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Chancellor Dennis Walcott responds to Terrell Tomer's questions at a town hall meeting in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

Scores of parents, children, and school staff from District 23 packed the auditorium of Brownsville’s P.S. 156 Wednesday to tell Chancellor Dennis Walcott that their schools don’t deserve to be shut down.

The meeting comes at the start of Walcott’s first closure and co-location season as chancellor. Department of Education officials are deciding which schools to close from a shortlist released in September. Decisions are likely to be made by early next month and a public hearing on the closures will take place early in 2012.

Many people speaking out at the meeting came from three schools that are on the shortlist for closure. Community members from two low-performing schools that share a building, the General D. Chappie James Elementary and Middle School of Science, and P.S. 298 protested before the meeting began.

Brownsville’s neighborhood schools have been in the news lately for a host of problems: low test scores; gang violence, when a parent was killed and a student shot outside P.S. 298 two weeks ago; and facilities issues, when P.S. 156 and I.S. 392 were evacuated twice earlier this week after smoke and odors were detected.

But speakers kept the focus of the town hall on the potential district school closures and charter school openings that have been floated for the neighborhood. (more…)