Exclusive | NYC school where 60% of kids miss 18 days of class a year is a poster boy for struggles as teachers call for change
A Coney Island elementary school where most kids fail standardized tests and miss three weeks of classes a year has gotten so bad that teachers are pushing to shift to career and technical education.Brooklyn’s PS 188 Michael E.Berdy School is a poster child for the Big Apple’s faltering public school system, with 60% of kids chronically absent and 60% failing standardized math and reading tests.Educators at the K-5 school now want to radically change how they educate their youngsters — while revealing the school is keeping $2 million in tech equipment in storage through the epidemic of failure, The Post has learned.“It’s 50-50: I blame the school and the parents,” said PS 188 mom Nicole Beatty, who said she wants to pull her two kids out because they’re getting bullied.
“[But] if you are failing in math and reading at such a young age, how are you going to move on? It’s the foundation that you build on.“We need to know why they are failing,” Beatty said.
Community members are circulating an SOS that’s calling to expand and change the school’s curriculum to K-8 and rebrand as a school for “Innovative Thinking, Career and Technical Education and Project-Based Learning.”Some believe the shift will better engage children with hands-on education and project-based learning to boost their reading comprehension — and attendance.The call for change comes as the school’s struggles become increasingly apparent.There are only 233 students enrolled, but 167 were “chronically absent” last school year — meaning they missed at least 18 days, according to attendance records reviewed by The Post.Some 15% of kids miss classes on any given school day, the data showed.While absenteeism is a concern throughout the city school system, the average for chronic absences at PS 188 is nearly double the citywide average of 33%, the data shows.
Meanwhile, only 40% of students at the Coney Island school passed the state standardized reading exams last sc...