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Outraged parents demand city school board keep MLK open

WBFO News photo by Eileen Buckley

Some Buffalo Public School parents are calling on the school board to keep Martin Luther King School 39 open.  Monday afternoon the District Parent Coordinating Council and parents were joined by newly elected at large board member Larry Quinn and West District member James Sampson.  They protested the planned closing of the school.

Parent Coordinating Council president Sam Radford said MLK was initially slated to close as one of the district's failing schools, but now the State Education Department gave the okay for it to remain open.

"We are sending a letter to the State Education Department today. We believe the Buffalo Board of Education has taken advantaged of the most vulnerable parents in the country, who live in the 3rd poorest city in the nation," said Radford.  "We are asking the State Education Department to intervene on behalf of parents because enough is enough."

Some Buffalo Public School parents are calling on the school board to keep Martin Luther King School open.  Monday afternoon the District Parent Coordinating Council and parents were joined by newly elected at large board member Larry Quinn and West District member James Sampson.  They protested the planned closing of the school. 

Parent Coordinating Council president Sam Radford said MLK was initially slated to close as one of the district's failing schools, but now the State Education Department gave the okay for it to remain open.

"We are sending a letter to the State Education Department today. We believe the Buffalo Board of Education has taken advantaged of the most vulnerable parents in the country, who live in the 3rd poorest city in the nation," said Radford.  "We are asking the State Education Department to intervene on behalf of parents because enough is enough."

Each time students are shifted out of failing schools the district sends them to other low performing schools.  Parents are calling on the city board to keep MLK open if they take a vote at this Wednesday's meeting.

“Their plan to create capacity didn’t’ work, so who’s going to get consequences for their failed plan – not one elected board member. Not one paid staffer.  The only people that get punished for their failure is students and parents," said Radford during a protest outside the school Monday.  "We’ve done everything we know to do." 

Credit WBFO News photo by Eileen Buckley
MLK School 39 on High Street in Buffalo.

Sampson and Quinn indicated that they if the board votes to close MLK -- they would work to reverse the vote when the new board takes over in July.  The District wants to turn MLK into a future medical campus school. 

"I think it has been a very disruptive process for those parents and you’ve got to have a school plan that is more thoughtful and engages them more and gives people more notice, and this is not they way to do it," said Quinn in a WBFO News interview. "The state commissioner has agreed to let us keep it open and I think we ought to take him up on his offer."

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