Katz Announces NYC Schools Chancellor To Be Featured Guest At Queens Parent Advisory Board
Queens Borough President Melinda Katz announced yesterday that New York City School Chancellor Richard Carranza will be the featured guest speaker during the next meeting of the Queens Parent Advisory Board.
The Chancellor will discuss new initiatives and vision for NYC public schools, ways to enhance student, teacher and parent engagement, and share the new leadership structure at the NYC Department of Education. Katz is the chair of the advisory board. The meeting is open to the public.
The event is slated for 6 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 14, at Queens Borough Hall, at 120-55 Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens.
As space may be limited, participants are asked to RSVP in advance by either going online at www.queensbp.org/rsvp or calling 718.286.2661.
Constantinides Commits To Connect NYC Students with CUNY Research Vessel on Jamaica Bay
City Council Member Costa Constantinides (D-Astoria, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Woodside), Chair of the Committee on Environmental Protection, committed to a pilot program for New York City school students to get hands-on marine life education in Jamaica Bay.
Slated for this spring, the initiative would bring more than 40 students onto the CUNY 1 research vessel, operated by the Science + Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay, which is docked at Kingsborough Community College.
Constantinides toured the CUNY 1, a custom hybrid propulsion, aluminum catamaran built in New York State, on Friday with Adam Parris, Executive Director of the Science + Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay; Dan Mundy Jr. and Sr.; and representatives for Council Member Eric Ulrich and Assembly Member Stacey Pheffer Amato. He committed $1,000 so students from Astoria and Southern Queens could take class trips to the seaborne laboratory this spring.
“We have a golden opportunity to connect New York City students with our waterways and the wildlife that inhabit them. Right now, even those who live by the water may not fully value how much it impacts their lives, especially as well feel the effects of climate change. I want to thank the Mundys for connecting us with the Institute. I look forward to working with the Jamaica Bay stakeholders on making this floating classroom accessible to all students,” said Constantinides.
Queens Lawmakers Denounce African Burial Ground Racist Vandalism
City Council members I. Daneek Miller (D-Cambria Heights, Hollis, Jamaica, St. Albans, Queens Village, Springfield Gardens), Peter Koo (D-Downtown Flushing, Murray Hill, Queensboro Hill), Adrienne Adams (D-Jamaica, Richmond Hill, Rochdale Village, South Ozone Park), and Francisco Moya (D-East Elmhurst, Corona) denounced yesterday the racist vandalism discovered at the African burial ground monument in Lower Manhattan last week.
Last Thursday, a racial slur was discovered on the historical monument that suggested African-americans should be killed, according to the initial reports. The New York police (NYPD) said the monument was defaced with the word “kill” followed by a racial slur written in black marker, according to the New York Times. The words have since been erased.
The monument marks a burial ground containing an estimated 15,000 skeletal remains of colonial African-Americans from New York City including the remains of free and enslaved Africans from the 17th and 18th centuries. The African Burial Ground Monument is considered a sacred site for the country’s African-American population and was established in 2009.
“This desecration of the hallowed African Burial Ground – a symbol of the greatest stain on our nation’s legacy – slavery – is painful to any person of conscience, but particularly wounds descendants of the Diaspora. Despite our injury, we will not be intimidated by this depraved act, and demand justice,” said said Miller, co-chair of the Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus
“Today, I am extremely saddened that we must be reminded of just how far we still have to go. We may never be able to completely stamp out the ugliness of racism and intolerance, but we will always stand up to it, we will always overwhelm it, and we will always overcome,” said Koo.
“I am deeply troubled by the rise in acts of hate that we’ve seen across America. There is no justification for racial or religious hatred and as Americans we must stand together and denounce this abhorrent behavior. These cowardly attitudes will never defeat our spirit and our resilience will make our country stronger than it ever has been before,” said Adams.
“There is no world where this violent and bigoted vandalism should be tolerated or accepted, but when we have a president calling African nations ‘shithole countries’ with no significant repercussions, it’s also something that is tragically predictable. Racist rhetoric has racist consequences, and it must be stamped out,” said Moya.
