Students with special needs should be given a better space where they can comfortably learn. However, there is a school for special students in Staten Island which have rooms that are compared to a prison complex.
Great Kills High School, an annex of P.S. 37 which teaches students with special needs, has six tight classrooms. Some of the rooms are split in half and its canteen is also used as workspace. They are also using two trailers as classrooms that had to be cleaned due to molds, DNA Info reported.
"It's a dilapidated building, the trailers remind me of a prison complex," said Councilman Joe Borelli. "We shouldn't be essentially warehousing our most vulnerable student population."
Some students are diagnosed with autism and have limited speech. They are being taught to become as independent as possible through vocational lessons. The students learned to build simple furniture like chairs, foot rest and iPad stand that are made from cardboards. These pieces are being delivered to other schools.
There are 70 students from age 14 through 21 that are studying at the high school that is barely enough to house them all. The staffers even converted the canteen into a work area where they built the furniture.
"It's disrespectful to our students," Principal Florence Gorsky said.
Parents are complaining about their children's condition at the school. They can barely move inside the room and there are times that they are becoming irritated.
"They build these beautiful schools for general education," said Maria Palazzolo. Her son, Michael Palazzolo, 13 will move to the annex next year. "It feels like your child is being left behind," she added.
In 2015, 12 seniors in Great Kills High School graduated. Christopher Valerio from the Class of 2014 was their alumni guest speaker, SI Live shared.
"I spent the best years of my life at PS 37," Valerio said. He is now at Mount Loretto, where he enjoys making new friends, cooking, and traveling.
