A Community Divided, one parents perspective

A COMMUNITY DIVIDED
Charter school vs. Public school
One parent’s perspective
Written by Nahisha McCoy

What is the definition of segregation? According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, 2009 edition, online: the word “Segregation” means:
The act, or process of being segregated or the separation or isolation of a race, class, or ethnic group by enforced, or voluntary residence in a restricted area, by barriers to social intercourse, by separate educational facilities, or by other discriminatory means. The separation for special treatment and/or the observation of individuals and/ or items from a larger group as well as the segregation of gifted children into accelerated classes. On Thursday September 17, 2009, at 6:30pm, for the first time in my life, I watched a community of neighborly force be divided on the issue of education because the Department of Education chose to place a Charter school inside of a “Triple Academic” public school. I watched in horror, as the community, my community be segregated by force, not by will or by accommodation but by the sheer force of treachery. An entire community had been lied to, and which has caused tension and animosity between neighbors. I sat in an auditorium filled with angry parents, students, staff, and administration, listening to speaker after speaker make complaints on an issues concerning space. I found myself becoming agitated and confused. Confused because, we sat back idly, and allowed our public school to be overturned by outsiders. I was confused because I know that no matter what we say or do, the only people that will suffer from this circus called, the “Department of education” is our children. The parents from both schools and the administration from both schools should want more. Not just for the sake of saving one school from another but want more from our Department of Education. We are all losing out. For every one child that enters a charter school, the public school loses funding for two. The Department of Education is running the public school system as if it was a fortune 500 company but it is not. We as parents and as a community should be fighting the injustice that we receive by the Department of Education, rather than fighting the injustice done to each other by one another. So my question to this neighborhood is, “If the Department of Education continues to use “Segregation” to run our system, then what else will they segregate at the cost of Education? What else are we willing to lose?” We’ve gave up learning through the use of text books because the Department of Education said that our children should be taught to test, not to learn. When is it going to end?