With in-classroom learning just days away, the Urban Dove Team Charter School in Brooklyn is putting the final touches on its new location, in the East Midwood Jewish Center. But some neighbors are trying to block it from opening.

“It is one of the most challenging school openings I can ever remember. Now, we have these legal distractions that are threatening to upend our school year even more," said Jai Nanda, founder and executive director at Urban Dove.

Some residents of East 21st Street, part of a largely Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the school's lease with the Jewish center, and then sought a restraining order to block the school from opening.

The school serves about 300 high school students who have struggled academically. Most of them are black or Hispanic.

“My dream is that everyone would have come out with a tray of baked cookies for them," said Rabbi Sam Levine, the spiritual leader at the East Midwood Jewish Center. He said his board voted overwhelmingly to lease the space that was once a Jewish day school to Urban Dove.

In their suit, residents voice concerns over public safety, saying that "guns, violence, sexual activity, and strewn condoms are a regular occurrence” at the school's former location in Bedford-Stuyvestant.

“What it really boils down to is not wanting this school in the neighborhood. I think the legal aspects don’t have a lot of merit. I think this is about fear, misinformation and distrust,” Nanda said.

In legal papers, the school describes the filing from the residents as racist lies, adding that those who opposed Urban Dove used racial stereotypes and described the school as a "cancer in the community."

The school says in emails to its director, one resident said Urban Dove students will “wolf whistle or hassle” female Yeshiva students, and violent gang members cannot be expected to “get along” or “respect” the neighbors.

"We have never had an issue with other kids in communities walking to school with our kids, so I don't think any of those concerns will be realized over the next 15 years," Nanda said.

On Thursday, a judge is expected to rule on whether students can report for the first day of in-person learning next week. But Urban Dove staff says school is open and remote learning is underway. They have no backup plan for in-classroom learning if the judge rules against them.