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By Gina Martinez

TimesLedger Newspapers

State Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky (D-Flushing) and Sen. Jamaal Bailey (D-Brooklyn) announced a new legislative package to diversify the student population in the highly competitive specialized high schools across the city.

According to the senators, 28,333 eighth-graders sat for the Specialized High School Admissions Test last fall to qualify for spots in Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Queens High School for the Sciences at York College, Brooklyn Latin School, Brooklyn Technical High School, Staten Island Technical High School, High School for Math, Science and Engineering at City College, and High School for American Studies at Lehman College. The total number of students who took the test only increased 2 percent from the year before, while the number of black and Latino students taking the test fell by 2 percent.

As a result, only 10 black students were admitted to a Stuyvesant’s class of 902, down from 13 last year and 27 Latino students were admitted, down from 28 last year.

These low numbers are due to the fact that over the years the test has evolved to the point where many parents spend large sums of money on special tutoring classes and test prep for their children, creating a disadvantage for low-income students, who are predominantly black and Latino, according to Stavisky.

Stavisky said the goal is to prepare students for more than just a test, which is why the package includes programs that will assist students at a much younger age.

“The gifted and talented program provides an opportunity to identify students at an early age and tap into their potential for academic excellence,” she said. “Hopefully, more children in under-served areas will be identified and given the opportunity for enriched, enhanced academic programs. Studies have shown that many students identified as gifted and talented will be minority children from economically disadvantaged communities. We have to expand our search to identify these children.”

There are currently certain initiatives, like the Discovery Program and the DREAM Program, that are designed to increase diversity. The Discovery Program allows low-income students that fail to make the passing score threshold of the exam to attend a summer program that, upon completion, will give them a second chance at attending a specialized high school. The DREAM program is an after-school or summer program that offers test prep for sixth and seventh graders at 20 locations across the city.

But Stavisky and Bailey, both graduates of Bronx High School of Science, want to do more. Their legislation will ensure that all students entering high school have an opportunity to participate in the Discovery Program to gain access to specialized high schools in the city. The bill would also mandate every school district to screen for gifted and talented students before entering the third grade, though parents will have the opportunity of opting their child out if they choose to.

The legislation would also implement a pre-SHSAT to students in the sixth grade to guide them as they prepare for the SHSAT given to eighth-graders. Parents and students will also be given a gap analysis to help them determine areas in need of improvement and the opportunity to sign up for test prep programs in time.

Finally, the bill would establish a “Commission on Diversity in Specialized Schools,” comprised of 18 members that will provide recommendations and measure the effectiveness of their admissions policies and programs.

Bailey said attending Bronx Science opened many doors that led to his success and income status and ethnic background should not be factors of whether a student has the opportunity to attend these schools.

Reach Gina Martinez by e-mail at gmartinez@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4566.

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Source: Times Ledger

See this story at TimesLedger.com.

By Bill Parry

TimesLedger Newspapers

An elderly motorist claims he never saw the 9-year-old boy he allegedly struck and killed Saturday afternoon in Jackson Heights, according to a criminal complaint filed with the Queens Criminal Court.

Juan Jimenez, 86, of Manhattan, was traveling northbound on 70th Street in his red Jeep Compass, around 1:20 p.m., when he made a left turn onto Northern Boulevard and struck Giovanni Ampuero and his mother, Karen Manrique, in the crosswalk before he drove off only to be located a short distance away where the driver was taken into custody, police said.

Police from the 115th Precinct said officers found Ampuero with severe trauma to the head. EMS transported the boy to Elmhurst Hospital Center, where he was pronounced dead, according to the NYPD. Manrique was not seriously injured.

“I’m sorry I hit the kid, I didn’t see him,” Jimenez told police, according to the criminal complaint. “I was driving home to Manhattan from the casino. I made a left turn onto Northern Boulevard two blocks away from here. When I made the turn a woman jumped in front of my car but I did not hit her. I kept driving and a cab driver waved me down and told me I hit someone. It was an accident.”

Jimenez was arrested and charged with leaving the scene of and accident, failure to yield to a pedestrian and failure to exercise due care. He was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court and held on a $20,000 bond.

When asked why he fled the scene, Jimenez told police “I was scared. Some cab driver was threatening me,” according to the criminal complaint.

Jimenez is due back in court May 11.

Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparry@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4538.

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Source: Times Ledger

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By Bill Parry

TimesLedger Newspapers

Generations of Jackson Heights residents have grown up in a neighborhood deprived of proper parkland, but now the city is working to change that.

Elected officials, community leaders and officials from the city Parks Department gathered last Friday for a ceremonial ground-breaking ceremony at Travers Park for an innovative reconstruction project that will span Travers, the 78th Street Pedestrian Plaza, and Rory Staunton Field to create a seamless open space.

“The best of our city’s parks integrate with the adjacent communities without boundaries, flowing from park to street to neighborhood, just as pedestrians do,” Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver said. “The new Travers Park will be a more open and welcoming space for everyone, providing space for play, sports, and relaxation. We thank the community for their patience during this process, and I look forward to reopening this park in 2019.”

Work began in Travers Park in March and the construction will take place in phases in order to maximize the amount of accessible parkland. Once a phase of work is complete, it will become open to the public prior to the next phase beginning.

“Hooray! The long-awaited renovation of Travers Park has finally begun,” City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) said. “We, as a community, fought so hard to make this renovation a reality and now it’s actually happening. Jackson Heights is a thriving and growing community which treasures it parks. This additional green space will ensure that Travers Park meets the needs of our residents for generations to come.”

The project was funded with a total of $7.1 million, including $3.6 million allocated by Dromm, $2.5 million from Mayor Bill de Blasio and an additional $1 million from Queens Borough President Melinda Katz.

“Thanks to the capital investment of public dollars, the community can soon look forward to a new and improved Travers Park,” Katz said, “Significant renovations are underway to Staunton Field performance area, play area, benches and more, all to be further enjoyed by the growing families of Jackson Heights.”

The Travers Park tot lot is currently under design and will be renovated as part of a separate contract. The tot lot project is funded with $2 million from Katz. The centerpiece of the park will be a gently mounted great lawn, surrounded with flowering trees, benches and game tables. The 78th Street Plaza will be raised to eliminate the curb and allow for seamless access from 77th Street to 79th Street. It will feature a performance area in the center, complete with stadium seating. Rory Staunton Field will have a new multi-purpose asphalt field that can accommodate a variety of sports from tennis, to kickball and hop scotch.

“Public parks are a safe haven for our children, families, neighbors and visitors,” state Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) said. “Particularly in Jackson Heights, Travers Park is one of the few open public spaces we have for the community to enjoy their free time, play sports, or simply hang out with friends. This reconstruction project, once completed, will transform Travers into one of our most treasured jewels.”

State Assemblyman Michael DenDekker (D-East Elmhurst) called the reconstruction project a victory for parkland over development.

“This particular project includes not only the renovation of Travers Park but also its connection to Staunton Field, another site that was targeted for development,” he said. “The new combined space will allow our community to have more park space for a variety of activities. I can’t wait to bring my grandchildren to the new Travers Park next year.”

Reach reporter Bill Parry by e-mail at bparry@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4538.

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Source: Times Ledger

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By Mark Hallum

TimesLedger Newspapers

A Middle Village financial company is aiming to change the landscape of how people use cryptocurrency by making their assets deployable in day-to-day transactions.

The Praetorian Group, made up of 10 financial and legal experts, is not only creating the software to make cryptocurrency purchases possible through a debit card at your neighborhood deli and other small businesses, but creating their own currency called the PAX token backed with its own gold standard: real estate.

“What we’re seeking to do is make it seamless to spend the cryptocurrency that you may hold in everyday life. We would handle the merchant service aspect of a debit swipe at a local corner store and the merchant wouldn’t necessarily have to accept cryptocurrency in order to get paid for the product you’re buying,” Chief Security Officer Louis Adimando said. “That’s all handled on the back end through the block chain and the user might not even understand this technology, but they know they’re making gains through investing into these early stage [cryptocurrency] companies through ICOs and now they want to deploy that value.”

The “PAX universal debit application” is still in development, but a beta version is expected to be available through smartphone app stores by about March 2019, Adimando said.

The app would give users the option of choosing which cryptocurrency holding they would like to use for the purchase, which would be linked to their debit card and PAX would then convert the currency into dollars to feed into the merchant’s coffers for the purchase.

The Praetorian Group is planning to back its currency with real estate holdings along the Eastern Coastal states and into Texas. It plans to use the properties it acquires to benefit communities, Adimando said, by working with local elected officials to build libraries, community centers and even affordable housing-like plans if possible depending on the needs of the communities they are in.

“The core foundational principal needs to be helping people through the vehicle we’re creating,” Adimando said. “We want to revitalize the community we’re coming into, we’re not looking to just buy property, collect rent and return it to investors. We need to fulfill the social responsibility aspect as well.”

Praetorian Group is the first cryptocurrency company to file with Securities and Exchange Commission, something Adimando said other organizations are avoiding. But Praetorian believes this is what gives them the edge.

“We are a step ahead of the rest of the market, from a regulatory compliance perspective, which makes it easier to get us any further licensing that we’ll need to carry out this project,” Adimando said. “There are other companies in the space that are attempting to do debit services, but none of them are trying to do it in the U.S. because they’re afraid of the regulatory burdens… Whereas other companies are afraid of the regulators, we embrace them because they help bring the market to maturity and the more mature the market gets, the easier it is for retail investors to get involved.”

Adimondo and many of the other founders of the company, launched in September 2017 and located at 66-85 73rd Place, come from a legal and business background. It is a stark comparison to other cryptocurrency companies led by technology experts.

Reach reporter Mark Hallum by e-mail at mhallum@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4564.

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Source: Times Ledger

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By Naeisha Rose

TimesLedger Newspapers

City Councilwoman Adrienne Adams (D-Jamaica) was greeted with cheers as she made her return to the Robert Ross Johnson Family Life Center in St. Albans for a meeting with Community Board 12, a board she use to chair before taking up elected office.

Since winning the race to become District 28’s first councilwoman representing Jamaica, Richmond Hill, Rochdale Village and South Ozone Park, she has been keeping busy, becoming a member of seven committees and two caucuses.

Adams is the chair of the Subcommittee on Landmarks, Public Siting, and Martime Uses, and a member of the Committees on Civil Service and Labor, Economic Development, Finance, General Welfare, Land Use and Rules, Privileges and Elections.

Adams is also on the Women’s and the Black, Latino/a and Asian caucuses.

At the community board meeting, Adams spoke about her first solo piece of legislation, Intro 613-A, which passed earlier this month and would require the city Department of Citywide Administrative Services to conduct an ongoing assessment of risk factors associated with sexual harassment to help provide a fair and safe environment for city workers.

The City Council approved the law April 11 and Adams credited the swift passage of the legislation to the backing of the #MeToo movement.

“They say it’s very early in the City council to for a Council member to pass legislation for the first time, but as you know, the #MeToo movement has been very, very prevalent and we didn’t want to be left out, so I introduced Intro 613-A,” Adams said.

Adams and her colleagues in the city also issued a response to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s FY 2019 preliminary budget and FY 2018 management report a few weeks ago and asked the head of the city for a balanced budget for his preliminary plan and steps towards more budget transparency as they identified $211 million in surplus for the end-of-year 2019 budget.

One of the other items proposed in the response was the establishment of a half-fare Metrocard for low-income families living below the poverty level

“That would affect 800,000 low-income individuals,” Adams said.

Another proposal issued in her response was about property tax relief.

“This would affect 450,000 homeowners that have an income of $150,000 a year or less,” Adams said. “This will give you $400.”

The city council also wants to prioritize permanent housing over putting people in shelters and hotels for the housing insecure, according to Adams.

“We are proposing to reassess shelter spending and allocate funding to programs to [moving out the housing insecure] from the shelter system,” she said to applause. “Another highlight is to add $2.5 billion in capital investment to NYCHA.”

The NYCHA improvements will include $500 million for new senior housing on vacant NYCHA land and $950 million in upgrades for boilers, heaters, and critical infrastructure, such as mold remediation, according to Adams.

A separate $1 billion would be going toward other capital needs throughout the city, Adams said.

On a local level, Adams was incensed by a recent Public Health Solutions report.

The report called areas in Jamaica, Corona and Jackson Heights food swamps, because they were lacking healthy food options and had more stores selling junk food.

Adams admitted that there was a problem with the overabundance of unhealthy food in those areas, but it has been something the communities have been addressing, which was ignored when they tried to reach out to stores like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. They have also worked with the city’s Economic Development Corporation to address the issue too.

“We all know that phrases that are used to dehumanize communities, particularly communities of color… victimize communities of color.”

Reach reporter Naeisha Rose by e-mail at nrose@cnglocal.com or by phone at (718) 260–4573.

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Source: Times Ledger