PUBLISHED BY MOSHOLU PRESERVATION CORPORATION

PS 280 and MS 80 to Be Restructured

By HEATHER HADDON

In a surprise announcement early last week, PS 280 and MS 80 staff and parents learned that the Department of Education (DOE) intends to restructure both Mosholu Parkway schools starting in September. 

As part of its citywide effort to restructure middle schools, the education department plans to convert PS 280 into a kindergarten thru eighth grade school by absorbing a wing from the current MS 80 building. MS 80 will be divided into two academies, each with two student clusters of sixth thru eighth graders. 

The change is expected to happen in three phases, with the first phase beginning in September. Rather than moving on to a middle school, this year's graduating fifth graders will stay at PS 280. But MS 80 will continue to take sixth graders from other schools.

The change came as a surprise to many MS 80 staff and parents, who last week received only four days' notice to attend one of a series of emergency meetings to discuss the restructuring proposal. Gail Davis, the local instructional superintendent for MS 80, and MS 80 Principal Lovey Mazique-Rivera attended the meetings, according to David Rivera, an MS 80 parent association member who was at one of the discussions. 

In its plan to revamp the city's middle schools, many of which have significantly lower test scores and more discipline problems than elementary students, the Department of Education has created two possible school structures: Either middle and elementary grades will be combined to form kindergarten through eighth grade schools, or high schools will expand to include sixth through twelfth graders.

The city hopes the reorganization will create a more stable environment for middle 
school grades. But Schools Chancellor Joel Klein still has some convincing to do, though. 

Parent David Rivera is still digesting all the news, and couldn't say how he felt about the proposal yet. But he is worried that MS 80 will lose its principal, Mazique-Rivera, who many parents feel has been a boon to the troubled school since she took the helm last fall.

"We love her," Rivera said. "Her main priority is the children, not a paycheck."

Carol Carlsen, principal of PS/MS 20, supports combining elementary and middle school grades. "I have always been a big proponent of the K through 8 model," Carlsen said. "It makes the school a community." She added that parents and students stay interested in education when they meet the staff and learn the school's philosophy early on in the child's education and are able to stay at the school for several years. 

"It's a way to stabilize the social environment," she said.

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