Catholic Schools Open Doors to Storm-Tossed Students.
sprinkled among them were two dozen public school students from the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens who had been marooned by Hurricane Sandy and were taken in as refugees of sorts. Nearly two months later, they are still there, and so far they are not being asked to pay tuition.
Over 200 public school students from the ravaged Rockaways were dispersed to a half-dozen Roman Catholic schools in southern Brooklyn — in Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Mill Basin and Marine Park — according to officials of the Diocese of Brooklyn, which includes Queens. And for the first time in their young lives, some students are reciting morning prayers, attending daily religion classes and wearing plaid jumpers or regulation navy slacks, though the schools are not requiring uniforms. . .
On the Monday after the storm, St. Patrick School reopened with 325 children, 50 of them displaced. About half of those extra students came from other parochial schools in the Rockaways and 25 from public schools, mostly from Public School/Middle School 114 in Belle Harbor, which serves Breezy Point’s year-round residents. The P.S./M.S. 114 students were originally reassigned to other public schools in Queens, some 12 miles away. . .
“Parents felt more comfortable in a small setting that they had a connection to rather than in a big school they had no connection to,” she added. “They wanted their children to be in a secure environment so the parents could take care of whatever else they had to take care of.”
Some parents, heartsick about their own losses and frustrated in their dealings with insurance companies, utilities and government officials, were quickly beguiled by St. Patrick’s intimate sense of community.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/education/storm-tossed-queens-students-find-haven-in-brooklyn-catholic-schools.html?pagewanted=1&hpw
= new reply since forum marked as read
Sorry that public schools don't challenge your kids.
Welcome to DU.
