DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — With loud music, school cheers and fiery rhetoric, more than 10,000 students, parents, teachers and administrators from New York City charter schools rallied in Downtown Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza Park Thursday morning, and then marched over the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall in an event they dubbed the “March for Excellence.”
“I’m here to help my kids and other kids as well,” Damesha, whose child attends a Zeta Charter School in Jamaica, Queens, told the Brooklyn Eagle. “We need more support for Special Ed, more [Individualized Education Programs], and a better ratio of students to teachers.”
Her friend Alyssa agreed: “We do need more teachers.”
Marlene Pierre, whose child attends 7th grade at a Success Academy school in Manhattan, said she was at the rally “to fight for