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HOST INTRO: Education has been one of the top issues of the mayoral race. Overcrowding, high drop out rates and low test scores are the main problems. A group of parents in Inwood has decided to take action themselves to create a new school in the neighborhood that provides a better education for their children. Meritxell Mir reports:
N1: The Inwood School Project started six months ago. When parent Susan Ryan heard Mayor Bloomberg asking the communities to help improve their schools, she took him at his word. Ryan started a project that now has more than 70 parents involved.
AX1: "It's critical for the parents in Inwood to be a part of the decision making process because we live here, and we know what the environment is like and what we need to change it for the better."
N2: Washington Heights and Inwood form School District 6, whose schools are the most overcrowded in New York City. Even with a third of the children attending schools outside of Inwood, some schools in the neighborhoodstill have 35% more students than the Department of Education recommends. Ryan says that his situation is having a strong impact in the community.
AX2: "Historically in Inwood the choices for a large number of parents have been ship their children elsewhere, out of Inwood, or to move themselves. "
N3: Most of the parents in the Inwood School Project live on the West side of the neighborhood. Broadway is the socio-economic border. On the West, the white middle- classclass educated families with high levels of education. On the East, the Hispanic lower class income community. Schools in the area show that same division. Nine in 10 students in the public schools of Inwood are Hispanic. Carole Mulligan, another leader of the project, says they want to change that pattern. She wants her grandaughter to learn in a diverse environment:
AX3: "We are looking for classrooms that reflect our racial composition, our ethnic compositon, our social-economic composition, the various languages that are spoken within our community."
N4: In order to reach that objective, the Inwood School Project needs to have more parents from the East Side of Broadway. But that has been hard for them. That's why last month they requested the help of Angelo Ortiz, one of the directors of Inwood Community Services. He has been trying to bring both sides of the community together for 13 years.
AX4: "I could count on one hand, maybe, the number of times I've seen that side of the community reach out to this one in this way with a scoope of this side".
N5: Last summer, mayor Bloomberg promised 550 new school seats. So the members of the Inwood School Project are already working on how to incorporate those new seats into the educational system of the neighborhood. They meet every week to discuss the curriculum of the future school, attend conferences and visit other schools that could give them ideas. But the real work starts tomorrow when the newly elected mayor of New York City begins to work. Ryan is not willing to wait a minute longer than necessary:
A5: "I don't know, Wednesday morning would be ok to call him? Wednesday morning. We could wait til Thursday, but you know, I think we should get right in there on Wednesday morning, we shouldn't waste anytime so."
N6: They can't afford to just sit around. These are parents with small children under the age of two. They say that it will take two years for their dreamt project to come truebecome a reality. Just in time for their sons and daughters to enter the educational system. For Columbia Radio News, I'm Meritxell Mir.