NYC Autism School to Be Demolished

New York City’s Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and his “educrats” are seeking to demolish and relocate the Julia Richman Education Complex, which is currently on the Upper East Side and which houses six small schools that many autistic children attend, as New York Daily News columnis Juan Gonzalez writes today. Hunter College plans to take over the site where the Richman Education Complex is; the buildings will be torn down and a new science built for the college. The Richman Education Complex will be moved to a location two miles away near the FDR Drive.

Families of students—who are primarily Black and Hispanic—are in an uproar over the proposed changes.

“It’s a brand new, state-of-the-art facility at no cost to the taxpayer,” says Hunter spokeswoman Meredith Halpern. And since the project will take years to complete, none of the children currently enrolled at Julia Richman will be affected, she says.

On paper, it’s what Department of Education officials call a “win-win” for everyone.

Such is the logic of Robert Moses-like master planners who never consult the little people their decisions actually affect.

If they had, they would have learned all the teachers and parents at Julia Richman love their six schools just the way they are.

“These people don’t know what they’re talking about,” [parent Angela] Donadelle said. “It would take years for our school to establish the same kind of community ties in some other neighborhood.”

Autistic children in Manhattan public schools, she pointed out, are enrolled in several selected schools according to age group. Most children from ages 12 to 14 end up at Julia Richman’s P226.

It sounds more like a “lose-lose” situation to me, especially as it does not seem right that one educational instituation (a college) is in effect pushing out another one—-in particular, a school for autistic children.

Not that anyone asked the teachers or parents or the children.