At a public meeting the overflowing crowd of District 28 parents vocally objected to the DOE's proposed integration plan. Not one parent liked the idea of sending their child from their neighborhood school to be bused from one part of the district to a school that requires parents to take mass transit or an expensive taxi to reach for school meetings or pick up a sick child.
While there is an obvious racial and ethnic components in the opposition, the fact is that the Jamaica section of district 28 have low preforming schools and suffer from student discipline issues, while the Forest Hills schools are high performing and have low student discipline problems. Moreover, the Jamaica section of District 28 are low income and many families live in poverty, while the Forest Hills section of District 28 is upper and middle class and both cultures are alien to each other. Having the students adjust to a different culture will only add to the issues of trying to integrate the schools. Finally, many families buy homes in Forest Hills and Kew Gardens because of the schools. If you bus these students to Jamaica, these families will flee to District 26 or Long Island.
Based on the public hearing and the intractable issues associated with integrating the District 28 schools. I see only frustration and failure for the DOE's integration plan. See my previous postHere.