Bronx News Roundup, Oct. 21

Read our posts about the most recent on the Armory development plans and then check out this article by the Daily News.

A former Kingsbridge Height's Nursing Home CEO is accused of stealing $9 million from the Rehabilitation and Care Center.

Two brothers, one a Bronx judge, and the other a Westchester judge, caught trying to cheat on a $250,000 loan, received different verdicts yesterday.

Next Wednesday, The Bronx Museum of the Arts will reveal the winner of its international contest for a new design for the Grand Concourse.

Police are investigating the death of an elderly Bronx woman who was killed in her home, likely by a stray bullet.

The Yankees are up 3-1 in their series with the Angels after last night's knock-out win, but some fans are disappointed trying to score tickets to future games.

The New York Institute for Special Education in the Bronx stands out for its educational achievements for children with visual impairments.

City turns down school for green jobs

The city Department of Education has rejected a proposal to create a high school based on the ideas of the founder of Sustainable South Bronx and devoted to training students for jobs that can improve the environment.

The Majora Carter Achievement Academy was the brainchild of its namesake, the former executive director of the Hunts Point-based environmental justice organization. More than two years in the making, the proposal was developed by Stephen Ritz, an award-winning teacher and coordinator of student affairs at the Millennium Art Academy in the East Bronx.

Read the rest of the story in The Hunts Point Express

Coalition pushing for school S.E.A.T.S

Wednesday morning, organizers and youth from the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition (aka the Coalition), lamenting chronic overcrowding and its effects on education, stormed City Hall to demand more school seats in the Bronx and citywide.

In the process, the Coalition announced its S.E.A.T.S (Schools Exploding at the Seams) initiative, which is designed to pressure the education department, using the City Council as a lobbying arm, into adding more school seats for the current Five-Year Capital Plan, set to be revised in November. The City Council has an opportunity to weigh in on any capital plan revisions when it approves the city's budget in April.

The overcrowding issue has festered in the borough since last fall when the DOE announced it would be eliminating 1,700 Bronx seats from the capital plan, which many activists, parents, students and local politicians considered a slap in the face. For more background check out this story from the Norwood News.

The Coalition spent the morning pitching council members and then gathered on the steps of City Hall for a press conference where Coalition leaders, with a backdrop of 30 slogan-chanting students, laid out the case for more seats.

The goal, Coalition vice president Ronn Jordan said, is to make overcrowding a citywide issue. Jordan added that they were already getting a very positive response from council members, many of whom have already pledged their support for S.E.A.T.S.

Upper Manhattan's Robert Jackson (head of the education committee) and Brooklyn's David Yasky (looking like a math teacher in khakis and a pink button down) joined the Bronx's Oliver Koppell and Joel Rivera in speaking during the press conference.

Here's some video from the event.

Stay tuned, this will be an issue the Norwood News will be all over in the coming year.