Too frugal for Google
B’klyn charter bail$ on biz-class vow
High-striving students at a Brooklyn school were left crushed when the charter promised to enroll them in a special business-skills program at Google’s offices — then failed to come through with the funding.
“Honestly I thought it wasn’t true,” said Adeyinka Adedewe, a 16-year-old senior at Achievement First East Brooklyn HS in Brownsville about the moment he learned the news.
Adedewe and three classmates applied to and were accepted into the Whatever It Takes program, which works with Google and teaches leadership and business skills to teens across the country.
Google donates its Big Apple office space for the program.
A special projects manager for the school had e-mailed WIT President Sarah Hernholm in August inviting her for a visit to learn more about her program.
By Sept. 5 the school’s guidance counselor had sent a list of students that the charter school wanted to enroll in the program to Hernholm, according to a copy of the e-mail.
Then, on Sept. 24, the school’s dean Giovani Escudero informed Hernholm that her original contact at the charter had left, but that he wanted to “honor our commitment,” he wrote.
A month later, however, he wrote back to say they were over budget and couldn’t afford the program’s $10,000 cost for four students.
Adedewe, who sells custom sneakers to classmates, said he signed up for the course “to get more knowledge” about running a business.
“I thought the knowledge and networking I would get from it would help me tremendously,” he said.
The teen added that he was “shocked” when he was told the school could no longer pay his $2,500 tuition.
“I didn’t know my school was going to do that,” he said. “I feel like as an adult they should come together and discuss it.”
Hernholm has committed to keeping Adedewe and his classmates in the program, but has had to launch a social-media fundraising campaign to cover the costs.
“The thing that frustrates me so much is them not following through,” said Hernholm, a former public-school teacher.
Achievement First’s principal, Sabrina Silver, told The Post, “We take our responsibility to provide our students with excellent educational opportunities extremely seriously.
“Unfortunately, the opportunity with WIT did not work out due to budget constraints. We tried to make it work, and we think it’s very unfortunate that the situation has reached this point,” Silver said.