CB 11 Appeals To Bloomberg To Keep Beacon School

This week that the Beacon School program located at Marie Curie Middle School is slated for closure on July 1.  The Dept. of Youth and Community Development is closing the Bayside side, as well as six others across the city, to make up for a $2.1 million budget shortfall.

The majority of you poll that you believe the program is worth keeping open, despite its price tag of approximately $334,000 annually.

Community Board 11 officials have authored a letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, following to oppose the closing of the program.

Dear Mayor Bloomberg

At the Community Board Public meeting last night, the Board Members unanimously voted in support of a Resolution opposing the closing of the Beacon Program at Marie

Curie Middle School 158Q. We received petitions from almost 900 people demanding that the Beacon Program be saved.

At this meeting, four members of the community spoke extolling the exemplary service this program provides to the children who attend. For 20 years, the Samuel Field YMHA and now, its current program director, Ms. Martenia Miller, have provided a vital after-school service and summer program for the children of this community. Community Board 11 also has the opportunity to use the school for its monthly public meetings.

Residents of Community Board should not be singled out and denied the opportunity to send their children to a free program, paid by their tax dollars.

This is the ONLY Beacon that this district ever had, when other districts have been funded for two Beacon programs. The closing of this program will be devastating to the working parents and their children who depend on it for a safe, supervised after-school program. Families whose budgets would prevent them from paying for other programs will be left with nowhere to send their children.

The members of Community Board 11 hope that you recognize the damage that will be done if this Beacon program closes and urge you to keep this program open.

The letter was signed by Community Board Chairman , and Youth Committee Chairman Ted Teng.