GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is pushing back against opposition to the city’s proposed school construction plan, saying there is no way for the council legally to vote it down.

Quinn met today with about 30 parents who lambaste the plan as too conservative and an ineffective remedy to overcrowding. The parents are urging council members to vote against the plan when it comes up for a vote, probably on Friday.

But Quinn said the city’s chief lawyer has advised her that the state law governing the city public schools does not contain provisions for what to do if the council votes the plan down.

“We have been informed by the Corporation Counsel of the City that if we were to vote no, the [Department of Education] would effectively be left with no long-term capital budget,” Quinn wrote in a letter to the parents yesterday. In that situation, school construction could grind to a standstill, she said.

The law she was referring to, Section 4 of Education Law Section 2590-p, says, “Following approval by the city board of a five-year educational facilities capital plan, the chancellor shall submit such plan to the mayor and the council of the city of New York for their approval.” (more…)

Speakers at a press conference to support school construction. From left to right: James Ahern of the Central Labor Committee, Leonie Haimson of the Campaign for A Better Capital Plan, Robert Jackson of the City Council, and Michael Mulgrew of the United Federation of Teachers.

Advocates who have been calling for the city to bulk up its school construction plan say the federal stimulus package could help the city do just that.

A string of City Council members, public officials, and parents urged the city to use the new federal funds to build more schools at a press conference at City Hall today. The Senate is likely to approve a stimulus package today that includes $14 billion of dollars in funding for school modernization and renovation projects, as well as tax provisions to help school districts foot the bill for new schools.

Where the federal funds will break down is not yet clear. But many are worried that whatever money the city does receive, it won’t be prepared to use. They say the city’s proposed five-year capital plan for school construction, first released in November, undersells the city’s need for additional classrooms and suggests that the city isn’t ready to make the most of new federal funds.

Expanding the capital plan would allow the city to take advantage of the stimulus money, Leonie Haimson, a parent advocate who is one of the chairs of the Campaign for A Better Capital Plan, said at the press conference. (more…)

With billions of dollars in federal support for school construction projects on the horizon, New York City is shortsighted to undersell its need for new schools, teachers union president Randi Weingarten said at yesterday’s City Council hearing about the city’s proposed capital plan.

President-elect Obama’s top aide confirmed yesterday that school construction projects will be part of the new administration’s stimulus package to create jobs and encourage spending by states, according to Alyson Klein of Education Week. Governors, who are staring at massive budget shortfalls, this week asked Obama for $130 billion to support infrastructure projects, including schools.

What’s so special about school construction? In contrast with some other infrastructure projects, states are always planning to build or enhance schools, so they can get to work on those projects in a relatively short amount of time. Plus, many believe that capital investments in schools can pay off in improved educational quality.

But the city doesn’t have a robust school building agenda right now. This is “absolutely the wrong way to go in this situation” because it could result in the city’s schools being shut out of a federal stimulus package, Weingarten said yesterday.

“If this [federal] money is out there, and we don’t have a plan, we won’t be in the queue,” she said. (more…)

The city’s new five-year capital plan for school construction and repairs just went online. At 185 pages, it’s a lot to digest, but one thing is immediately clear: This plan, titled “Building on Success,” is not at all as “robust” as the current capital plan, which ends next year.

In June 2004, the city launched a $13.1 billion school building program. In the five years beginning in 2010, the city plans to spend only $11.3 billion — and that figure will have significantly less purchasing power due to rising construction costs and inflation rates. “We cannot afford to continue spending at the same levels as in recent years,” the plan reads.

I’ll have more details about the plan tomorrow, including answers to the questions I posed earlier today, but in the meantime I’m interested in what GothamSchools readers think stands out about the plan.

Sandwiched between exciting election news and distressing budget news, the mayor and chancellor today will release their proposal for the city schools’ next five-year capital plan, covering construction and renovation projects for the years 2010 to 2014.

DOE spokeswoman Marge Feinberg tells me the plan will go online shortly after the mayor’s noon budget announcement. Here are some things to look for in the proposal:

• How ambitious is the plan? Chancellor Klein recently touted the current capital plan as “the most robust” in the city’s history. But the capital plan being unveiled today was formulated during a period of intense anxiety about the economy. To what extent has the city scaled back its aspirations?
• Where will new school seats go? Parents in Manhattan’s District 2 and District 3 have been outspoken in the last year about overcrowding in their neighborhoods. But other areas of the city, such as Highbridge in the Bronx, where residents rallied last week for a new middle school, are also dealing with serious overcrowding. Will the new capital plan provide relief for them?
• How serious is the the city’s commitment to addressing neighborhoods with crowded schools that sit inside districts that overall are under capacity? City officials have said that the new capital plan will be the first to tackle “pocket overcrowding.” What will that change look like?
• Did city officials take new residential construction into account when figuring out how many classroom seats are needed? That was the suggestion of several elected officials and the Campaign for a Better Capital Plan in a report released last month with recommendations for how the city should plan for school construction. In the past, the city has based its projections primarily on past enrollment.
• Did city officials write class-size reductions into the plan? To have small classes, as some advocates urge is necessary and as is required by law in grades K-3, the city would have to add dramatically more seats than it has in the past.

The capital plan we will see today isn’t set in stone. In the coming months, School Construction Authority officials will meet with the Community Education Councils in each of the city’s 32 school districts to discuss the plan. The CECs, as well as the Panel for Educational Policy and the City Council, must vote to adopt the plan before it can go into effect.