Excerpt:
Take a small Fort Greene middle school with a turbulent history and declining enrollment and transform it into a competitive, world-class International Baccalaureate (IB) high school in Downtown Brooklyn.
That's the ambitious plan the city's Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) approved last week for the city's only Arabic-themed middle school, the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA). The idea has sparked new hope in many supporters of the beleaguered middle school.
"I think this is the best path forward in achieving the original goals of the school," said Samer Khalaf in a statement. Khalaf is board chairman of the Arab-American Family Support Center, a founding partner of KGIA, along with New Visions for Public Schools.