A New York City high school, which repurposed its gymnasium as a shelter for migrants and subsequently canceled classes, has now announced the postponement of its winter dance.
James Madison High School in Brooklyn shared on Instagram that the semi-formal “Winter Wonderland Dance” originally scheduled for Wednesday night would be delayed until further notice due to the ongoing cleanup of the gymnasium.
The decision to transform the gym into a shelter for almost 2,000 migrants ahead of an impending winter storm led to the cancellation of in-person classes on Wednesday, with no live remote instruction. Instead, teachers were available on an appointment basis. The migrants were relocated back to the temporary shelter at Floyd Bennett Field early Wednesday morning.
A spokesperson for New York City schools informed the Washington Free Beacon that the dance postponement was unrelated to the migrants, stating that the school had been cleaned and returned to normal by Wednesday morning. However, the school contradicted this by acknowledging in an afternoon statement that custodians were still working to clean up the gym used as a shelter.
In response to the situation, Republican city council minority whip Inna Vernikov criticized the impact on learning, asserting that schools were not designed to function as “shelters or facilities for emergency housing.”
She called the use of public schools as shelters unacceptable and demanded a halt to such practices in the future, emphasizing the vulnerability of Floyd Bennett Field to adverse weather conditions and its unsuitability as a sustainable housing facility in a video statement.
