Urban Dove, a charter school relocated to a building owned by a historic synagogue, has won over wary neighbors. But a fatal shooting of a student last year reignited persistent opposition.
By: George Joseph
Nia Holloway enjoys her morning commute to Midwood, a tree-lined neighborhood full of big houses in south Brooklyn.
Stepping off the train, the 19-year-old high school senior said she is unburdened, no longer feeling like she has to watch her back the way she does in Brownsville, her neighborhood just a few miles north.
“This is quiet,” said Holloway, an avid volleyball player who wears her dark hair in a tight, single braid. “I feel like everybody stays in their place.”
The neighborhood’s atmosphere, she says, gives her a kind of “tunnel vision” to focus on her goals at Urban Dove, a transfer charter school that takes in high school students at risk of dropping out using a sports-based curriculum aimed at building up their interest and confidence in school.
But the Midwood campus she travels to each morning was very nearly blocked from opening its doors three years ago — and some white residents in the neighborhood are still trying to shut it down.
In late 2019, Urban Dove decided to leave a church property it was operating out of in Bedford-Stuyvesant and relocate to a larger school building owned by the East Midwood Jewish Center, a historic synagogue in south Brooklyn.
The plans sparked immediate backlash.
At packed public meetings and in the media, some locals argued the move violated the synagogue’s historic commitment to Hebrew education, pointing out that the building’s previous tenants had been Jewish day schools. Others railed against the mere presence of the school’s overwhelmingly Black and Latino students, labeling them “dangerous” and “urban.”
The fracas prompted some elected officials to float the possibility of a different location but the school felt it had no suitable alternatives on offer.
Ultimately, Urban Dove forged ahead, opening in late 2020.
Two years in, students, staff, and the school’s supporters in the neighborhood say they’ve made inroads with the surrounding community — hosting school tours, events with elected officials, and on-campus gardening sessions with locals.
“Obviously, the negative stuff is always the headline, but it’s been far more positive than negative, even from the get go,” said Jai Nanda, the school’s executive director and founder. “It’s just that the negative stuff, you know, got the loudest. And so it gets more of the attention.”
But some residents, elected officials, and local media outlets have continued to voice concerns, particularly after the fatal shooting of an Urban Dove student outside the school last year.
And while the school is now up and running, a 2020 lawsuit, seeking to invalidate the school’s lease, is still winding its way through the Second Division of New York’s Appellate Division. Several residents with family ties to the synagogue filed the suit three months before the school opened, but faced an initial rejection by a lower court judge in Brooklyn.
In an email, Jeremy Honig, partner at Rivkin Radler, the firm opposing the school on behalf of the residents, claimed that the dispute had “nothing to do with race,” and alleged that the suit was brought because the East Midwood Jewish Center had violated the congregation’s charter by agreeing to a lease with the school below market-rate.
In an email, Urban Dove’s attorney Sarah Phillips said that a lower court had already rejected the plaintiffs’ claims and found that the terms of the lease were “fair.”
“Urban Kids”
LeShawn White, or “Ms. L,” as everybody calls her at Urban Dove, was excited when she heard that the school had found a new facility in Midwood in late 2019.
At their old site in a church building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, White, a family and community engagement coordinator, didn’t have enough room to do her job the way she wanted to.
She couldn’t host food and clothing drives for parents because they didn’t have enough pantry space to store donations. And when White tried to organize Mother’s Day brunches for the school’s families, she ran into restrictions about the music she could play and had to navigate around the church’s schedule.
“I just was really glad that we have our own place,” she said.
But the transition to the new building did not go according to plan.
After word got out about the new school, rumors started to spread that Urban Dove was going to flood the neighborhood with dangerous kids into drugs and gangs, recalls Sally Hipscher, a East Midwood Jewish Center board member who lives on the same street as the school site.
“I think there were people who just drummed up fear and misinformation,” she said.
The concerns reached a fever pitch one November evening when the synagogue hosted an informational meeting about Urban Dove. Hundreds of residents, including some members of the synagogue, packed into a large ballroom with many interrupting and jeering Nanda as he tried to explain the transfer school’s model.
Some were furious with the leaders of the synagogue for their choice to lease the school to Urban Dove, rather than a Jewish day school in keeping with the site’s history. Others focused on the incoming students. (Alyssa Katz, a deputy editor with THE CITY, is a trustee of the East Midwood Jewish Center. She recused herself from editing this article.)
“My main concern is the security of my children, of my block,” one woman at the forum declared. “The minute your children walk out of the building, what security do I have?”
“They’re urban kids who know how to fight,” another attendee shouted.
The uproar, which was reported on extensively in the local media, made some Urban Dove parents concerned about the planned move. Some had memories of growing up and feeling unsure about whether they could venture into white ethnic neighborhoods in South Brooklyn, White said.
“Would someone just see a student and call the cops on them?” she recalled, describing one of the parents’ concerns.
Holloway, the student, says she was nervous about the move to Midwood too, but decided to stick with Urban Dove.
At her previous public school in Park Slope, constant fights and police interventions had prompted the young woman to cut class. At Urban Dove, she felt like the small community — less than three hundred students in all — was safer and more welcoming. Whatever attitudes their new neighbors may have, she thought, this was her best shot.
“I felt like, ‘Well, I’m not here for them. I’m here for myself to graduate,’” she said.
Continued in next week’s issue
