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Only 1 Westinghouse finalist? Didn’t Stuyvesant have 4 or 5 in years past? Perhaps the school should be closed…

Parents and students don’t simply “feel” that the PEP didn’t hear them. The fact is every single speaker was ignored. The hacks from the DoE didn’t even stop playing with their phones and pretend to listen.

Re District 2 rezoning:

I was reluctant to weigh in as I am a voting member of CECD2 (and staunch supporter of Option 3Revised), but I must point out that not only did Option 2 split Tribeca (although differently than Option 3R would have — by design the same number were “on the bubble” either way), Option 2 split southern Battery Park City, split the Financial District, and assigned Tribecans who live east of Church to…. a school in a neighborhood they don’t frequent — all over their earnest objections.

But Option 2 would have had the “Whole Foods” complex, including the 99 / 101 Warren luxo-tower*, and 89 Murray affordable rental building, as well as 50 Murray, cross West Street to PS 89.

* Note to the Redshirts, directly impacted families with entering K’s and otherwise: My original “indie” Option 3 had you guys IN 234. And who do you think worked to get DOE 3 to DOE 3R? Sheesh and double-sheesh.

Both Options entailed the same number of crossings of West Street, although there was plenty of quibbling over at which intersection — a debate subtopic flatly rejected by the chair of the CB1 West Street Traffic Safety Committee, and to their great credit, the entirety of CB1. But when you live within a few hundred yards of four high-quality elementary schools, and feedback indicated developer impact fee argument wasn’t playing well (thank you New York Magazine)….

Moreover, the debate was so out of hand over a period of two months, that a highly qualified candidate for the “ELL seat” felt compelled to withdraw given the outrageous antics by some over the last two weeks.

And what of the political world? Community Board 1 endorsed Option 2…initially when there was only an Option 1, but then let stand that endorsement of Option 2 despite later introductions of various Option 3 versions. (Note to fellow fans of CB1, which was a driving force behind ALL the new schools in Lower Manhattan: I’m trying to state the sequence and hue fairly.) Then, big news item: Speaker Sheldon Silver, Assemblymember for the area, publicly endorsed Option 3R. No other elected official took a stand on the Options; so long as we picked one of them. Understandably. They had our backs, or something like that.

At the end of the day, looking from a District 2-wide level, both Options involved the same number of kids and the same number of seats. But thanks to the rancor…. one still-empty seat on the CEC. As far as I’m concerned, THAT was the biggest loss of the evening.

Lower Manhattan has some healing to do. And the CEC too.

But did this entire escapade show parent input worked? Too well, some might say.

Full release of data from DOE, the data they freely admit to having — as CECD2 had been demanding since last SPRING — would have helped. It is the height of patronizing hubris for anyone to suggest otherwise. At the least, by DOE’s own admission, we could have attempted permanent rezoning, though not by Fall 2010 given how long it took the effort rolling (I had pushed for July 2009; DOE and others dragged the start to Sept 2009), and another lottery year was deemed unacceptable to the great majority. Due to DOE limiting the CEC and public to only the last two years of “0K-01″ enrollment figures, and K-5 “residential” figures, we were limited to “Temporary” zoning. We’ll be back at it sooner than most of us — or I dare say the community — can stomach.

And for the record, DOE confirmed in writing my own analysis of that K-5 data; it clearly favored Option 3R in terms of impact on PS 234 in years Fall 2011 and Fall 2012. Year Fall 2010 was designed to be a wash. BY DESIGN. But the simple reality is this: more “younger siblings” live in SW Tribeca than E Tribeca, and therein lies the out-year difference. Isaac Newton got hit on the head by an apple. This to me was an entire apple cart. Please reread as necessary.

The amount of pretzilian logic invoked by a good many people — some in good faith, some with (in)vested interests — to dodge that simple truth was worthy of the Wallace Shawn scene in The Princess Bride. To wit:

“Man in Black: All right. Where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right… and who is dead.
Vizzini: But it’s so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy’s? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
Man in Black: You’ve made your decision then?
Vizzini: Not remotely. Because iocane comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.
Man in Black: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
Vizzini: Wait til I get going! Now, where was I?
Man in Black: Australia.”

Moral of the story: Never get involved in a land war in Lower Manhattan.

Note to DOE Truth Squad: My personal theory on why the release of this data was STONEWALLED at the Acting Deputy Chancellor level? It would have shown there are NOT ENOUGH SCHOOL SEATS IN THE PIPELINE. Rezoning, as we all now know, does not build seats – it simply guarantees the pain is evenly shared. And in this case, the relief is only “temporary.”

Rest up kiddies, real data for real rezoning is coming. One of these days. But by then, even more megatowers will have opened, but how many more megaschools?

Note that the PEP just approved the relocation of Greenwich Village Middle School to 26 Broadway, despite analysis that shows the cost-per-seat is outrageous relative to 75 Morton. Has the City EVER offered the state cash on the barrel head for 75 Morton Street? A building that could hold roughly THREE smaller middle schools. EVER? Lower Manhattan needs more middle school seats, above and beyond the new PS/IS’s — and GVMS. (Bowling Green Middle School?) I invite you all to what’s turning into a West Village tradition: the annual 75 Morton rally, looking forward to our third year.

P.S. Community Education Councils — not “parent councils” — are official bodies per state law, and include nine parent members, two borough president-appointed members (not required to be parents), and one non-voting high school senior. As of the 2009 revision of the Mayoral Control law, one seat of the voting eleven has to be filled by an ELL parent, and one by a Special Ed parent.

Michael D. Markowitz, P.E.
Member CECD2, 2009-2011
1st VP CECD2, 2008-2009
2nd VP CECD2 2007-2008