Photo by José A. Giralt
When students show up for the start of the new school year in September at DeWitt Clinton High School, they can expect to find their building split up yet again.
By a unanimous vote of 9 to 0, the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) voted on May 29 to use some of the space deemed underutilized at DeWitt Clinton Campus (DWCC) to co-locate the District 75 school known as PS X721 Stephen McSweeney within its walls.
The new school will move into the building already shared by Clinton, Bronx Collaborative H.S., World View H.S., and PS X168—serving students in grades 9 through 12 in an inclusion program. The decision by the NYC Department of Education (DOE) has also worried current students and Clinton’s alumni association, who see the co-location of another school inside the campus as a sign of an erosion of the school’s history.
Before voting to approve the proposal, Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza, lauded the commitment and passion of Clinton’s alumni, which launched a coordinated, though unsuccessful campaign to get the DOE to reverse course. Seeming humble, Carranza considered the efforts valiant.
“I couldn’t be more proud of a community,” said Carranza. “As I have become familiar with the Clinton community, I have very rarely seen in my 30 years as an educator an alumni community that is more committed to its school.”
District 75 is the designation given by the DOE to students diagnosed with special needs such as autism, intellectual, or multiple disabilities. The process includes an assessment to create an Individualized Education Program (IEP). When possible, the DOE integrates D75 students into existing classes with some of their special needs attended to by paraprofessionals or special education teachers.
With the number of D75 students growing in District 10, the DOE is acknowledging that it can no longer simply introduce a small number of special needs students into existing classes.
They argue that a separate, dedicated space is needed. Proponents of co-locating D75 students into DWCC identified 524 students residing in District 10 classified with IEPs back in April. DOE figures reveal a deficit of 435 seats at the high school level in the district.
As the population of D75 students grows beyond the capacity of individual schools to absorb them into existing classes, parents have voiced the difficulties they face in busing them into other districts as an alternative.
Amy Tsai, a parent advocate for the Citywide Council for District 75 (CCD75) and a D75 parent, has to send her 13-year-old son to Washington Heights because of the lack of space in District 10. “My son has to travel three and a half to four hours daily,” Tsai told PEP at the meeting prior to the vote. “Some parts of the district [10], like my neighborhood, Norwood, schools are overcrowded, extremely overcrowded. Regardless of [our children’s] abilities and how different they are, they should have equity [in education].”
All parties involved in D75 discussions agree about overcrowding but offer different solutions to the problem.
Sirio Guerino is the PTA president at Bronx Collaborative and a 1974 alum of Clinton. He suggests the PEP look at the former St. Ann’s School building on Bainbridge Avenue at East Gun Hill Road. The New York Archdiocese closed the school in 2017. “I hope you [PEP] will consider St. Ann’s or the ex-public library on Fordham Road [2556 Bainbridge Ave.] as a building for the District 75 students that need a place of their own,” Guerino said.
The three-story Fordham Library, formerly at 2556 Bainbridge Ave., closed in 2006 and has approximately 27,500 square feet.
The PEP was originally set to vote on the co-locating proposal on April 17. However, because of the large number of responses, the panel postponed the vote until May 29 in order to consider all the options.
At the final vote meeting, it was revealed that after the initial public meeting, concerns were raised by some PEP members about the physical space inside the DWCC building and the impact of introducing a D75 school there.
After a tour of the building by PEP mayoral appointee, Shannon R. Waite, school administrators, union staff, and members of the parent body, assurances were secured in writing from school officials that incorporating a D75 school into Clinton would not adversely affect current or future students. The group reported to PEP that “it was very, very, very pleased by what we saw in the walk-through.”
Sydney Valerio, vice president of the alumni association who currently lives in Norwood and was there for the vote, remains skeptical of the co-location process. She graduated in 1999 and has a daughter attending the school. “DeWitt Clinton is the last large public high school in the Bronx. In 2013, this very same panel decided that it wanted to close it down,” Valerio said. She describes the process of co-location as “oppression politics and Olympics with community members in stating that one part of the community is deserving of space over the other. That is implicitly biased and is not the way to move forward as a community.”
Carranza also expressed confidence that the students and staff at Clinton will continue to make academic progress while accepting the new D75 students into its campus. “I have seen the most enlightened instruction happening in co-locating D75 schools,” Carranza said. “I have seen innovative practices in D75 schools that are shared ubiquitously with the schools that they co-locate with.”
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.
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Unfortunately, the needs of this specific D75 self contained school is still not fully understood by the writer and community. Self contained D75 schools are for students whose disabilities range on the moderate to profound spectrum and cannot be integrated with community classrooms.
Both Clinton high general ed and D75 self contained schools will both be able to thrive as have other general ed schools with D75 self contained schools across the boroughs.
Clinton high gen ed will not get affected and has room to grow. The space is underutilized and will still be underutilized post co location. This is why the panel initially postponed its vote to assure there would be continued success at Clinton.
The only politics being played is the politics of exclusion which is inconsistent with federal and state law and is immoral in today’s society.
In a submission to Norwood which was not published, I tried to emphasize these facts. I applauded the alumni and community but the facts they were basing their arguments on was totally misrepresented to them.
The chancellor committed to both Clinton high and D75. I applaud the PEP vote that recognized the rights of both student populations.
As vice-chair of the PEP, and a parent of a D75 high school student with developmental disabilities, I get all sides of this proposal. Yet I respectfully disagree with the broad generalization made in the previous comment that D75 students “cannot be integrated with community classrooms”. This is ideological and reinforces structural and cultural segregation of students with disabilities (swds). The continuum of learning environments where special education services and supports are delivered for individual students w disabilities is legally determined by an IEP team based on a students individual needs; known as the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE). Yet we unfortunately have a system that far too often determines students’ LREs based on its rigidity (due to money and systemic, political, and community priorities), and organizational structure (the existence of D75 absolves system of creating more inclusive programming in district schools). It’s policies, practices, and culture sadly allows swds to be placed in programs based on their medical diagnoses and/or education disability classifications (13 of them, defined by the federal special education law, the Individuals with Disabilities Act-IDEA), and/or availability of existing school programs/seats; opposed to it supporting and creating more individualized (appropriate) and flexible programming, which ultimately would lead to more integration.
I am grateful for the deep expertise that professionals have within District 75, and their longstanding commitment to educating kids w more involved needs. But I think we really need to take a hard look at wether or not District 75 should continue to exist. It is not okay that my son and the 20,000 other kids like him in the non D75 Inclusion programs throughout the city don’t spend any or more non instructional time with non-disabled students. My son’s quality of life post-school depends on the extent of these interactions, right here, right now. It’s equally not okay that the city is giving mixed messages by having D75 programs in co-located schools, yet indirectly is enabling the system to keep like students “contained” by relegating them to one floor.
Furthermore, non-disabled students need to interact w developmentally disabled students like my son just as much as he needs to interact with them. So they can SEE and BE with him to better understand that he’s human too, and that his needs and the needs of others like him aren’t special, but really are just like theirs; it’s how they’re met that is different. Our society and city’s views and culture around the value of people w disabilities will never be inclusive if we allow this segregation to continue.
Functionally, it is impossible to fully integrate self contained D75 student population with general education. This would not be good for either student. Yes, general ed students and D75 students could and should on some level and activites be together but the severity of the disabilities make integrated classes impossible
cannot be integrated in classes.
I’ve seen these students, my child was one of them, and numerous patients with these disabilities.
Ideally your correct but in practice and reality would be counterproductive to all students.