The Royal Court l-r) Robert Roman Jr. (Prince), Ashley Ruiz (Queen), Anderson Morillo (King), Stephanie Wettstein (Princess). (Photo by Adi Talwar)

On May 5, the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore hosted a spring prom for chronically ill teens, ages 12 and up. The theme was Beach Paradise and the goal was to provide local teenagers who often end up missing school and social events due to their illnesses, the opportunity to have a good time they would always remember.

Montefiore teamed up with a number of organizations that donated their goods and services toward the evening – everything from dresses and tuxes, to decorations and party planning services, to food and drink.

“It was a cool way for the kids in and out of the hospital to be themselves and just have fun,” said Tyanna Legree, a prom participant.

Kids taught each other all the latest dance moves.

“It was fun teaching everyone how to Dougie,” said Zuwena McCurdy. “I taught Meghan how to jerk. I loved my dress.”

The goal was not only to allow the kids to have fun, but also to restore a sense of normalcy.

“We hope that this prom provides them with the chance to forget about their illnesses for a night and just have fun,” said  Lindsay Davis, a Certified Child Life Specialist at The Children’s Hospital. “Normally when we see these teens they are in hospital pajamas and not feeling well, so it was great to see them all dressed up and on the dance floor.  It’s also a good opportunity to make friends with other kids who know what they are going through and can relate.”

Ask Be Healthly! Send Us Your Health Questions.

Got a pressing health, fitness, or nutrition question on your mind? Send them our way! We’re ready to tackle your queries about food, sex, illness, health insurance, prescription medications–any health-related topics that puzzle or interest you.

We’ll answer your question in a Q&A feature appearing in the Norwood News‘ Be Healthy! column. If we don’t know, we’ll ask the experts. You can sign your name or send it anonymously.

Send your queries to: norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org.

Here’s a link to the first installment of Ask Be Healthy!

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Ed. note: Every weekday, we highlight Bronx programs, announcements, services, opportunities, public meetings/hearings or community events. Find a full listing on our Neighborhood Notes page. Send your neighborhood notes to us at norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org.

Photo by Alex Kratz Students at PS 94 in the Bronx's Norwood area participate in an after-school program that may be cut by the mayor’s new budget.

Parents at PS 94 in Norwood have grown accustomed to having a safe, constructive place for their children to spend after-school hours and it hasn’t cost them a dime. But Mayor Bloomberg is proposing to slash the after-school program, which would leave parents, 90 percent of whom are living in poverty, scrambling to find alternatives.

“This program is vital,” said PS 94 Principal Diane Daprocida of a program known as Out-of-School Time (OST). “Parents are able to work and know that their kids are safe and being productive. It would be a huge loss to the community.”

The after-school budget cuts, totaling $22.1 million, would slice into 172 programs citywide and reduce the number of subsidized slots available for child care centers. Locally, the programs at PS 94 and PS 8 in Bedford Park would be cut completely and programs at PS 20 and PS 95 would be shrunk.

But the PS 94 community is fighting back, sending letters from parents and students to Bloomberg and enlisting the help of local Councilman Oliver Koppell who has vowed to oppose the cuts.

“It is imperative that funds be restored to the Department of Youth and Community Development’s OST program,” Kopppell said in a statement. “Without this restoration, thousands of children in my district and throughout the city, will be deprived of the positive academic and recreational activities these programs offer, putting them at risk of engaging in negative behavior during these unsupervised hours.”

Koppell pointed to studies by the Department of Education showing that crimes involving youth usually occur between 3 and 6 p.m., the hours OST operates.

“The risk our community will see an increase in violence, vandalism, gang activity and drug use and alcohol abuse, as well as an upsurge in the number of latchkey children, is virtually inevitable with the closing of these after-school programs,” Koppell said.

The after-school program at PS 94 aligns with the curriculum taught during regular school hours, giving students much needed bonus instruction. (Photo by Alex Kratz)

Daprocida said the programs allow parents to focus on vital responsibilities like keeping food on the table and a roof above their child’s head.

It also offers parents flexibility in their jobs, Daprocida said, which is crucial in the Bronx, a borough that suffers from a 13.6 percent unemployment rate, the worst in the state. “This community is struggling so much with employment opportunities,” Daprocida added.

Yanire Montanez, who runs the after-school program at PS 94, knows firsthand the benefits of the program. As a parent of students at PS 20, where the program is threatened as well, Montanez said she doesn’t know how her family would have survived without it.

Montanez said they align their program with the curriculum taught during the day at PS 94, but with a creative twist. On a recent Thursday afternoon, second grade students were doing an art project in the lunchroom. They were making posters depicting a “recipe” for friendship: 1 gallon of nice, 2 gallons of love, plus some hugging, sharing and patience. Kids also spend time engaged in physical activity, a huge bonus in a borough known for its high rates of childhood obesity.

Montanez said she was in tears when she first heard the program was on the chopping block. It wasn’t just her job that was at stake, she said. “This is my baby,” she said. “I live here (in the area). This is our family. We’re basically second parents to these kids.”

Editor’s note: A version of this story in the May 17-30 print edition of the Norwood News.

Ex-Bronx State Senator Pedro Espada, shown following his indictment in 2010, was found guilty this morning on four charges of stealing from the nonprofit healthcare network he founded. (File photo by Jeanmarie Evelly)

Former Bronx State Senator Pedro Espada, Jr. was found guilty this morning on four counts of theft by a federal jury for stealing money from the non-profit healthcare network he helped found. Each count carries a sentence of up to 10 years.

The jury, which has been in deliberations for two weeks, has yet to announce a verdict on the four remaining counts against Espada, including additional charges of theft, as well as fraud and conspiracy. There was also no announcement of a verdict on the counts against Pedro G. Espada, the former Senator’s son, who is also charged with looting Soundview Healthcare Network.

Both are accused of using hundreds of thousands of dollars from Soundview for their own personal use.

For more coverage, here are the stories from NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Daily News, and DNAinfo.

JHS 80, known commonly as MS 80, will close this summer and reopen under a new name, Norwood Academy for Communal Excellence at the Isobel Rooney Campus. (File photo)

Beginning next year, MS 80, the Norwood-area middle school that is closing and re-opening as a new school with a mostly new staff next year, will be known as the Norwood Academy for Communal Excellence at the Isobel Rooney Campus.

As part of the city’s “turnaround” program, MS 80 and 23 other city schools (10 in the Bronx) needed to be re-named. The DOE said they would come up with the name based on input from school leadership teams.

During an April hearing at MS 80, officially known as “Junior High School 80, The Mosholu Parkway School,” several community members asked the DOE to retain the number 80 and to continue to use the name Isobel Rooney, which is written above the entrance to the school. Toward the end of the hearing, Deputy Chancellor Dorita Gibson said the DOE heard their wishes “loud and clear.” That appears to be the case as Isobel Rooney, a former school board member who took a special interest in MS 80, is included in the new name.

Now, as this article on SchoolBook points out, whether people actually use the new names is another story. Unofficially, JHS 80, The Mosholu Parkway School, has been known as “MS 80, The Isobel Rooney School,” for years.

Many of the other re-named “new” schools also incorporated pieces of the schools’ current names. (See list at the bottom of this post.)

Aside from re-naming the turnaround schools, the DOE is planning to lay off all of each schools’ teachers and replace them with new ones. Teachers at each school can re-apply to the schools, but turnaround guidelines require that only 50 percent of those teachers can be re-hired at the new schools.

Hiring teams, consistently of a school’s principal, two DOE representatives and two teachers union representatives, were supposed to start the hiring/re-hiring process in the near future.

But the teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), filed a lawsuit claiming the DOE is circumventing stipulations in its contract with the UFT. The DOE says their contract grants them permission to lay off staff at schools that they have closed. But the UFT says the schools aren’t really closing. They’re just being re-opened under new names and the schools will be in the same location with the same kids.

In court, the DOE to hold off on the hiring process until a judge makes a decision on the lawsuit, which isn’t expected until June.

Below is the list of Bronx turnaround schools and their new names (courtesy of SchoolBook, a collaboration between the New York Times and WNYC):

Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical Education High School — Bronx Institute for Automotive Technology

Herbert H. Lehman High School — Throggs Neck High School at the Lehman Campus

Banana Kelly High School — Collegiate Preparatory Academy at Longwood

Junior High School 22 Jordan L. Mott — The College Avenue Academy

Intermediate School 339 — Bronx Middle School of Academic and Career Technology

Bronx High School of Business — Business Enterprise High School

Junior High School 80 Mosholu Parkway — Norwood Academy of Communal Excellence at the Isobel Rooney Campus

Middle School 391 Angelo Patri — Innovative School of Excellence at the Angelo Patri Campus

Fordham Leadership Academy for Business and Technology — East Fordham College and Career Preparatory High School

Middle School 142 John Philip Sousa — North Bronx Academy

Sponsored by Councilwoman Helen Foster, the street renaming honors Charlop’s lifelong commitment to improving the lives of the residents of the Bronx. She first came to the Morrisania section of the Bronx in 1976 to work as a community and housing organizer. During those years, Charlop was instrumental in forming a land trust that saved this land, now Estelle Diggs Park, as a community park and garden. It is a fitting legacy to her commitment to the Bronx that over 30 years later this land has now been developed as a NYC Park.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. and Montefiore Medical Center President and CEO Dr. Steven Safyer (Charlop worked at Montefiore) are both expected to speak.

Here’s our story about Charlop’s death two years ago.

The suspect, identified as Javon Julien, 19, a Queens resident, is listed in stable condition. Police say no one was injured by the shots fired into St. James Park, which has seen its share of violence over the years.

Julien is being charged with attempted aggravated murder and assault of a police officer and criminal possession of a weapon. Police recovered a .25 caliber gun (pictured) that they say was used by the suspect.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. kicked off Bronx Week 2012 on Monday with a celebration and press conference at borough hall. As you can tell by the video above, the Beep is all kinds of fired up about this year’s event, hyping the borough’s assets and attractions with some help from Montefiore’s Nicole Hollingsworth (the medical center is one of the events chief sponsors) and jazz artist Valerie Capers, a Bronx Walk of Fame honoree. The Bronx Brewery, Mike Greco from Mike’s Deli on Arthur Avenue and borough historian Lloyd Ultan also make an appearance. At the same time, Diaz’s team released its Bronx Week television commercial (below), which features shots of the Bronx and the BP framed by swirling, psychedelic graphics that may or may not cause you to travel into the future. Bronx Week officially starts Friday, May 12 and culminates with parade and festival on Mosholu Parkway, Sunday, May 20. For a complete listing of Bronx Week events, click here.

Tristan Walker, a 7-year-old Norwood resident, doesn’t know what he would do if Williamsbridge Oval Park didn’t exist.

“It’s like the only park I go to,” he said.

Tristan, along with more than a dozen other kids and several parents and aunts, were in Oval Park Saturday, April 28, doing their best to keep their park clean and beautiful by painting garbage cans with colorful designs and constructing holders for dog waste bags.

Friends of Williamsbridge Oval Park, with support from a Citizens Committee of New York grant, organized the event in hopes of getting people to clean up after themselves and“engendering a sense of pride in the park and the garbage cans,” said Eileen Markey, who was there with her two sons, Hugh and Owen. “This isn’t some faceless park, it’s the park that people use and love.”

The Friends solicited around 20 designs from kids for garbage can decorations. The winning submissions — 9-year-old Jimmy Heald’s person throwing away trash and 11-year-old Alexis Davila’s butterfly — were replicated onto about a dozen large metal garbage bins. Jimmy and Alexis received art supplies and gift cards.

Markey said they hope to use the other submissions as part of a public art project at the Oval Rec Center, which is scheduled to open by June 21 after several delays.

Editor’s note: A version of this story appears in the May 3-16 print edition of the Norwood News as do two of the photographs taken by Adi Talwar.