Rutgers Students Help Fight For Lincoln Annex
By Natalie Francisco
The fight for Lincoln Annex Elementary to remain a school continues as parents ask Rutgers students for help. On Wednesday, March 4th parents, activists, professors, and students met at Rutgers’ Center for Latino Arts and Culture.
“It’s a big slap on our faces. We are the warehouse people. Our parents work for hours in a warehouse and now our kids too?” said one Lincoln Annex Parent.
During the last Board of Education meeting it was decided to sell the school to DEVCO, The Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and RWJBarnabas to build a cancer pavilion. In order to do this they plan to demolish the school this June, send the 750 displaced students to a warehouse school, and build a new school on a toxic industrial site at 131 Jersey Ave. This cancer pavilion would be welcome if it wasn’t being built on the backs of these elementary school children, expressed the parents.
Lincoln Annex, which was renovated only four years ago, is the best performing school in New Brunswick. These companies thought they could go behind the backs of these families because the school is 94% Latino and 86% “economically disadvantaged,” according to a flyer from The Coalition to Defend Lincoln Annex.
“The healthcare industry is full of greed,” said Juan Gonzalez, a Rutgers Professor.
While Robert Wood Johnson Hospital and Barnabas Health claim to be non-profits their CEOs Barry Ostrowsky, the CEO of Barnabas Health makes $5.6 million, and John Gantner, the CEO of RWJ Hospital makes $2.1 million, according to NJ Spotlight. The cancer pavilion may be advertised as a necessary expansion for healthcare but it is clear that profit is a major part of its creation, according to activists.
Show the Community
Mayor Cahill has been paying for ads at The Yard on the College Ave Campus. These videos broadcast the wrong side of the story to Rutgers students, only explaining that cancer can’t wait and this pavilion needs to be built immediately.
The Coalition to Defend Lincoln Annex cannot afford to pay to produce and broadcast advertisements like the Mayor. Instead, they will be hanging handmade banners all around New Brunswick. They ask that students hang them outside their dorm rooms and off-campus houses. They will also be making stickers that they plan to stick everywhere, from Rutgers buses to bathroom stalls.
Calls & Email
A call-in campaign has also begun. If you click here there is a list of phone numbers and emails for the Board of Education, Mayor Cahill, The Rutgers Cancer Institute Board, RWJBarnabas Board, RWJ University Hospital Board, and the Rutgers Board of Governors. A script was written by the Coalition:
I am writing OR calling to express my complete disappointment with RWJ/THE CANCER INSTITUTE/THE SCHOOL BOARD’S position proposing that low-income, minority, immigrant children be forced out of their school and sent to school in an industrial zone for years to come. Why do you want to make life more difficult for hardworking families? Why are you disrupting children’s education during the critical years of their lives? Why are you sacrificing their education? Do the right thing! Do not send these children to a warehouse. Do not support the plan to build their new school on a contaminated industrial site. The cancer center will be tarnished forever with the stain of what was done to this community’s children. And we will keep protesting.
#SaveLincolnAnnex
By promoting the hashtags #SaveLincolAnnex, #DefendLincolnAnnex, #WhyIDefendLincolnAnnex, and #BuildANewSchoolFirst on all social media platforms you can help to spread the word and make sure everyone is correctly educated about what is happening to Lincoln Annex.
