GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

The three schools released from the UFT and NAACP lawsuit this week followed different paths to legal freedom.

The case for one of the schools relied on a broad base of community support, but a single man, Geoffrey Canada, made the case for the other two schools.

Charter school advocates believe Canada’s profile as a well-regarded, African-American education reformer made him an unpopular target for the NAACP. They say the decision to drop these schools from the lawsuit, which charges that the co-locations give preferential treatment to charter school students, weren’t made on legal merits.

“It makes it pretty clear that it’s not about equity. It’s not about the children,” said Rafiq Kalam Id-Din II, whose new school in Bedford-Stuyvesant is named in the suit. “This is about politics.”

Girls Preparatory Academy was unique from the other 17 schools named in the suit because its co-location plan had already received widespread community support. At the initial public hearing in February, both of the schools’ leaders endorsed co-location, as did Lisa Donlan, the district’s Community Education Council president and a frequent charter school critic.

“There was not one person who opposed this co-location,” Donlan said. (more…)

Fresh off a year-long tumultuous space fight, a Manhattan charter school is now facing parent protests over its decision to fire its principal mid-year.

Parents at Girls Prep Charter Middle School found out late last week that the school’s board had fired Kimberly Morcate, who began as the middle school’s first principal at the start of last school year.  A group of parents who support Morcate and who are upset that the school did not solicit feedback before deciding to let her go have started an online petition urging the school to reinstate her.

“I placed my daughter in Girls Prep Charter School because we were told we had a voice in the governance of the school,” the petition reads. “The loss of an amazing principal without so much as an explanation to the students, parents, or staff shows extreme lack of respect for us.”

Since the petition was launched yesterday, nearly 30 parents have signed their names to it. The middle school currently enrolls around 125 students in fifth and sixth grades. (more…)

Kim Gittleson's report on charter schools' performance on the city's progress reports lets users sift through every school.

We already know that charter schools’ scores progress report scores fell even more than the district schools, just as happened with the test scores. Now, in the Community section, Kim Gittleson breaks the scores down and finds diversity.

The good:

5.  The best performing charter school was Democracy Prep Charter School, which received a score of 88.9 (compared to 99.8 last year) and was ranked in the top 1% of all schools citywide. Other charter schools that were in the top 5% of schools citywide were: Williamsburg Collegiate Charter school, KIPP Infinity Charter School, and Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School.

The bad:

3.  Merrick Academy and Girls Prep — two schools that were plagued with problems with staff and space, respectively — experienced large drops in their overall Progress Report Scores and percentile rankings. Merrick Academy’s overall score dropped by over 80 points and its percentile ranking fell from 76% of all schools to the bottom 3%. Girls Prep Charter School’s score dropped by 70 points and its rank dropped from the 82nd percentile to the 13th.

Girls Prep’s plummet is especially noteworthy, since the Department of Education has attempted to support the school’s search for space, with Chancellor Joel Klein at one point offering to use emergency powers to find space. The school’s prominent board of directors includes Boykin Curry and Eric Grannis, charter school leader and politico Eva Moskowitz’s husband.

In a major reversal, the city said today it would ask a Lower East Side charter school to find a new space instead of expanding inside its current building.

Facing a threat of litigation, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is backing down, at least for the moment, from using new emergency powers to allow Girls Preparatory Charter School to add a middle school inside the PS 188 building. Klein said last week that he would use the powers to override a state ruling barring the expansion, but the city never took the steps to make his declaration official.

Klein said he hasn’t ruled out taking those steps in the future.

“Given the threats of litigation and continuing uncertainty, we are working with the Board of Girls Prep to find a stable solution for these young women,” he said. “At the same time, we remain prepared to exercise our emergency powers should that become necessary.”

Meanwhile, Girls Prep will delay the first day of classes for some students by up to a month while it searches for more space. (more…)

The city will forge ahead with a plan to give a Lower East Side charter school more space — even though the state ruled this week to throw that plan out.

The move takes advantage of an “emergency” provision in state law and will allow Girls Prep Charter School to expand into middle school grades in a building the charter currently shares with two district schools.

Earlier this week, State Education Commissioner David Steiner threw out the city’s plan. Steiner ruled that the city did not properly report the impact the charter school’s expansion would have on the students at one of the district schools, P.S. 94, which serves only students with autism. (You can read Steiner’s decision in full here.)

The law says that the chancellor can unilaterally change how a building is used when it is  “immediately necessary for the preservation of student health, safety or general welfare.” The change can be in effect for six months while the city goes through the full public approval process required under state law. (more…)

The city must start over its controversial plan to let a Lower East Side charter school expand in city space but may proceed with another, the state education department ruled yesterday.

State Education Commissioner David Steiner threw out the city’s plan to allow Girls Prep Charter School to expand its middle school grades in the building it shares with two district schools, ruling that the city did not properly report the plan’s impact on disabled students who attend school in the building.

But in a separate ruling, Steiner argued that the city did provide enough information about its plan to let Brooklyn’s PAVE Academy Charter School expand in the building it currently shares with P.S. 15.

Both plans have prompted bitter space battles this year between the charter schools and teachers and parents at the district schools who share the buildings. Both charters want to expand the number of grades they serve; opponents of the expansion argue that the plans would squeeze the students at the district schools in the building. (more…)

Parents and supporters from Girls Prep Charter School (left) faced their counterparts from P.S. 188 and 94 at a protest yesterday outside of the Lower East Side school building where the charter school wants to expand.

When Girls Prep Charter School first requested more space in the Lower East Side school building it currently calls home, its principal and the leader of the district school that shares the building said they wanted a peaceful discussion. That hasn’t happened.

Yesterday, parents from district schools squared off against their neighbors at Girls Prep, separated by a few yards of sidewalk, each trying to shout the other down.

And both sides had the same message: give our school room to grow. (more…)

Kimberly Morcate, principal of Girls Prep's middle school, rallied with students, teachers and parents on the steps of City Hall this evening.

The city is re-shuffling a set of contentious proposals that would ask Lower East Side district schools to give up classroom space to make room for an expanding charter school.

Last month, the city presented three proposals to accommodate the growth of Girls Prep Charter School to parents at a heated district parents’ council meeting. The options drew the ire of many parents at nearby district schools because each proposal would require schools to give up classrooms and resource space.

Today, Debra Kurshan, the head of the DOE’s Office of Portfolio Planning, announced that the city has removed one of the three options from consideration entirely.

The discarded proposal would have moved P.S. 94, a school for students with autism, out of the building they currently share with Girls Prep and P.S. 188, a district school. A new program for disabled students would then have been opened in the building currently occupied solely by P.S. 184, the well-regarded dual-language Shuang Wen school. (more…)

Parents at a school for students with disabilities are accusing the city of excluding them from discussions about plans to move their school to make way for an expanding charter school.

For the past month, debate has raged in District 1 over three scenarios the DOE has proposed to accommodate the expansion of Girls Prep Charter School into middle school grades. Seven elementary and secondary schools in the district could be affected by the plans. Last month, parents from most of those schools packed into the auditorium of P.S. 20 for a heated meeting to tell the DOE they won’t accept space-sharing plans.

While the meeting was raucous, the voices of parents from P.S. 94 were noticeably absent. The school, a District 75 school for severely disabled students that currently shares space with Girls Prep and a district school, would be affected by the expansion. One of the scenarios would move their students to a new building in Battery Park City.

Jessica Santos, the president of the parent association at P.S. 94, said that’s because parents learned only yesterday that the DOE was considering moving their school.

“I’m surprised, and to be honest, I’m pretty pissed off,” Santos said. “Our children are already vulnerable to the social stigmas of being disabled, and now it seems like the DOE is treating us the same way.” (more…)

Parents and students rallied outside P.S. 20 to protest plans that would require them to share space with a growing charter school.

Parents at Lower East Side schools that may soon be asked to share building space told DOE officials last night that a charter school expansion could not come at the expense of successful district schools.

Hundreds of parents packed into the auditorium of P.S. 20 last night to protest three proposed scenarios that would allow Girls Prep Charter School to grow its middle school program by re-arranging building space at neighboring district schools.

All of the proposals would require district school students to give up resource rooms like art and music rooms or science and computer labs, parents told DOE officials and members of the District 1 Community Education Council.

Parents speaking at the meeting repeatedly characterized that loss as a civil rights issue, charging the DOE with removing resources from predominantly poor and immigrant students. (more…)