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DOE officials and parent activists have called the planning process of the new Frank McCourt High School a model for parent involvement in new school building.

The Frank McCourt High School set to open next year had a unique beginning: Instead of being dreamed up by the DOE, a nonprofit group, or a few teachers writing an application, parents played a major role in building it.

But while civic leaders praise the parental involvement, the story of the school’s opening is also a lesson in the challenges a larger community role can bring.

Parent advocates, community leaders and neighborhood elected officials conceived the idea of school last year as a way to honor the famed author McCourt with a school dedicated to literature, writing and journalism. They wanted a school of about 800 to 1,000 students that would attract a diverse population from around their district, which stretches from the Upper West Side to the middle of West Harlem. They also wished to make sure that the school would fit in well as one of several small schools replacing Brandeis High School, which is being phased out.

The school that Chancellor Klein debuted this month hews to that image in important ways. But the DOE’s plan diverges from the parent and advocates’ vision in other ways, most crucially in its size and admissions policy.

Parent advocates and the school’s new principal emphasize that the school is still in its early stages of planning. How those discrepancies are resolved may also be a key part of how the McCourt school provides a model for community involvement in new school development. (more…)