to Frances. Frank served our country
as a member of our armed forces, and he performed his duties honorably
and bravely at that time. He serves honorably and bravely again, this
time assisting his companion Frances, who appears to have been forsaken
by everyone else, including our legal system.

Jennifer Epelbaum

Postcard from the Slope

OTBKB Endorses Caroline Kennedy for Senator

I support Caroline Kennedy for senator mostly because I think she has what it takes to be a great New York politician: brains, dignity, determination, and ethics.

So I’m curious about what this woman born one year before me would do with the job. I suspect she would fill it with grace and maybe even brilliance.

Yes, I am an admirer. We’re practically relatives. Well, not really.

But in a symbolic way: we grew up together. My sister’s name is Caroline after all. And we both wear our hair straight with a side part.

I vividly remember the images of Caroline and John John in the White House. I feel like I was aware of them as a young kid.

Of course I remember when her father was killed. Who can forget those days when my parents were tuned non-stop to those awful images of Jack and Jackie in the car, the solemn images of the funeral, LBJ being sworn in and little John John’s unbearably poignant wave at the funeral.

It was the first "television event" in my life. And I felt the tragedy in a small way even though I was only five-years-old.

So I am sort of a Caroline groupie. I’ve always admired the fact that she seemed like a serious and wonky member of the family; she doesn’t go in for all the personal dysfunction that some of the Kennedy’s seem to display.

It was cool when she married Edwin Scholossberg, her big, Jewish intellectual, who was geeky with an interest in creating interactive media and art installations. 

Then she wrote two scholarly books with Ellen Alderman called  In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights in Action and The Right of Privacy.

I felt for her as she grieved her brother. They were very close and she looked ruptured for years after.

And more recently she worked to raise money for NYC public schools and was an early and influential supporter of Barack Obama. The following is from an op-ed column she wrote for the New York Times called "A President Like My Father .

I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public
schools and have three teenage children of my own. There is a
generation coming of age that is hopeful, hard-working, innovative and
imaginative. But too many of them are also hopeless, defeated and
disengaged. As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children
to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future.
Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with
that sense of possibility.

I like that she would be the first Kennedy women to actually hold an elected office.

I like that she isn’t a fashion plate like her mom but that she has nice, classic style. And she hires cool architects to design her houses. She’s low  key and private and she lives the kind of life I’d like to live if I was rich and famous.

In other words, she seems to have values, dignity and  honesty (and loads of money). My guess is that like so many she’s inspired by Obama and wants to be part of public life—and that’s why she wants to be the first female Kennedy to join the family business. She writes:

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me
that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have
found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a
new generation of Americans.

In my gut I trust Caroline Kennedy and feel strongly that her intelligence, her powers of reason and her restraint would make her a great senator for New York City.

And it’s not just because we grew up together.

Postcard from the Slope

Marty, Bill, Christine, Joan, David and Daniel Express Concern Over the Closing of The Little Room

This joint letter Christine Quinn, Marty Markowitz, Daniel Squadron, Joan Millman, David Yassky
and Bill de Blasio went to the Board of Trustees of the Brooklyn Montessori School.

December 15, 2008

Helene Banks
President, Board of Trustees
Brooklyn Heights Montessori School
185 Court Street
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Dear Ms. Banks:

We are writing with serious concern regarding the fate of the Little Room program. As
described in Sunday’s New York Times, and as we have heard from parents and members of our
community, the Little Room is a high-quality, award-winning special education program for pre-
school children.  We want to underscore the importance of preserving such a vital service for
Brooklyn residents.

As we understand it, the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School Board is planning to meet on
Tuesday to decide the future of the Little Room.  We hope the Board will strongly consider
keeping the program and embracing the Little Room as part of the mission of the school. 

At a minimum, we ask the Board to make a strong, clear commitment to ensuring the long-term
survival of the Little Room.  Because public funding undergirds the program, we feel there is a
strong public interest in ensuring that the Little Room continues to survive and thrive. We
believe this would entail keeping the program at Montessori through the summer of 2011, and
hiring a new director capable of guiding the Little Room through a transition to another location.

We also ask for the opportunity to meet with the Board briefly prior to your discussion on
Tuesday so that we may present our concerns in person.

Mary Cooley of the office of State Senator-elect Daniel Squadron will serve as contact person
for the undersigned as a group.  You can reach her at mary@danielsquadron.org or 646-472-
5712, or you may reach any of us at our offices.

We look forward to working with you, the affected parents and members of the community to
formulate a solution that preserves the Little Room and the essential services it provides for the
children who need them.

Sincerely,
Christine Quinn,
Marty Markowitz,
Daniel Squadron
Joan Millman
David Yassky
Bill de Blasio

Civics and Urban Life

NY Mag Reasons to Love NY: Ditmas Park

Says New York Magazine: Ditmas Park is the 39th reason to love New York; our very own San Francisco. And they even mention blogger, Liena Zagare of Ditmas Park Blog.

What New Yorker with a repressed
slacker-hippie side hasn’t fantasized about ditching Gotham for calmer,
quainter San Francisco? Some locals have been satisfying that yen by
simply moving to Ditmas Park, the Victorian-packed enclave south of
Prospect Park. It isn’t just that the West Coast metropolis and the
west-of-Flatbush hamlet share an abundance of turn-of-the-century
painted ladies (which in Ditmas now fetch up to $1.8 million and reach
their height of Gothic-Oriental grandness on both sides of stately
Albemarle Road). You can also see similarities in the restaurant scene:
The reigning culinary draw, the Farm on Adderley
(1108 Cortelyou Rd.; 718-287-3101), references Chez Panisse (okay,
that’s in Berkeley, not Frisco) in its strident locavorism and
mismatched plates. And Ditmas’s tiny, cozy Cinco de Mayo
(1202 Cortelyou Rd.; 718-693-1022) can hold its own in the Mexican
brunch department against the Mission District’s Pancho Villa Taqueria
(although the latter’s burritos are admittedly better). Then there are
the political echoes, with the Beat- beloved City Lights bookstore and
Café Trieste intertwining at Vox Pop
(1022 Cortelyou Rd.; 718-940-2084), where, on a recent Sunday, you
could order a Cesar Chavez personal pizza, buy lefty tracts, and listen
to a live drum circle from a group called Manhattan Samba. “The vibe
there’s very San Francisco,” says local Joshua Levy, managing editor of
change.org, a “social-action blog network” based in, naturally, S.F.
“It’s a bunch of communists hanging out and drinking Fair Trade coffee
while reading conspiracy books,” he half-jokes. Not that every Ditmas
denizen embraces the comparison. Political-contribution records show
that chunks of Ditmas actually lean red, notes Liena Zagare, who writes
the popular Ditmas Park Blog. And Mary Kay Gallagher,
a longtime Ditmas Realtor, points out that those Bay Area Victorians
are mostly stuck together. “Ours are detached,” she says. “That means a
driveway and a garage and a backyard.” But is it big enough to leave
your heart in?

Postcard from the Slope

Pina Bausch: Bamboo Blues at BAM

From the BAM website:

The
iconic choreographer Pina Bausch has brought her dance-theater works to
sold-out houses at BAM, mesmerizing audiences with sensual dances under
cascading waterfalls and dramatic bouts with towering heaps of flowers.

In her latest piece Bamboo Blues,
Bausch is inspired by the incisive and delicate gestures of Indian
dance. Softness prevails as does fabric, often brilliantly colored,
always billowing. In one memorable sequence, thanks to Bausch’s
unparalleled use of metaphor, humor, and kinetic wit, the dancers
send-up the intricacies of the dothin (a long cotton wrap) to
hypnotizing and affectionate effect.

But finally, it’s
movement that provides the momentum. When a lone woman describes an arc
with her arm, abruptly stops, then launches into a crystalline solo—all
power and light—we are there, transported to the India of our dreams.

The Where and When:
December 16, 17, 19 & 20 at 7:30pm
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Running time: 140min with intermission
Tickets: $25, 55, 75, 85

Postcard from the Slope

Book Signing and Slide Show at PS 107: Yes We Can

Ywc_finalcover600An OTBKB reader and PS 107 parent wrote in with this information about their movie night last week and the upcoming Yes We Can photo book signing.

Thank you for mentioning the PS 107 movie night in your blog.  It
helped me get more volunteers. I am happy to report that the
movie night was a great success for parents and students alike —
parents of more than 100 children braved the rain to drop off their
kids for a couple of hours during the Snowflake Celebration. 

You might be interested in knowing about an upcoming event at PS 107 on Tuesday, Dec 16, which is open to the public:

PS
107 invites you to an exclusive, first-in-the-nation slideshow,
Q&A, and book signing with Scout Tufankjian, artist and author of
"Yes We Can: Barack Obama’s History-Making Presidential Campaign" 12/16
7-9 PM
 
info at http://www.ps107.
tickets $15 at the door (8th Ave between 13th & 14th Street) or at https://www.nycharities.org/event/event.asp?CE_ID=3326

park slope 100

Coming Dec 17: The Park Slope 100

The Park Slope 100: 100 stories. 100 ways of looking at the world, 100 inspiring people, places and things.

This year it may be the Park Slope 90 because people always send in ideas once the list is published so I thought I’d leave room for some latecomers.

Still, this Wednesday you won’t want to miss the roll out of the Park Slope 100. Maybe you’re on the list.

This is the third time I’ve done this. The first list in 2006 was "foundational," as it included a
diverse and inspirational list of Park Slope movers and shakers. Of
course a list like that has to be incomplete. There are only 100 slots.
It’s reductive by nature.

That first list contained the names that come up when you think of
Park Slope in the last few years. Names like: Paul Auster, Pastor
Meeter, Fonda Sara, Chris Owens, CHIPS, Al Di La, Steve Buscemi and Jo
Andres, Kim Maier, Stitch Therapy, Catherine Bohne, Two Boots, Jonathan
Blum, The Dinnersteins and more.

While many of the names were very well known, some were unfamiliar
or unexpected. They were the behind the scenes people like Thomas
Parker, the barista at Connecticut Muffin, Hillary at Shawn’s Liquors,
Alan Berger the brains behind the Brooklyn Free School, Eric the
beloved toddler swim instructor at Eastern Athletic. and neighborhood
watch-woman, Jackie Connor, who died in 2006 and others.

Foundational. In some ways, it was the surface layer, the first
pass. Even as I was publishing the 2006 I knew there were so many
more people to recognize.

The 2007 list was full of great and unexpected names. State Senator Eric Adams, The Bromberg Brothers, Andy the Fruit Truck Guy, David Brooks. The Brownstone Bride, Daniel Eppelbaum, the kid who actually sat down and wrote a
letter to the borough president about the aggravating idiosyncrasies of
the B-67 bus and got an answer.

Last year’s felt even more like the story of this
community. It was topical and contained names that had come up on OTBKB, on
Seventh Avenue, on Fifth Avenue, in the zeitgeist of Park Slope during the year.

As I said when I rolled out the first list, the idea of a list like this is inherently
subjective, flawed, and wildly controversial (even annoying). But it’s
fun to do if only as a way to record life in this neighborhood in an
interesting way.

As usual, important names will be missing. This is just this particular
story, this particular year.

Civics and Urban Life

Slope Couple on the Verge of Homelessness: Urgent Help Needed!

3 Comments

Here’s an urgent note from an OTBKB reader named Jenifer Epelbaum. She writes: "An elderly man and a mentally disabled woman are being evicted from a Slope apartment where
the woman has resided for 19 years. She and her partner have been our
neighbors in the Slope for these many years, and as a community, I
believe we have a responsibility to make sure they are treated fairly and
decently." Read more:

Neighbors up the street from me are having
to move from their rent stabilized home, and they will likely move to a
homeless shelter within the next 48 hours. The woman is 55 and is
mentally impaired. Legally she has been ruled “incapacitated.” Her
companion is in his 70’s, and even though he has been living with her
for some time (and assisting her), nowhere in the legal papers is his
residency there acknowledged, and in fact the papers refer to her as
the sole tenant (which seems would not even be possible given her
mental condition).  I am not qualified to diagnose her, but to a lay
person she seems to have some form of dementia. She repeats herself
often and has trouble remembering my name, even though I have visited
often throughout this crisis she and her partner are experiencing. 

An
agency has been appointed “guardian for property” for the woman and
this agency has arranged a settlement on her behalf of $40,000 for her
to leave the building. The building previously had 8 apartments and is
being converted to a (presumably non-stabilized) 4 unit building. The
landlord has succeeded in getting all other tenants to leave. In the
meantime they have repeatedly shut off heat and hot water to this
couple.  This weekend they were again without heat and hot water.

Part
of my help to the couple included obtaining for them an independent
legal consultation. We brought in copies of the legal papers we had.
The lawyer reading the papers commented (repeatedly) while reading the
legal papers that what he saw was “disgraceful”  but he also said the
couple must vacate by 12/15 in order for the woman to receive the
settlement which had already been negotiated by the guardian. The
agency charged with guardianship seems to have done little to assist my
neighbors in meeting the terms of the agreement. I fear this old couple
will lose their home, as well as much or all of the settlement.

Based on
what I have personally seen and heard from representatives of this
agency which has guardianship, I believe they have not behaved
appropriately. At times they have seemed instead to act directly
against the interests of the woman they are duty bound to protect. They
have urged me not to assist the couple, and they actually indicated to
the couple that the harm from overstaying the 12/15 deadline only
amounted to the “fees associated with the eviction” when in fact
the settlement agreement states a much stronger penalty if the 12/15
deadline is not met.

Fortunately the couple also heard from the
attorney we consulted independently that they needed to be out by that
12/15 deadline or the reduction in the settlement according to the
legal papers was very high (over $24,000 could be deducted).

I
may today or tomorrow personally assist this couple in leaving for a
homeless shelter, which seems a necessary move in order for the woman
to receive her full settlement. The eviction seems to be a certainty at
this point. The guardian has not offered the help which would seem to
be needed, to assist this couple in meeting the terms of the
settlement.

I am a mother of three who lives down the street
from them, and my relationship with them grew from casual conversations
we had over the years, as they often sat out on their stoop a few doors
up from my house. A few months ago they told me they were being evicted
and asked me if I might be able to help them. My first efforts focused
on getting them low cost legal assistance, but as they shared more
information with me as time passed, I became aware the situation was
much more complicated. I am continuing to try to help them as best I
can.  The elderly man is under particular stress and has done a most
conscientious job caring for the woman and looking out for her
interests. He is now willingly leaving his home (in the next two days),
taking her with him, in the interests of assuring she will receive her
full promised settlement. I am very worried about all of it, and I am
afraid the settlement which is due to go into a “special needs trust”
will not be paid in full, or will not make it to the point of being
available to the woman for her considerable needs. 

The
legal situation is very complicated, but the essential facts are that
we have an old couple on my block being evicted from an apartment where
the woman has resided for 19 years. She and her partner have been our
neighbors in the Slope for these many years, and as a community, I
believe we have an interest in making sure they are treated fairly and
decently. 

Postcard from the Slope

Astoria Bank Gets Federal Injection from TARP.

1 Comment
This just in from Leon Freileich, who saw the story in  Crains New York. He writes, "Astoria Fed Bank — branch on 7th Avenue and President Street in Park Slope — has been TARPed. Meaning pulled out of the tubes." Astoria has 85 branches in Brooklyn, Queens, and on Long Island. Astoria is the fourth New York bank to get federal injection from TARP. Here’s an excerpt from the Crain’s article.

Astoria Financial became the fourth New York-based bank in the past week to get a federal
cash injection under the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

 

Astoria
Financial Corp. said it received preliminary approval for $375 million
in federal bailout money, making it the fourth New York financial
institution in the past week to successfully turn to Washington for
assistance.

The move, which the parent of Astoria Federal
Savings disclosed Wednesday in a regulatory filing, brings to 265 the
number of institutions that have received or applied for money under
the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or
TARP, according to brokerage firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

                  

Postcard from the Slope

More on the Brooklyn Height Montessori Controversy

An OTBKB reader sent me this letter written by a parent of a child in the Little Room at Brooklyn Heights Montessori.

Dear Parents,

Please read the below article in
The New York Times about the
potential closing of The Little Room preschool.
The Little Room is
part of Brooklyn Heights Montessori school and is one of
the best
preschool programs in the country for children with special
needs.

My nephew Sam has attended The Little Room for the past year and
a
half. While he will phase out of it at the end of the school year,
I
still feel it is important to help Brooklyn Heights Montessori see
the
value and need for this program.

The care and attention that Sam
has received while a student of The
Little Room has been exceptional and the
strides he has made with
their help, life-changing. Few programs like this
exist in our
communities and they are vitally important to the families that
use them.

Brooklyn Heights Montessori included no families from The
Little Room
in their task force to explore the program’s future. The families
of
students have been mobilizing to work with the school to implement
an
approach that will keep the program running but the school has yet
to
decide if they will indeed keep The Little Room open.

Please, if
you feel strongly about this, if you support local families
with children
with special needs and certainly if you are a Brooklyn
Heights Montessori
family that sees the value of keeping this program
part of your school,
contact the school and let them know. The Board
of Trustees is meeting this
Tuesday, December 16th to vote on the
future of The Little Room:

Send emails to:

Chair
of the Board of Trustees Helene Banks
hbanks(at)cahill(dot)com
Head of
Brooklyn Heights Montessori Dane Peters
dpeters(at)bhmsny(dot)org

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/education/14preschool.html

A parent of a Little Room child posted the following to the Park Slope Parents list:
 
Dear Group: I am also the parent of a Little Room child.
This is an amazing program, that has been around for nearly 40 years.  The
changes that I have seen in my child and in
other children there have been nothing short of
miraculous.  The teachers and therapists at this school are of the highest
caliber, and are among the most kind, caring, dedicated people that I have
ever known. For those who have tried to access special education services
in Brooklyn and the New York City area, you may be aware of how hard it
is to find services and how few services are available for our kids. 
Yet these early preschool years are so important in helping our children catch
up developmentally, and can have a lifelong impact!  This program provides
evaluations and related services such as speech therapy, occupational therapy,
physical therapy, and counseling for many children throughout Brooklyn, not just
for the preschoolers who attend the program.  So the unnecessary closing of
this program would affect many children in the New York area who need the help
the most.
 
     We realize as a community that this is a
private school, and that they have the option to kick us out if they choose
to.  We are asking as a community that they at least give us some
time, at least till the end of summer 2010, to make a transition, save the
program, and find a new site or sponsoring agency.  There is great interest
in saving this program and other agencies that are interested, if they will
just give us the time as opposed to simply destroying the program.  Please,
if you care about saving services for children, support the children of
Brooklyn as Jody suggested, by sending an email to:
 
Chair of the Board of Trustees Helene Banks
hbanks AT cahill DOT
com
Head of Brooklyn Heights Montessori Dane Peters
dpeters AT bhmsny DOT
org
 
Also please feel free to pass this information
on widely, and to other Brooklyn parent lists if you are on them. 
 
 

 

Postcard from the Slope

New Public Middle School Applications

Who can forget last year’s troubled middle school application process? Parents and kids didn’t find out until mid-June where their children were accepted. Some people found out that their children were on no list, that they’d been zapped from the computer; that there child had not been placed.

Sure, those problems were rectified (some more quickly than others) but still it was a challenging situation and enormously dispiriting for the children who had to wait.

Worse, children with IEPs (Independent Educational Programs) who wanted Collaborative Team Teaching classes, were not placed until the end of June leaving parents and kids feeling like second-class citizens and in a state of suspended animation weeks after their peers learned where they were going. 

It was so bad that a group of parents of students with IEP’s organized a public meeting with Sandy Ferguson, who is the DOE’s point person in charge of admissions, as a way to public ally register their complaints and demand action.

Now I hear there’s a new middle school application. Perhaps the Department of Education (DOE) is trying to correct some of the mistakes of last year. But you know how it is with improvements: things can sometimes backfire, or at least go way wrong.

On Friday, parents received an application in a sealed envelope, which already has the student’s name, address, phone number, parent’s name, school, and other pertinent information typed in.

On the new application, there is also a list of the schools in district that the student is eligible to apply to. For instance, if a  child did not receive a particular test score, the list will not include a school that requires that test score.

On the form, there is also room for teacher’s to answer multiple choice questions about the child’s fifth grade performance. I’m not sure if there’s an area for written notes as well. That was never a teacher evaluation of the middle school application. There was some talk that this time-sensitive element adds to teacher’s already overwhelming work load.

So what happened on Friday when the applications went out:

I heard anecdotally that 35% of the applications had incorrect addresses on them. That can be corrected but it is, as you can imagine, a laborious process, which involves going to the middle school application office in the basement of Brooklyn Tech in Fort Greene.

As you can imagine, parents had mixed reactions to the new applications.  In some cases, lists included schools that the student is really not eligible for. This caused confusion. "Does this mean we should apply there anyway?" one parent asked. Likely that would be wasting a first choice was the reply. There may have even been cases where the child is eligible and their list does not reflect that.

Here are the issues I think the DOE was trying to address with this new application:

–With all the student-specific information automatically entered on the application, the DOE can make sure that they have all students on file with their correct information and scores: Entry mistakes can be caught early.

–If a parent does not receive an application it probably means there’s some kind of computer glitch or other problem that needs to be addressed now.

–By listing the schools a child is eligible for, the DOE is trying to stem the problem of parents putting a school first that will not consider the child due to test scores. Consequently, a child’s first choice is squandered.

I don’t know if there are special applications for the kids with IEPs, who want to be in Collaborative Team Teaching classrooms.

Stay tuned. The envelopes went out on Friday and there’s sure to be mayhem on Monday. Let’s hope it is an improvement that parents and administration will benefit from.

Postcard from the Slope

Brooklyn Heights Montessori To Close The Little Room

1 Comment

The Brooklyn Heights Montessori school in Cobble Hill Brooklyn runs a much admired program called The Little Room for 3- and 4-year-olds with
speech and language delays

The Little Room started out as a small room in the school’s Bergen Street building in 1970. Now it  enrolls 27 kids and occupies a larger space in the school.

This morning an OTBKB reader directed me to an article in Sunday’s Times about a plan by the administration of Brooklyn Height Montessori to terminate The Little Room, a program that was emblematic of the school’s inclusionary atmosphere.

She has a son enrolled in The Little Room. She writes: "A lot of kids all over Brooklyn are enrolled, as well. I thought this might be of interest
to your readers – it’s going to affect a lot of families around the
borough, and in Manhattan and Queens too."

Behind a red door at the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School, a half-dozen preschoolers who once struggled to talk merrily sang “Jingle Bells” the other morning.

Two parents of Little Room students, Ebony Santos, left, and Matilda
Garrido, with some of the children in the program, which helps 3- and
4-year-olds who have speech and language delays.

They are among 27 special needs children enrolled in the Little Room,
which takes its name from the small room where it started in 1970 and
has become a nationally recognized program for 3- and 4-year-olds with
speech and language delays across Brooklyn and Manhattan. But the fate
of the much-loved program, which one expert said is more difficult to
get into than Harvard,
is unclear, as the school that has long run it, Brooklyn Heights
Montessori, has decided it can no longer keep it in its red-brick
complex at the intersection of Court and Bergen Streets.

Postcard from the Slope

Where in the World is Teen Spirt?

On Saturday night at 10, Smartmom got a call from a high school friend with a bad case of parent-of-teen angst.

Her son, a ninth grader, seems to have jumped into the swimming pool
of adolescence rebellion with great abandon. Her friend is just hoping
he can swim.

To Smartmom it sounded like standard-issue teenage problems: smoking
pot, lying, not getting good grades, and going to parties at
unsupervised apartments.

Who didn’t do all that stuff when he or she was a teenager in the
1970s? And who isn’t freaked out by it when the teenager happens to be
his or her kid in 2008?

Smartmom barely knew what to say. She definitely didn’t have any
easy answers or sure-fire solutions. It’s not like she has a parenting
column in a local newspaper or anything…

Telling her friend to fasten her seat belt and get ready for a long,
bumpy ride probably wouldn’t be the most comforting thing, but Smartmom
ached for her friend, who sounded so scared.

What if he becomes a heroin addict? What if he can’t get into a good college? What if he ruins his life?

Smartmom tried to quell her friend’s hysteria.

“Whoa,” she said. “You’re going from 0-60 like an Audi TT. Get back
in the used Toyota for a second. Stay calm. Take it one day at a time.”

Sure, Smartmom was spewing meaningless cliches and platitudes. But
what else was she going to say — “Yeah, you’re right, he’ll probably be
smoking crack by week’s end”?

Sure, there are plenty of people who would react that way. They’d
quote the experts, give you the name of shrink, suggest NA or AA.

Maybe that’s why her friend called her. She knew she’d get a more
laid-back approach. That’s not to say that Smartmom isn’t realistic:

“One thing’s for sure, you’re going to have to be tough, set limits
and accept that your kid isn’t going to like you very much for the next
few years,” she told her friend.

“He already hates me,” she laughed. “I’m used to that.”

But Smartmom knows that these kind of problems are nothing to laugh
at. Smartmom remembered how scary it was back when Teen Spirit was in
ninth grade. Her fears and anticipatory anxiety ran rampant.

Turns out, she didn’t have too much to worry about. He was in a prep school in Bay Ridge and wasn’t doing anything too terrible.

Still, the anxiety percolated: Is he drinking? Doing drugs? Sex? Running around the city? Will he get hurt?

As Smartmom listened to her friend talk about all the drugs and sex
at various public and private schools, she realized that she really
doesn’t know what’s going on with her very own Teen Spirit.

At 17, he’s a very independent soul. Often, Smartmom has only the vaguest idea where he is.

It’s a terrible feeling. How can she protect him from the problems
if he barely wants to talk, let alone take her advice? And the hardest
part is discerning whether your kid is going through a phase or if he
or she is settling into a life of substance abuse, slackerdom, a career
as an artist, or worse (worse than a career as an artist? Scary!).

Smartmom and her friend talked about the kids they knew in high
school who were big drug users. One guy actually did become a heroin
addict and died a few years ago.

But another guy, who dropped acid hundreds of times in high school
and college, is a lawyer who lives in Westchester with two kids in
college.

So you never know.

Smartmom and Hepcat weren’t druggie teens (a little here, a little
there), so they’ve taken a wait-and-see approach. Frankly, they don’t
know if their son has ever tried the stuff. Maybe they’re in denial,
maybe they’re just dumb.

As they talked on Saturday night, Smartmom heard her friend
negotiating with her son. He had a friend over and they wanted to get
some air. She let him go out, but she told him to stand on the street
where she could watch him from their eighth-floor window.

Control. Or the illusion of control. That’s what it’s all about. You
can ground them, spy on them, and drug test them, but you’re just
putting off the inevitable: the time when you have no control over your
children at all. And that’s the hardest thing of all.

You hope you’ve encouraged them to be smart, cautious and totally in
sync with everything you care about. But who knows if it takes?

Indeed, even as Smartmom was encouraging her friend to keep an eye
on her boy, she herself didn’t have a clue where Teen Spirit was.
Probably some club in Bushwick.

She told her there’s no shame in calling him every half-hour even if she herself hadn’t communicated with Teen Spirit in hours.

Every day that you keep a good eye on your kids, you’re one day
closer to the day when they’ll have more sense and maturity (one
hopes). And one day closer to the day when you’ll have less control.

Smartmom can hardly wait.