Quite a Brew-Ha-Ha at Cobble Hill Success Academy Charter School Meeting

It became "Occupy Success Academy" at the Carroll Gardens branch library on Saturday as a large number of local parents disrupted Eva Moskowitz, head of the Success Academy charter school chain, when she attempted to give a presentation to parents curious about a Cobble Hill Success Academy.

The number of parents actually interested in enrolling their kids in the school appeared to be significantly smaller than the number of parents protesting the incursion of the charter school into the district.

After an increasing number of Moskowitz's statements rubbed audience members the wrong way even mild-mannered grandmothers were shouting at her.

The main bone of contention for many parents centered around Success Academy taking over space from three public schools located at 284 Baltic Street, where DOE plans to co-locate the charter school.

DOE says there is almost enough room to fit grades K-4 in the facility (this will bring the complex to 108 percent capacity). Grades 5 - 8 will have to be located somewhere else.

Parents say that co-located charter schools take over science labs, art rooms, and pull-out rooms for speech therapy and small-group instruction, and that DOE consistently underestimates the amount of space existing schools actually need.

As the shouting intensified Moskowitz called it quits and parent demonstrators took over, using the people's microphone to announce the screening of the anti-charter school film "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman," to be aired on Nov. 9 at 6 p.m. at P.S. 261.

More details of the brew-ha-ha can be found at the Brooklyn Eagle and Carroll Gardens Patch.

Photos by MK Metz

Go to McBrooklyn's HOME PAGE.