Northattan

A Good Shepherd School parent drops his son off at the school, which could close at the end of this academic year. Photo by Chiara Sottile/Northattan.

Ever since the Catholic Archdiocese of New York announced on Nov. 9 that Inwood’s Good Shepherd elementary school could be shut due to shrinking enrollment, Good Shepherd parents have been groping for ways to save it.

“I’m on the computer every day, between looking for work and this,” said parent and Good Shepherd alumna Regina Christoforatos, who has been unemployed for three months and has used some of her free time to launch the “Help us Help Good Shepherd School” Facebook page.

Christoforatos was among the huddle of gloomy-faced parents that gathered at the entrance to Good Shepherd one morning this week to wave goodbye to their kids and hand off multicolored backpacks.

“It is the only school in the neighborhood where we feel safe leaving our kids,” said parent Jackie Diaz-Solano. “The public schools around here are failing. What options do we have as parents?” she said, expressing her fear that the church will close the school at the end of this academic year.

The school’s pastor, Rev. Robert Abbatiello wrote in the church newsletter that, “Although many have already concluded that the school is closing, NO FINAL DECISION will be made until January.”

That has helped galvanize the Facebook effort by Christoforatos, which already has 275 supporters. “I have alumni from Alaska calling me asking how they can help,” she said.

“But we should have done more outreach and advertised the school more to the neighborhood. It’s been hinted for the past three years,” said Christoforatos. When enrollment fell to 120 students this year, Good Shepherd was “considered ‘at-risk.’”

When Christoforatos attended Good Shepherd as a child, there were over 1,000 students at the school, and she can’t remember a time when she’s seen its halls and classrooms so empty.

“I grew up in Inwood. My brothers went here,” said Christoforatos. “My sisters went here. The school instilled in us what we are today.” Her daughter, Zoe, is a first-grader at Good Shepherd. “If this place closes down, it’s going to be a hard thing to swallow,” she said.

Parent Dalba Castrillon organized a parent meeting “so people could get a chance to voice their opinion” and said, “we all feel pretty terrible about it.” When asked where she would send her children if Good Shepherd closes, Castrillon just shook her head silently.

Fran Davies, Associate Superintendent for Communications and Marketing for the Department of Education, said that changing demographics, competition with neighboring schools and tuition costs have led to the school’s dwindling enrollment. According to Davies, annual tuition is $3,588 for one child.

Inwood parent Maria Hutchinson has a five-year-old son who attends a public school just a few blocks away. Hutchinson says her son is a frequent victim of bullying at his school, but asks, “Who has money to spare for private school?”

Christoforatos said that in comparison with private schools, the tuition at Good Shepherd is reasonable, and scholarships help almost a quarter of the students cover costs. In return for the money, students study in small classes (10 per class, on average) and often get extra help from teachers.

“Zoe already cried about it,” said Christoforatos, referring to her daughter.  “She comes home and plays school. Her pre-K teacher has been there since I was there.”

“You just can’t find a better school,” said Diaz-Solano. “This neighborhood is really going to change if the school closes.”

Good Shepherd parents have also organized a letter-writing campaign and online petition. Parents and alumni will meet again on Nov. 22 at 7:30 p.m. in the school auditorium to discuss their next move to help the school.

Article updated Nov. 22. to correct Fran Davies’ title and the spelling of Dalba Castrillon’s name.

The artifact dig, removed on Monday, was located in the playground's circular sandbox. Photo by Chiara Sottile/Northattan.

Inwood kids gave Indian Road Playground the stamp of approval on Sunday when it reopened after a year of renovation. Encouraged by blue skies, the neighborhood flocked to the playground, which last week underwent changes because of objections from Native Americans concerned that parts of the original design were offensive.

The playground was designed with a Native American theme as a reference to Manhattan’s first residents, the Lenape people, and for its location on Indian Road. The design originally included a mock “artifact dig” in a circular sandbox, containing objects modeled after Native American artifacts that children would “excavate.” But the Parks Department pulled the objects out of the sandbox on Monday, following a meeting with representatives of the Native community on Nov. 1 that lasted nearly three hours.

“They clearly heard what we were saying and made that big change in their design,” said Harlan Pruden, of the First Nations Cree tribe from Canada, who attended the meeting. “It shows that the Parks Department is willing to work with the community.”

The artifact dig was one element in the playground’s complete redesign meant to communicate the playground’s new Native American theme, Parks Department spokesman Philip Abramson said in an e-mail before the decision to remove it. The playground’s other thematic elements include a tic-tac-toe game that uses Native iconography and a hollowed-out canoe.

The objects in the artifact dig had included “a clay pot, various arrow heads, and stone tools,” Abramson wrote, and the intended purpose of the artifact dig was “play value and developing interest in the act of performing a dig and education in some of the types of objects that were found in the area.”

But Pruden said that digging up Native artifacts is considered “desecration” in light of “archaeological travesties to our community” including unearthing of burial sites, acts made illegal by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

The tic-tac-toe game features icons of wolves, turkeys and turtles. Photo by Chiara Sottile/Northattan.

The tic-tac-toe game features images of a wolf, turtle and turkey. “I have no problem with the hollowed-out canoe or the tic-tac-toe element,” said Pruden, who is the co-founder of the NorthEast Two-Spirit Society. The use of Native iconography was also up for discussion, but as Pruden said, “I had a huge problem with the archaeological digging thing.”

Pruden explained that, “Yes, it is just a sandbox; yes it is just archaeological, but it kicks up all of those past issues from up to 150 years ago.”

An outcry from the Native community led to the meeting with the Parks Department, and the decision to eliminate the dig.

“Some local members of the Native American community expressed concerns about the artifact dig, so it was removed from the sandbox,” Northern Manhattan Parks Administrator Jennifer Hoppa wrote in a statement, noting that the playground’s original design was based on input from public meetings.

“We spoke from the heart and they listened,” said Nadema Agard, who attended the Nov. 1 meeting and is Cherokee, Lakota and Powhatan. “We look forward to working with Parks and resolving these issues,” said the longtime Inwood resident. Agard said the meeting was “frustrating” and “very emotional” at times but that “something good came out of it.”

A Northattan.com reporter was denied access to the meeting by a Parks Department official.

The playground’s renovations began in November of last year and was slated as a nine month project. In her statement, Hoppa said that heavy rains and storms caused the delay. Last week, the Parks Department held site visits with the contractor and “refined elements of the play pieces to improve safety.”

The playground reopened on Nov. 14. Photo by Chiara Sottile/Northattan.

Many Inwood families said they were just glad to see the playground open at last. Before its opening day, Wendy Herlich, an Inwood resident and mother said, “Every day we’re in the park I say, ‘let’s just walk by in case it’s open.’” She and her 19-month-old daughter, Vera, were happily at play in the new sandbox yesterday.

Annie Niermann, an Inwood resident for 13 years, walked by the playground’s padlocked front gates last week with her 6-year-old daughter and said, “This was our favorite playground before construction. We’re hoping this will be our favorite playground again.” Niermann’s daughter Izzie shrugged her shoulders and said of the new design, “I think I like it the same.”

The Parks Department said Sunday was a “soft launch” and the grand opening is scheduled to coincide with Drums Along the Hudson, an annual festival in Inwood Hill Park, in May 2011. “We continue to have a strong relationship with the producers of Drums Along the Hudson, and have established a relationship with local members of the Native American community to identify ways to enhance programming and communication,” Hoppa said in her statement.

While Native people primarily objected to the artifact dig, some also regretted not being consulted by the Parks Department to plan the playground’s design. Yvonne Wakim Dennis, a Cherokee award-winning author and educator at Nitchen Children’s Museum of Native America, who also attended the meeting, said, “We said it over and over again that we didn’t want anything to do with archaeology or Indians being dead or digging up burial sites.”

Dennis called for a specific policy that would require Parks to “consult the neighboring community and the people that are culturally connected to whatever Parks is building.”

Dennis said she feels “inroads were made at the meeting” but called for “much more training for the rangers and more collaboration with American Indians.” Agard agreed and made recommendations of Native educators and scholars with whom Parks could work, herself included. And Hoppa’s statement seems to indicate that will happen: Parks plans to organize lectures and workshops in partnership with Native American educators and Park Rangers will use the new playground in their Lenape programming, according to Hoppa.

Inwood kids were all smiles at the playground's "soft launch" on Nov. 14. Photo by Chiara Sottile/Northattan.

In a clear show of the community’s craving for a new place to play, the new playground was packed:  not a climbing rope went untouched nor a tunnel unexplored by Inwood kids.

The renovation, which cost over $1 million, was made possible by capital funding allocations from Borough President Scott Stringer and Councilmember Robert Jackson.

Though there were no objects to uncover in the sandbox at the opening yesterday, Inwood’s kids may still have the opportunity to play archaeologist. The Parks Department is “developing a cost estimate to determine whether to do a sand dig that would feature shells and marine habitat,” Hoppa wrote.

Story updated on Nov. 13 to reflect that the tic-tac-toe game’s iconography was also a disputed element of the playground’s design.

Story updated on Nov. 15 to reflect the playground’s opening.

Local designer M. Tony Peralta designed this "off the map" t-shirt depicting Inwood and Washington Heights sliced off from the rest of Manhattan. Photo courtesy of M. Tony Peralta.

Of the 48 million people expected to visit New York City this year, it’s unlikely many of them will make it to Inwood, the northernmost neighborhood in Manhattan. Maybe that’s because for years these neighborhoods have literally been off the map. Local artists have branded being left out with new artwork, including M. Tony Peralta’s T-shirt design pictured at left. Chiara Sottile has this audio story.