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An informational session last night at the soon-to-be-shuttered Peninsula Preparatory Academy charter school turned into an emotional sounding board for frustrated parents.

“We find the decision wholly illogical, immoral, perhaps illegal and outright wrong,” said Josmar Trujillo, co-president of the school’s parent organization.

At the heart of their exasperation was the notion that the city was moving to close such a school in an area where few high quality options exist. Ninety-five percent of students who attend Peninsula Prep on the Rockaways are zoned for district schools that rank lower on city’s student performance index. The city plans to close one of those schools, P.S. 215, further limiting school options.

“What school would you choose if you had a choice and lived in the Rockaways?” Sharmeka Frazier asked Office of Charter Schools director Recy Dunn repeatedly in the video above.

Dunn said that the city would help a nearby charter school, Challenge Prep, revise its charter to accept 100 students displaced from Peninsula Prep. That school will go through third grade next year. But for Peninsula Prep’s remaining students, he had little to offer. Instead, he sat quietly as one parent after another confronted him about the planned closure, with testimonies that ranged from angry to confused to desperate. (more…)

New York parents may soon have a new advocacy group to help them press for change in the city schools, led by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.

De Blasio announced the group, which will be known as the “Parent Advocate Coordinating Team,” or PACT, at a town hall forum on education his office held last night in downtown Brooklyn. The public advocate’s staff began collecting contact information for parents last night, and de Blasio said that he hoped to mobilize parents across the city.

At the meeting, De Blasio specifically mentioned organizing against the proposed MTA student Metrocard cuts, and he has called for a moratorium on giving charter schools space in city school buildings. De Blasio’s office hasn’t yet determined what topics the parent group will tackle first, de Blasio spokeswoman Maibe Gonzalez said. (Gonzalez is a former spokeswoman for the Department of Education.) (more…)