Announcement: Coalition for Public Education to Hold Next Monthly Meeting on Saturday

The Brooklyn Chapter of the Coalition for Public Education will hold its next monthly meeting this Saturday, March 12^th, from 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm in the 5^th floor conference room of the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, located at 1368 Fulton Street between New York and Brooklyn Avenues.

CPE is a 2-year-old community organization of teachers, parents, DC37 and UFT members. The grassroots group of about 60 organizers meets regularly to discuss what’s going on inside the schools and how each member can make a difference.

The Brooklyn Chapter has 15 members, and they are looking to recruit more parents and others interested in becoming active in the school districts in Central Brooklyn.

CPE was instrumental in the closures of the rubber rooms, and most recently, drawing greater community attention to questionable tactics by the DOE for pushing through charter school co-locations, according to Jitu Weusi, chair of CPE’s Brooklyn Chapter.

“We’ve been holding these series of forums beginning last October,” said Weusi. “This is the fifth one; it’s an educational forum for the community to find out what’s going on inside the schools and how they can make an impact from their own position.”

Panelists for Saturday’s forum include Assemblywoman Inez D. Barron, former elementary school principal and educator and one of the founding members of the Freedom Party; Sister Ollie McClean, founder and director of the Sankofa International Academy; Rev. Elizabeth Butler, a retired teacher with over 30 years in the classrooms of District 17; and Nana Baakan Yirenkyiwa, an educator and Akan Priest who has taught in Ghana, West Africa and the United States.