CHOOSE TO SHINE

Urban Dove is a New York state sponsored charter school founded by Jai Nanda 20 years ago. The school has only two requirements to qualify for enrollment. A student must have failed ninth grade and must also be 15 to 16 years old. No other background checks are required or performed with respect to arrest records, truancy history, or any other factors.

Their mission is straightforward. Consider a student who reads at the fourth-grade level but has somehow advanced to ninth grade. The current solution in the New York City public school system is to have the student repeat ninth grade. Unfortunately, that will often prove unsuccessful for the same reason the student failed ninth grade the first time around.

Jai Nanda was a coach and an educator before he founded Urban Dove. He believed that by emphasizing sports and teamwork he could motivate young people to remain interested enough to remain in school and to become productive members of society. They may become coaches themselves or they may work in any number of professions once they have succeeded in high school.

Students are grouped together in “teams.” Each team has a “coach” who remains with their team throughout each school day, not just during physical education classes. Team spirit is encouraged, and personal responsibility is emphasized. We heard personal testimony from one satisfied parent who believes Urban Dove saved his child. That is why he joined their board. It sounds great on the surface.

That said, if this is such a wonderful program, why did over a thousand people show up to protest this school moving into the neighborhood? I believe that claims of discrimination, racism, and “NIMBY” (Not in My Backyard) are disingenuous, given our community’s rich history of working with people of many diverse backgrounds, economic statuses, and faiths. I therefore did some research about Urban Dove. What I found was unsettling, which is why I made it a point to arrive early and sit in the center of the front row for the meeting called by the East Midwood Jewish Center, the proposed landlord.

I was fortunate to be one of the few at that meeting whose single allotted question was taken seriously and given a real answer. I asked Mr. Nanda, the CEO. “Online reviews written by your own employees cite the need to carry “walkies” in case they have to call in a “code” when students are fighting, then they have to wait for an administrator to handle the situation. Further, they note that poor attendance is a serious issue in your school. Can you address how you plan to handle truancy and misconduct?”. He conceded in front of the entire audience that these are real problems. He explained that we have to understand where these kids are coming from, and that Urban Dove has no real control over or solution for truancy.  I personally do not understand why Urban Dove cannot be held accountable by New York State, which pays Urban Dove thousands of dollars for each enrolled student rather than holding them accountable to be paid only by the number of students who actually attend the school. In short, these at-risk students can ride the bus to school, then hang out in our neighborhood instead of actually going to class. There are no consequences. 

EMJC is supposedly a Jewish Center whose founders invested in Jewish education. However, EMJC went against their own charter and signed a lease with a non-Jewish entity. They did this without first approaching the local Jewish community as a whole. Claims of soliciting a couple of Orthodox Jewish schools to no avail ring hollow in the face of overwhelming opposition from the local community. Given enough notice, the community could have come together to find a mutually beneficial resolution.  Why was the public hearing “informational” and held after a lease was signed? The community was never invited to the discussion prior to sealing the deal. Regardless of whether the community has any legal purview over this transaction, an effort could have and should have been made to deal in good faith with the community as a whole, instead of working behind the scenes to create such a division and disunity. How unfortunate. We have enough enemies already. When we are divided, everyone loses.