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Seven takeaways from this week’s second marathon Panel for Educational Policy meeting, for those who don’t have time for 6,000-plus words, minute-to-minute updates:

1. Sometimes a delay is just a delay.

Forty minutes before the panel meeting was set to begin, a DOE spokesman informed reporters by email that the city was withdrawing PS 114 from closure consideration, at least for the moment. Parents and teachers from the school greeted the news with hope that the DOE was reconsidering closing their school, which suffered under the leadership of a notorious principal for years.

From 5:21 p.m.:

Just after receiving the e-mail about P.S. 114, Anna walks by a group of people holding signs that argue for keeping 114 open. “I read them the DOE’s e-mail, and they start cheering,” she reports. “They hadn’t been told they were off the list tonight.”

P.S. 114 parent Jimmy Orr tells Anna: “We’re overwhelmed. If it’s true, we’re elated. It’s a delay, but it gives us hope that we can turn things around.”

But a day later, it’s clear that the DOE doesn’t intend to reconsider closing the school. P.S. 114′s closure has been postponed until the March 1 meeting of the PEP. (more…)

Seven takeaways from last night’s marathon Panel for Educational Policy meeting, for those who don’t have time for 6,000-plus words, minute-to-minute updates, or actually traveling to Brooklyn Tech in the storm:

1. Bloomberg’s agenda was unsurprisingly approved: 10 schools will phase out, four new co-locations will occur. But on the panel, opposition now comes from more members than simply the Manhattan and Bronx appointees.

Patrick Sullivan, the Manhattan borough president’s appointee, is no longer the sole voice of opposition on the panel. And while Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz Jr.’s appointee has been making opposition known for a while now, the other borough representatives are beginning slowly to join.

Only mayoral appointees, for instance, voted in favor of proposals that would benefit the Success Charter Network schools run by CEO Eva Moskowitz, a former City Council member and perennial mayoral hopeful.

Besides ‘no’ votes, another manifestation of opposition to Bloomberg came in the form of a skirmish. From 9:53 p.m.:

Audience members told Anna that they saw Sullivan push Morales from behind. Then Tino Hernandez, the panel’s chair, and Deputy Chancellor Santiago Taveras got between them and escorted Sullivan back to his seat. Sullivan then told the audience that one of the mayoral appointees on the panel had approached him to “taunt” him, kicking off the clash. He proposed that the panel postpone their votes to another day on account of the bad weather, but this motion failed.

When the parents behind Anna saw the tussle begin, they started yelling: “Security! Where is security?” A few security guards did edge onto the stage but then backed away, Anna reports.

Sullivan told the Daily News that he was just tapping Morales on the back.

2. Families reached out across the closure aisle, sometimes poetically.

From Anna’s 9:12 p.m. report:

… some MCA [Metropolitan Corporate Academy, slated for closure] kids are rapping about racism and school closure. The charter school kids and parents are clapping the beat. (more…)