If this were to happen in a DOE school the teachers would be brought up for investigation, sent to the rubber room, and then get fired after the investigation proved their negligence. What is going on at this charter school? Does the school administration really not care about children and turn a blind eye to the these things? Are they covering up the actions of these teachers and pacifying parents with excuses? Do the parents at the school really know what’s going on? With schools like Pave how does anyone think lifting the charter cap is a good thing? Even criminals on Death Row get to use the bathroom whenever they want!

It’s all public knowlege: spencer’s experience is in business. So he did some internship residency at an urban school and completed a year long program to an create an urban school. Then hired his friends or some people his board members knew – who either also have no real education experience or did some study abroad Peace Corps mission to make that equal to working in an urban setting. Then hires some young, fresh out of college or Teach for America people to work with our most challenging, at-risk children. All an experiment using our public tax-payer money and a FREE public school building.

Oh, I remember now! It’s because the “Son of a Billionaire,” friend of the Mayor, decided he needed a new pet project so why not open a school? I mean, anyone can do that!

Since charter schools are by lottery, IEP students, like all general ed students, enter the lottery & if picked are enrolled at the school. Unlike traditional DOE schools, some, not all charter schools do 1 of 3 things:

1. Counsel an IEP student out (depending on the disability)

2. Allow the students to stay – even if the disability really does warrant a more restrictive (12-1-1) environment. *Getting extra $ for a student the school KNOWS would thrive in a different setting.

3. Change the student’s IEP to reflect an environment that would be equal to what the charter school can actually provide (CTT, SETTS, etc).

All three options are a GROSS negligence and diservice to the child and their unsuspecting family. My DOE school has received many “IEP transfers” from the charter school we co-locate with and the parents all stated that the charter school knew up front what their child’s IEP stated but claimed it could offer the same or better if they “waived their rights to placement” so the child could stay at the charter school without the school being penalized for being “out of compliance.”

The parents of course want what they feel is best for their child, and seeing 2 teachers in every classroom, new smart boards and technology, figures that their child is better off in this environment not realizing that their child’s IEP was written with their child’s needs in mind which is why CTT, 12-1-1 or a D75 type setting was put on the IEP in the first place.

Most charter schools may mean well when it comes to children with special needs, but if they really want to level the playing field in public education, then no matter the school’s philosophy or mission – all new charter schools should have a self-contained, real CTT or bridge class on EVERY grade in addition to their general ed classes. That would partially demonstrate equity with regards to special education students in NYC and transparent accuracy in the data that is reported to the city & state education departments.

The other thing charter schools can do is hire experienced, qualified social workers & special ed staff and provide adequate SPED training to their entire staff to be better equiped to address the varied needs of our city’s special education population. Charter schools will only be able to cousel out and pass along but so many children with IEP’s.

The PAVE teachers are “very happy & treated very well by PAVE administrators?” Ha! That’s a hilarious but unfunny joke. If the PAVE teachers are so happy & treated so well, then why have so many left each year AND this year? Why do so many current teachers look so miserable and are seen in the hallways or leaving the building crying during the day? Your administration doesn’t even respect the PAVE parents so how/why would they ever respect the teachers?

I’m sure the “Enslaved Teacher” is real and many PAVE teachers feel some sense of enslavement & may not agree with the idiotic decisions the PAVE administration makes

but they are not BRAVE enough to speak out on blogs, to one another, and definately not to the administration for FEAR of losing their jobs. Since charter schools are anti-union, at-will, sweat shops any smart teacher would know better than to speak out. That’s like branding themselves with a scarlet letter “P.” Who can teachers trust at PAVE? As much lip service as spencer has been feeding the Red Hook Community – why would any unhappy teacher think he would support them? He would probably nod his head and give the same doofus response he gave us at the hearings. If spencer allows his fellow administrators to disrespect PAVE parents in PUBLIC & tell them “they can take their child to some other school if they don’t like it” then just think how he really feels about his staff: “if they don’t like it they can go to some other school… we’ll just replace them with some inexperienced Teach for America person and save a bunch of money on staff and make some more with the Red Hook children.”

“PAVE Parent,” you ask if the spencer really wants to have his teachers in a hostile co-located environment. Of course, because he’s getting that environment for FREE. He’s getting more PS 15 rooms for FREE while he “saves,” I mean pockets more money by not having a building of his own. The environment is hostile because of Spencer. Only an idiot would try to create a new school in an existing building without trying to establish a relationship with the current administration & staff. But then again… spencer & his flunky clone administration thinks this is Avatar and they can just take over PS 15′s sacred thriving forest. Why, because he sees the Red Hook community just like the Avatar commander… expendable?

Then “PAVE parent” you go on to apologize for someone else’s child being yelled at & try to draw a comparison to PS 15′s teachers. Some of the PS 15 teachers may raise their voices at students, but at least the principal doesn’t threaten to take away the kids’ recess day after day like she’s in a sweat shop or death camp.

PS 15 parents and teachers are peacefully directing their anger in the right place: towards spencer and PAVE’s administrators. It’s unfortunate that some teachers may feel hostility, but they should blame their administration for creating this mess.

Instead of sitting at his computer all day, delivering pizzas , buying new blue shirts for the next hearing, and acting like a student-hungry poacher recruiting kids off the Red Hook Streets & playgrounds he should be spending more time asking daddy to come up off that money for this alleged building. Consider treating your staff & families with some real respect instead of acting like a bumbling puppet being pulled by a stringmaster. Maybe then your nose will stop growing Pinocchio.

You cry the same lies such as the “Poor Son of A Billionaire”
Spencer is not there for the community of Red Hook nor
for the parents of PAVE Academy. Your child along with
other children at Pave are Spencer’s money makers.
Spencer knows exactly what is going on and he has
done a fine job keeping the truth from you. He does not
have no intention of leaving the Red Hook community.You
should do your research and follow the PONZI
scheme that the “Poor Son of A Billionaire” has set the children/community
of Red Hook.

ENOUGH with the posts directed at the teachers. ENOUGH with the posts directed at Spencer and other administrators. Your real anger should continue to be directed at the DOE. Spencer and the other staff members of PAVE did not choose to co-locate at P.S. 15. Do you REALLY think that they enjoy the hostile environment and the awful day to day interactions with the NASTY teachers at P.S. 15? The armbands, the silent treatment…it all needs to STOP. As a parent, I have seen it with my own eyes. It’s disturbing. All of you teachers at P.S. 15 are supposedly teaching because you care so much about children. Direct your energy and effort towards your teaching and leave Spencer and the other administrators and TEACHERS of PAVE alone. They want to be out of “YOUR” building faster than you can imagine.

To the current PAVE parent–I am sorry you feel the way you do about PAVE. It is a wonderful school. I’m sorry that your child has been yelled at. You should hear the way some P.S. 15 teachers speak to their students.

Mr. Robertson and his team have waxed poetic about their mystery building since July of 2009,refusing to give real details to anyone. Why wouldn’t you have a facility in place BEFORE you open a school? That sounds like poor planning and bad business to me. Such a joke of a school planed & run with dysfunction.

The DOE states the reason for opening another school in Red Hook is to offer “high quality options” to parents in District 15. Hmm, opening a school in an isolated area of Brooklyn that is difficult to get to by public transportation is an option for parents district-wide?
And “high-quality”– maybe they should reconsider after a glance at PAVE’s learning environment survey, which reveals that 50% of the teachers DO NOT trust their new principal, the executive director or the Quality Review that repeatedly uses the term “underdeveloped” to describe how the school functions. Sounds like an experiment gone awry.

Are you putting the pieces together now? PAVE. like all other co-located charter schools are given free space in a public school building to figure out how to run their school (if they can manage that), before they find a place of their own. This is happening at the expense of an existing, successful public school, and it is happening all over the city!

Parents and students deserve high quality public schools in their communities, it’s too bad our Mayor and Chancellor didn’t spend the last eight years making THAT happen!

And now we will have yet another summer where it is only PAVE Academy’s rooms that are renovated and painted while the P.S. 15 community is pushed aside, given what the DOE considered “sufficient” to function. PAVE Academy… run by rich liars… supported by the Mayor!

It felt good when I first met Mr. Spencer and he made me believe that I was making a good choice by putting my child in PAVE, but then I started really listening to some of the things he and Mr. Cooper were saying and doing and felt like a fool because I spoke up for them and PAVE when other people were talking against the school.

My child has received a good education there but that’s also because I am involved in my child’s life and check up on everything that goes on. I feel bad for the kids whose parents don’t come to the school and know what’s going on because a lot of kids could be falling behind or just passed along and their parents won’t even know. I am lucky that my child had good teachers for the 2 years they were there, but there’s no way I’m keeping my child there for the next grade with what I have seen and heard.

Could the PAVE administration and their fearless leader be the new Puritanic evil of Red Hook?

It’s unfortunate that your school’s administration lured you to work there with false promises and even sadder yet, that they continue to lie to the community about their “space sharing” and unsuspecting incoming parents who think that PAVE is the only way to “prepare their children for college success.” My school has been doing great things with our students for MANY years and many of our children have gone on to college, the Armed Forces or become business owners in Red Hook!

Hopefully you will be able to find another school who be able to utilize your talents and respect you for the great teacher I’m sure you are. Just in case you’re wondering… my principal is a great person to work for and would be happy to have you at our school! Not to mention that there is job protection to prevent such oppressive unhappiness. Gook luck to you and all of your colleagues!

I wonder if you are the friendly face I see when I walk to the bathroom or check on my students as they return to class… Thank you for your post, thanks for speaking out and thank you for the hard work you do every day in Red Hook. I cannot imagine what it would be like to work under the conditions that exist at PAVE Academy. Teaching is exhausting but rewarding… However, with your administration you deserve hazard pay!

Pave and the DOE was served an appeal to the illegal PEP vote last month once again by the PTA and I believe with the assistance of Advocates For Children.

Will Pave tell their staff and parents about this?
Yeah right, like they did the last public meeting at PS 15…NO.
What a joke and the disgrace of NYC and the corrupt DOE under Bloomberg.

When will Pave parents wake up? Everyone else has! Outside auditors, Advocates, local politicians.
I guess they have to sink with the ship and take their kids down with them.

Pave makes PS 15 feel dirty.

How can the parents support the lies?
1. They don’t REALLY know what’s going on and believe anything “Ripper” & “Grim” say.
2. They don’t care because it may not affect their own child – so the heck with all of the other kids.
3. They have been brainwashed by PAVE to think that PS 15 and the other new Red Hook school have nothing to offer their child.
4. They are the stereotypical Red Hook parents that the “Ripper” & “Grim” think they are and won’t question anything or get involved… so it doesn’t matter because these parents don’t count.

The Ripper & His Staff Lie to the Red Hook Community. Gets Support from the Mayor & Chancellor. Gets 3 more Years in PS 15… then 5 more years… then no more PS 15! PAVE is nothing more than a small petri-dish in a science lab and our Red Hook children are the experimental organisms.

Most of the teachers talk down to the kids and yell at them like they’re worthless. The new office manager is extremely ghetto, and unprofessional and speaks to kids and parents as if she’s in the street. How on earth anyone with common sense has her in a front office greeting people, let alone answering the phone is beyond me. The other guy in charge acts so prejudiced and has said things to parents and kids that are clearly racist and out of line but nothing was ever done because he’s still there doing the same things.

Has anyone even looked into why all the other staff members left? I know many of us are from Red Hook, but that doesn’t mean that we should be treated like dirt and spoken to any way the people at the school feel. I hope that people in other communities are paying attention because if PAVE comes to your neighborhood it will be the WORST thing for the community. Just look at all the lies Spencer has told and the problems it has caused Red Hook.

If you still have your kids at PAVE, then you better start going to the school more and asking your kids what’s really going on. These teachers and staff could be doing and saying anything to your child and you never know.

Wake up Red Hook! Just because a school has computers and smart boards doesn’t mean that it’s a good school and the people there are doing the right thing for your kids.

Everytime you turn around they’re calling you at work all day long for the smallest things! Sending kids to the deans office all the time. If these people can’t manage kids then why are they even teaching in my community? Go teach in Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill or someplace in Manhattan.

Most of the PAVE staff don’t even have children themselves and the rest of them act as if they don’t even like children so I don’t know why theyr’e even working in a school. The current PAVE parents better wake up and get your kids into a real public school where the principal and teachers actually care and like children. PAVE doesn’t care about the kids or the families. Only when you take your kid out, they call you 50 times to get you to bring your child back. Everything these people are saying is true about PAVE. Thank you Jesus for finally waking me up!

Those that are fresh out of college are working at their first job, so they “can’t” speak up. Others just “go along,” and do what theyr’e told. Sounds familiar? Plantation-Like to me. Besides, if the staff doesn’t like it… they can be replaced just like the students & their parents. Everyone is just a means to an end. A number. A test score for state funding. It’s what pays for the summer homes in the Hamptons… the delivered groceries from Fresh Direct, the Private Schools and Nannies. These rich, prejudiced charter school administrators are no different than the DOE bureaucrats who are stealing money from the city… except they aren’t held accounatble for anything because the Mayor, Chancellor, and the Boards of these schools are all in it together.

Wake up parents… do you really want your children in these unethical sess pools who line their pockets with your child’s state funding money? I never really knew what prejudice & privilege were until I started learning more about PAVE Academy. What a shame! All at the cost of these children!