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HURRICANE SANDY
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
HURRICANE SANDY
Scholars in the Storm
How one alumnus, the school he founded and
a community beat Hurricane Sandy
B y Michael R. Shea ’10 A r t s
On a brisk February morning, 20 middle
school honor students, most with a
parent or two by their side, sat before
plates of bacon and eggs in the second
floor library at Scholars’ Academy,
an accelerated New York City public
school for sixth through 12th graders in
Rockaway Park, Queens.
“This,” school principal and founder
Brian O’Connell ’89 told the gathering, “is my favorite day of the
month.”
The students had earned their special before-school breakfast
with O’Connell through a combination of good grades and good
character. During the next hour these Outstanding Scholars of the
Month were celebrated; the principal read glowing letters from
the teachers and the students posed for pictures snapped with an
iPad before beaming parents. For these kids, it was an achievement
on many levels: some of them still lived in hotels, or with
their extended families or in the few rooms in their homes not
destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.
Scholars’ Academy sits in the middle of the Rockaway Peninsula,
on a slice of land less than a ½-mile wide, sandwiched between
Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. When Sandy made landfall
here on October 29, it flooded the school in minutes. Saltwater
mixed with overflow from a sewage treatment plant next door.
The basement became a fish tank of floating waste. The gray-black
water came up through the first floor, destroying everything that
wasn’t suspended four feet up. The new gym floor, bought with
the help of parents and local businesses, rippled and cracked. Black
mold soon covered everything, working up the walls toward the
classrooms on the second floor of the two-story building.
Scholars’ Academy was among the hardest hit of all New York
City schools by the hurricane. It was also the last one to reopen
afterward — nearly three months later, on January 11, which
happened to be O’Connell’s birthday. Remarkably, thanks to the
school administration’s quick redirection of students to temporary
schools in East New York, most of the kids didn’t miss a
single day of school.
“You stood out,” O’Connell told the 20 middle-schoolers. “You
avoided distractions. You earned this.”
Scholars’ Academy grew from O’Connell’s vision. Born in
Brooklyn, raised in the Rockaways by a taxi driver father
and a mother who worked in the cafeteria at Far Rockaway
H.S., he grew up watching its best students endure long
bus rides to the city’s top middle and high schools. In 2003, as principal
at The Belle Harbor School in the Rockaways (then just an
elementary school), O’Connell was struck by the local class numbers:
Of the 125 fifth-graders graduating from his school, only 24
matriculated to Rockaway Park’s only middle school, P.S. 180.
“Parents vote with their feet,” O’Connell says. “For a lot of reasons,
they didn’t feel a viable middle school option was in their
community.”
With the support of his regional superintendent, Kathleen M.
Cashin Ed.D. — now a member of the New York State Board of
Regents — O’Connell drafted the plan for a different kind of school
on the edge of Queens. As an accelerated program, it would require
applicants to score high on the city’s standardized tests. As a
meritocracy, it would retain the Rockaways’ top talent, regardless
of race, religion, neighborhood or financial situation.
Anywhere other than a school hallway O’Connell could be
mistaken for a politician or corporate executive, with his direct
manner and tailored suits. But here at Scholars’, he seems more
like a fun uncle. “Hey, Mr. O!” the students call out, holding
doors for him, asking about his weekend.
Outside his second floor office, O’Connell stops. “See this,” he
says, slapping a wall that’s covered with photos of his wife and
two kids, of students and of school sporting events. “This is my
Facebook. No one can hack it.”
Inside, a small Irish flag hangs over his desk. His father is
Irish. On one bookshelf is an autographed picture of The Sopranos’
Paulie Walnuts. His mother is Italian. Through the window,
the football field of next-door Beach Channel H.S. stands against
Jamaica Bay. “That’s where I made a 95-yard touchdown run,”
O’Connell says. “I’m sure that’s why I got into Columbia.”
O’Connell was an all-city fullback and rushed for just shy of
1,000 yards his senior year, 1984. Recruited, he played all four
years at the College, at a time when the program wasn’t quite
so storied. “Sports Illustrated covered us one year, and not because
we were great,” he says, laughing. When his team broke
the school’s 44-game losing streak, he swung from the goal posts
with the other players.
O’Connell graduated with a major in political science, though
his mother told him: “You should become a teacher. You’ll never
be bored.” He says she couldn’t have been more correct. “I’m restless.
I have a lot of energy. It’s still something I manage and focus.”
After Columbia, O’Connell substitute taught in Brooklyn while
earning a master’s in elementary education in just five months at
Adelphi University on Long Island. He also owned two taxicabs
that he managed out of Howard Beach Taxi. During Easter recess
one year, his driver wrecked a car on the Van Wyck Expressway;
his second car had engine troubles and was down for the count.
Scholars’ Academy, founded by
Brian O’Connell ’89 in 2004, moved
into its two-story home in Rockaway
Park (Queens), N.Y., in 2005. It
was flooded from Hurricane Sandy
plus toxic overflow from a sewage
treatment plant next door, and its
students were bussed to other
schools for nearly three months. At
Mill Basin Elementary School, they
were greeted with welcome cards
made from construction paper.
Scholars’ reopened on January 11
and in early February, O’Connell
posed with some of his students in
front of a sign bearing the slogan
that came to define their rebuilding
effort: Rockaway Resilient.
PHOTOS: TOP LEFT AND BOTTOM:
MICHAEL SHEA ’10 ARTS; ALL OTHERS,
BRIAN O’CONNELL ’89
SUMMER 2013
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SUMMER 2013
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