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west side story
December 5, 2008
UWS parents gear up for renewed diversity fight over school closure
The same parents who earlier this fall battled a plan to move two Upper West Side schools are now planning to protest one of the city’s latest school closures.
The Department of Education announced today that MS 44, one of two middle schools currently located in a building on West 70th Street, will not accept any sixth graders for next year because of the school’s poor performance. Instead, a new middle school will open in the building, and current students will continue to attend MS 44 until they finish eighth grade.
Calling themselves the Coalition for Equity and Educational Diversity in our Schools, the parents told me today that they are planning to rally around MS 44, whose students are almost all black or Hispanic. They say the effect of MS 44’s closure could be similar to that of the district’s plan to reduce overcrowding, which they say will make some school buildings in the neighborhood less diverse.
The overcrowding plan, which DOE this week said it would implement, requires two schools to relocate. One of them, a citywide gifted school, the Anderson School, will move next fall into the MS 44 building.
MS 44 has long been troubled. In the last seven years, it has had five principals, and its programs constantly changed. The school received a D on its most recent progress report; last year, it received a B. MS 44 has also been on the state’s list of “persistently dangerous” schools for two years, a result of a new zero-tolerance policy for violence, Principal Liza Ortiz told me last year when I visited the school for Insideschools.org.
But despite MS 44’s challenges, the issue of its potential closure never came up during public hearings about school relocations, even as DOE officials described how many rooms it uses in the building. Jennifer Freeman, a member of the District 3 parent council who led the charge against overcrowding, wrote today on the Insideschools blog that the DOE told council members that MS 44 “was on a list of schools under consideration for closure, but that no final decision had yet been made.”
Freeman also noted that community members were not consulted before the DOE announced the school closure. The DOE has always maintained that the chancellor has discretion to close schools.
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December 6th, 2008 11:58 am
According to the state law that created Community Education Councils, CECs are supposed to be consulted before any decision is made to close a school in their districts.
See this story from NY1 last year — which cites the law and also quotes Jim Liebman as saying this: “The CECs, as in the past, were not consulted before the announcement. They’re being consulted now,” said James Liebman of the DOE.
If they are not, this is a violation of state law and the CECs should consider taking legal action.
http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?&aid=76659&search_result=1&stid=4#
Some Say Klein Should Have Consulted Before Shutting Schools
December 17, 2007The Department of Education decision to order 14 city school closed down is not sitting well with some politicians, parents and school advocates, especially with those who say the DOE violated state law in the way it went about it.
A city lawmaker says the chancellor may have acted too fast by not consulting with some local parent groups. NY1 Education reporter Michael Meenan filed the following report.
State law says the chancellor can close down schools, but he has to consult with the local Community Education Council, or CEC, when doing that. In East Harlem, the CEC president says no one at the DOE asked for his input before three closures were ordered in his district this month.
“There was definitely conversations, I wouldn’t say consultations. That’s what we’re working towards now,” said Hector Nazario of Community Education Council 4.
When to consult with these parent councils, before or after closures are announced, came to a head at a recent City Council hearing. A DOE official said many people were spoken with before schools were ordered closed but not these CECs.
“The CECs, as in the past, were not consulted before the announcement. They’re being consulted now,” said James Liebman of the DOE.
Prompting a warning from Councilman Robert Jackson.
“If that’s the direction the chancellor is going, he’s in big trouble,” said Jackson.
The law is clear enough. It says:
“The chancellor shall consult with the affected community district education council before: (a) substantially expanding or reducing such an existing school or program within a community district.”
But the DOE says, not so fast, saying that “firmly established legal precedent gives the chancellor the sole authority to decide to close schools.”
DOE says that means the chancellor needn’t ever consult with CECs when closing a school and that consultations are happening now because they’re the right thing, not because a state law calls for it. The former legal counsel to the old Board of Ed says that CECs are supposed to be consulted before closures and for good reason.
“The CECs replaced community school boards. So they were certainly intended as community entities to have at least an advisory role and sometimes a decision making role in the way students are educated in their districts,” said attorney David Bloomfield.
Nazario says the ironic thing is that the three schools ordered closed in his District 4 do need lots of improvement. He says he would have stood by the chancellor publicly about his decision, but he was never asked for his opinion.
“This is the way they treat us parents, and then they come back with roses trying to say they’re trying to clean things up,” says Nazario.
Jackson says the education committee is still looking a very hard look at the situation.
– Michael Meenan
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December 6th, 2008 3:23 pm
This is a helpful link, but also a disturbing one. Why should CECs have a decision-making role when it comes to educating the students? (Based on what attorney Bloomfield said.)
Wow, by the time my kids graduate from high school (if we’re still in NYC and in public schools), I’ll have the acronymed groups and their roles straightened out.
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