An endless wait With two weeks of school left to go, fifth-graders still don’t know where they’ll be attending middle school next year.
Department of Education officials are telling parents that the acceptance letters went out last Friday, but parents are staring at empty mailboxes five days later.
“Parents are distraught,” said Barry Skolnick, parent of a fifth-grader at P.S. 89. “No one knows anything.”
District 2 shifted its middle school admissions process to several months later this year, but officials promised that parents would still find out about admissions decisions in early May. That date shifted to late May, and now, with graduation just a few weeks away, parents have lost patience.
Some middle schools have lost patience with D.O.E., as well. UnderCover hears that Salk School of Science and East Side Middle School called parents of accepted students to tell them the good news. Lab Middle School, another top choice for Downtown kids, is not making phone calls because D.O.E. told them not to, a source told UnderCover.
“People at the D.O.E. admit that it’s bad,” our source says of the notification situation.
Meanwhile, NEST+M and The Anderson School, which have citywide gifted programs, sent out their letters several weeks ago. NEST told parents that they wanted to know by last Wednesday whether the accepted students are attending — but parents still haven’t received responses from the other schools, so they don’t want to make a decision yet. We’ve also heard that NEST sent out acceptance letters to students who didn’t actually get in.
To cap off the mess, middle schools are holding orientations for new students this week and next week, but at this rate, it looks like few students will know which orientation to attend.
Leavitt left it to SWAT When 12 activists and a baby in a stroller show up to yell at a federal official, what does the N.Y.P.D. do? Call in the SWAT team, of course.
That’s what happened to Kimberly Flynn, head of 9/11 Environmental Action, when she and other activists confronted the man they say is behind the federal government’s refusal to fund 9/11 healthcare for anyone besides first responders.
Michael Leavitt, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, was in town this week to address the American Association of Exporters and Importers, but he ended up with an earful on his decision to not release any money for residents, students and office workers who got sick after 9/11.
Flynn and 11 others, including Celia Correa, a Lower Manhattan office worker who ties her lung disease to 9/11, staked out Leavitt inside the Hilton Hotel at 53rd St. and Sixth Ave. As Leavitt passed, they called out demands that he release the 9/11 treatment money. Leavitt turned around and looked at the group, then turned away and went into his meeting.
Security officers hustled Flynn, Correa and the others (including the baby stroller) out of the building. As the activists regrouped on the sidewalk and prepared to pass out fliers, a black van pulled up with flashing lights: The SWAT team had arrived. Helmeted N.Y.P.D. officers with bulletproof vests and semiautomatic weapons poured out, along with a dog that growled at the protesters.
“It was a wasteful overreaction, designed to be intimidating,” Flynn told UnderCover after the protest. “We’re not doing anything wrong…. We’re being treated as if we’re terrorists.”
More Seaport action Turns out that not all Seaport residents despise film shoots in their neighborhood — some even invite them in.
“Law and Order” recently shot a scene for the season finale in the Seaport South condo building at 130 Water St.
“People were thrilled to have [the shoot],” Donn Gobin, president of the condo board, told UnderCover. “There is an advantage of having production in town: to have your community photographed, which lives forever.”
The daylong shoot netted the building several thousand dollars, which will go toward the building’s renovations, but the money is beside the point, Gobin said. He likes watching movies and seeing familiar locations on the screen. He also likes that tourists will come Downtown to see landmarks made famous by movies, since the tourists will patronize local businesses and spend money in the neighborhood.
Gobin, an independent film producer, knows from his work that a shoot can inconvenience the community. But he thinks that strict monitoring is the solution, not the moratorium that Community Board 1 is advocating.
Meanwhile, Paul Hovitz, a C.B. 1 member and Seaport resident who strongly advocates the moratorium, had more fuel for his cause after another disruptive shoot last week. “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” returned to the Seaport after causing an all-day traffic jam earlier this year. This time, Hovitz said film vehicles spilled onto streets surrounding the shoots, parking without permits. He added that the film crew was acting in a “menacing fashion.”
Must-see TV If Borough President Scott Stringer has anything to say about it, the next trend in must-see TV will be a reality show that doesn’t get any realer: community board meetings.
Stringer introduced Civic Channel TV at last week’s Community Board 1 meeting, promising board members that they will be able to catch reruns of future meetings on TV. Tech-savvy community board fans will also be able to download the “episodes” online.
“It’s gonna be like ‘Sex and the City,’ ” Stringer said, as board members laughed and looked around incredulously. “It doesn’t get any better than this.”
‘BODIES’ bucks The plastic-pumped cadavers displayed at the “BODIES” exhibit in South St. Seaport aren’t just gruesome — they may be illegal.
An investigation by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo unearthed some unsettling facts about the bodies, which come from China. Premier Exhibitions acquires the corpses, unclaimed upon death, indirectly from the Chinese Bureau of Police. Advocacy groups have long said that the bodies come from tortured or executed prisoners, and Premier could not disprove that allegation. Nor could Premier show that the people whose bodies are displayed gave permission for their remains to be so disposed.
Under the settlement Cuomo engineered, anyone who saw the exhibit but wouldn’t have seen it if they’d known the truth about the bodies can get their money back. Anyone can apply for the refund — which could top $25 a person — but the state only required Premier to set aside $50,000 for refunds. UnderCover thinks they’re either counting on people to be honest about not caring where the bodies are from, or (more likely) forgetful about applying for the refund.
