Najwa

“Their actions and decisions are limiting other schools from bringing up successful kids.”

By Students of NYC

March 29^th, 2023

In January of 2023, students at Springfield Gardens high school came together to fight against the Success Academy proposals to colocate at their school and take up essential space in their campus. Their student-led advocacy resulted in the proposals being withdrawn two days before they were set to be voted on— an unprecedented victory for the community.

“Let’s go back a little bit. Because y’all skipped a few lines in that story. We were working every day. I was so stressed at some points. I was like, there’s no way we are going to be able to stop Success Academy from coming into our building and taking our space. Towards the beginning, I was like— okay. I’m ready to do this. But after a while when I realized how short on time we were, I’m like, how the heck am I going to get this done? We had less than a week. The posters were still not done. We only had twenty posters and were staying after to make them every day, we had to make them for the whole school. We had kids staying after school for about three or four hours. We stayed until eight o' clock, and then we went to the PTA meeting immediately after until nine, 10 o'clock. We were like…um, parents? Can you color?

When the day of the protest came, everybody was outside. We lost our voices. We were screaming, 'Save our schools.' Actually, that's not what I was screaming. I was screaming 'Stay on the sidewalk!' I had to keep people safe.

Ok, I’ll admit, they did their thing when they named that school. But I feel like their actions are not representing their names. Because they're claiming that they're Success Academy, they're all for the students. But their actions and decisions are limiting other schools from bringing up successful kids.

Our school is trying our best to make sure students excel. To create STEM programs, to bring out doctors, to bring out kids who want to be biotechs. How are you going to make a decision that will limit another school like that? Schools who bring out writers, who bring out veterinarians.

That's not an action that goes toward your name. That's not an action that you should be proud of.

There was a point when we realized, okay, this is, like, SO little time. But it was like we all lost faith at different moments, so we could keep each other motivated. One of us would be like, should we just send emails? And then somebody else would be like: We need this protest. This protest is necessary. And at that point we would be like, okay, we need to just hop back on the wagon. We need to do this. Dontrielle created a whole safety plan…what was it called? It was a Google Earth. A schematic. It was 3D. You could put down cones in it. It was amazing.

We had so many ideas. It came to a point we had to make something with a water bottle and the table. We called it the talking bottle. Put the water bottle on, take the water bottle off. Whoever snatched it first got to speak. We ourselves are a struggle because we all have our own ideas. We disagree sometimes, but we always have to think of what's the bigger picture. Like, even though you just made me mad, I'm still gonna hear. I'm still gonna sit down with you and we're gonna get over it. Dontrielle never snatched the bottle fast enough. But that’s why the day of the protest, he screamed so loud he lost his voice.”