GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

An adapted Obama poster used at last night's District 3 diversity rally.

An Upper West Side parent council last night put its stamp of approval on a plan to ease overcrowding in public schools there. But opponents of the plan, who have been criticizing it for the past two months as stamping out diversity, kept up their fight until the very end.

The council’s resolution means that two schools, the Anderson School and the Center School, will relocate to other buildings in the neighborhood next fall. In 2010, people living in three small sections of the neighborhood will be reassigned to different elementary schools. All that remains now is for the Department of Education to execute the changes.

Opponents of the resolution included both Center School parents who don’t want their school to move and advocates of diversity, who think the resolution will make schools in the area more segregated. Some of those parents rallied before the meeting yesterday.

(View a video from last night’s rally, during which speakers condemn Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and swear to keep fighting for diversity. Yes, “Sex and the City” actress Cynthia Nixon appears, but unlike in last week’s video, she has a non-speaking role.)

Before the council approved the resolution in a 7-1 vote, dozens of parents, neighborhood residents, and elected officials delivered one-minute speeches expressing their support or opposition. The speeches lasted more than an hour. (more…)

A few people protested outside last week's CEC meeting; more are expected tonight.

A rally this evening against a parent council resolution to relieve overcrowding in Upper West Side schools will try to move beyond a bitter fight between two schools to focus on the broader issue of diversity in the neighborhood’s schools.

The Community Education Council for District 3 voted last week after a contentious meeting to introduce a resolution that would move two schools and reduce the zones of two others. Tonight, six members of CEC 3 must vote to pass the resolution.

Before tonight’s CEC vote, a rally will give voice to parents who say the resolution, if enacted, would reduce diversity in several of the neighborhood’s school buildings. “Is this what we want in our city?” asked Jeanne Kerwin, a parent who is one of the organizers of tonight’s rally.

At stake is the fate of the entire two-month-long rezoning process. If the resolution is defeated tonight, the Department of Education, not parents, will decide how to deal with the space crunch at neighborhood schools. (more…)

The group that proposed eliminating zone lines to combat segregation in District 3 elementary schools isn’t happy with a parent council’s resolution about rezoning the district.

The Community Education Council for District 3 decided last week to take a simple approach to rezoning, recommending that two schools move to new buildings and that zone lines around two others be tweaked. Some in the community had opposed the plan on the grounds that the changes would make school buildings more segregated. But the CEC said it wasn’t permitted to consider diversity in the rezoning discussion.

In a public letter, the Center for Immigrant Families, which has long pushed for more integrated schools in the district, says it is “beyond comprehension” that the CEC’s resolution lacks “even a mention of what is equitable or fair.” (more…)

This flier, which disparages Center School Principal Elaine Schwartz, appeared on the building's fence and around the neighborhood.

A tiny middle school on the Upper West Side that has flown under the radar for much of its 26-year history has become the object of intense scrutiny in recent weeks as its principal and parents threaten to derail the neighborhood’s plans to alleviate overcrowding.

A plan proposed last week by the Community Education Council for District 3 would require the school to move from its longtime home to a larger space several blocks away. That plan, and the Department of Education’s response to it, will be the topic of a CEC 3 meeting tonight.

But Center School Principal Elaine Schwartz has opposed relocating since the DOE originally suggested the idea in September, and the school’s loyal parents have lined up behind her.

“We are totally unified,” parent Alan Madison told me. “When it comes to the education of our children, we listen to [Schwartz].”

Schwartz, the 26-year-old school’s founding principal, told the New York Times last week that she opposed a move under any circumstances.

As Schwartz and her school have dug their feet in, tension has wracked the PS 199 building on West 70 Street, where the Center School is the sole occupant of the top floor. (more…)

Two weeks after the DOE first presented the Community Education Council for District 3 with two proposals for rezoning the Upper West Side, CEC 3 has concluded that both are too flawed to vote on.

Maps of the DOE's two rezoning proposals

In its official response, which CEC 3 released Friday along with responses from individual schools, CEC 3 asks for a new plan based on official school capacity data, a revised conception of school zones, and an expectation of class size reduction. The densely packed response also asks the DOE to consider leasing as a short-term solution to the district’s space needs and emphasizes the unique identities of the district’s special programs, the advantages of grandfathering in any new zones so that siblings are kept together, and the need for a new school building.

An important question, the CEC argues, is whether the time is even right for rezoning, given the DOE’s own self-proclaimed constraints in planning for future space needs. From the response:

You have said that DOE does not plan for children until they register for seats. If the DOE is unable to anticipate how many children will be yielded by new construction, then perhaps this period of massive new construction in our district is NOT the best time to be redrawing zone lines.

The council will address the issue further at its public meeting Wednesday. CEC 3′s entire response is worth a read — it’s a useful summary of many of the issues districts and neighborhoods face when trying to negotiate an overcrowding plan with the DOE. The response is posted in full after the jump. (more…)

On Wednesday, the Community Education Council for District 3 held a special meeting to hear comments from community members about the rezoning proposal the DOE unveiled last week. CEC 3 space committee chair Jennifer Freeman had this to say:

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the DOE presentation last week was the suggestion that the citywide Anderson Program could relocate to empty space in the building currently occupied by MS44 and the Computer School. [On Wednesday] I learned that Anderson’s leadership — both the principal and the PTA board — think that a relocation could work. This was probably the most productive part of the meeting. While there are still many concerns, not least parent worries about safety in the MS 44 building, the proposal does allow Anderson and PS 9 crucial room to grow. PS 9 parents also say they would welcome the Center School as a good fit, in terms of both size and philosophy. Most Center School parents remain adamantly opposed to any move.

Regarding the rezoning proposal itself, perhaps the best I can say is that it’s at too early a stage for comment.

According to Freeman, representatives from nearly every elementary school on the Upper West Side attended Wednesday’s meeting, although no one from PS 84, 145, or 191 spoke. In addition, she said, no one attended from MS 44, the West 70th Street middle school where the DOE has proposed moving the ultra-selective Anderson School.