Season 2: Queens — School Colors

epISODE 1: “THERE IS NO PLAN”

The District 28 Community Education Council was used to its meetings being small and sleepy. But when they convened on a Thursday night in December 2019, the room was packed with parents. Even more were left stranded in the hallway, demanding that the meeting be rescheduled.

Why were these parents so upset? District 28 had been chosen by the city of New York to go through the process of creating a “diversity plan.” But District 28 is smack dab in the middle of Queens — a borough often hailed as the most diverse place in the world.

In this episode: how diversity planning came to District 28 — and how it went off the rails.

EPISODE 2: TALES FROM THE SOUTHSIDE

District 28 is both diverse and segregated. There’s a Northside and a Southside. To put it simply: the Southside is Black, and the further north you go, the fewer Black people you see. But it wasn't always like this.

Once upon a time, Black parents in South Jamaica staged an epic school boycott that led to the first statewide law against school segregation in New York. The Southside hosted two revolutionary experiments in racially integrated housing. So what happened between then and now?

EPISODE 3: THE BATTLE OF FOREST HILLS

In the early 1970s, Forest Hills, Queens, became a national symbol of white, middle class resistance to integration. Instead of public schools, this fight was over public housing. It was a fight that got so intense the press called it "The Battle of Forest Hills."

How did a famously liberal neighborhood become a hotbed of reaction and backlash? And how did a small group of angry homeowners change housing policy for the entire country?

EPISODE 4: THE MASON-DIXON LINE

So much of the present day conversation about District 28 hinges on the dynamic between the Northside and the Southside. But why were the north and the south wedged into the same school district to begin with? When we asked around, no one seemed to know.

What we do know are the consequences. As soon as the district was created, white and Black folks looked over the Mason-Dixon line and saw each other not as neighbors, but as competitors for scarce resources. And the Southside always seemed to get the short end of the stick.

EPISODE 5: THE MELTING POT

Until recently, District 28 was characterized by a white Northside and a Black Southside. For more than a hundred years, we've seen how conflicts around housing, schools, and resources have played out mostly along this racial divide. So how did District 28 go from being defined by this racial binary, to a place where people brag about its diversity?

In this episode, we get to know two immigrant communities — Indo-Caribbeans and Bukharian Jews — that have settled in Queens: how they got here, what they brought with them, and what they make of their new home's old problems.

EPISODE 6: BELOW LIBERTY

Queens has changed a lot in the last few decades — and so has District 28. New immigrant communities have taken root and the district is, on the whole, pretty diverse. But most Black folks still live on the Southside, and the schools below Liberty Avenue continue to struggle.

A lot of parents and educators agree that there needs to be some change in District 28. But the question remains: what kind of change? When we asked around, more diversity wasn't necessarily at the top of everybody's list. In fact, from the north and south, we heard a lot of the same kind of thing: "leave our kids where they are and give all the schools what they need."

So what do the schools on the Southside really need? And what’s at stake for Southside families when we "leave those kids where they are" and fail to meet their needs for generations?

EPISODE 7: THE SLEEPING GIANT

In some ways, this entire season was prompted by the parents who organized against diversity planning in District 28. So in this episode, we let the opposition speak for themselves.

Who are these parents? What do they believe and why? And why were they ready to fight so hard against a plan that didn't exist?

EPISODE 8: THE ONLY WAY OUT

In 2018, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a plan to replace the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT. For years, advocates had argued that the test favored white and Asian students while systematically keeping Black and Latinx kids out of the city's most elite and well-resourced high schools. But many Asian American parents felt targeted by the mayor’s plan, and they mobilized to defend the test.

So when the District 28 diversity planning process was rolled out a year later, many Chinese immigrant parents in Queens saw this as “just another attack." This time, however, they were ready to fight back.

BONUS: MS. MITCHELL’S PANDEMIC DIARY

Pat Mitchell is the beloved longtime principal of P.S. 48, an elementary school in South Jamaica. She cares deeply about her students, many of whom struggle with poverty and unstable housing. While school was often a place of stability for her students and their families, COVID-19 changed everything.

In this special episode, we follow the first pandemic school year through the eyes of Ms. Mitchell.

EPISODE 9: WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE

Over the course of this season, we've explored a rich history and complicated present — but what about the future?

In this episode, we catch up with parents who became activated on both sides of the debate over the diversity plan. Since the diversity plan never came to fruition, what’s to be done about the inequalities that persist in District 28?

BONUS: Live from queens

In two bonus episodes recorded live at the Queens Public Library, Mark and Max interview New York City Schools Chancellor David C. Banks, then take questions about the making of School Colors, why they chose District 28, and what they learned.

This event was co-produced with The CITY and Chalkbeat New York, and moderated by Chalkbeat’s Reema Amin.