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Allison Gaines Pell sees herself as a builder, and now that she’s completed her latest project it’s time to move on to a new one.

Pell, who founded Urban Assembly Academy of Arts & Letters in 2005 and steered its growth into one of Brooklyn’s most popular middle schools, announced this week that she was resigning at the end of the year. The announcement comes roughly a year after Pell also oversaw Arts & Letters’ bumpy expansion into an elementary school.

John O’Reilly, who has been a co-director since the beginning of the school year, will take over the helm.

Pell said today that she would be moving on to the Blue School, a growing private elementary school on the Lower East Side that is so far best known as a school started by members from The Blue Man Group. But the school is also steeped in progressive education, a model that Pell is familiar with. Pell attended Saint Ann’s in Brooklyn Heights, one of the city’s most progressive schools, then taught there for three years after graduating from Brown. Pell, a graduate of the city’s Leadership Academy, was a favorite at Tweed and praised as a model candidate from the new brand of young principals in the public school system.

In an interview, Pell said her reasons for leaving had more to do with where she is headed than any difficulties she faced in navigating the bureaucracies of the DOE.

“There is no part of me that’s leaving because I’m not happy,” Pell said. “I enjoy building things and this is an exciting prospect for me.” (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 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…)

Parents at district schools on the Lower East Side that may be forced to share space with an expanding charter school are telling the DOE to look elsewhere.

Girls Prep Charter School has requested building space from the DOE in order to expand its middle school program, which launched this year with one class of fifth-graders. The charter school currently shares a building with P.S. 188 and P.S. 94, a school serving disabled students, and cannot expand further in the space it occupies there.

DOE officials have three ideas for how to accommodate the new middle school, which they plan to present at tomorrow evening’s District 1 Community Education Council meeting.

In one scenario, P.S. 94 would move out of the district, allowing Girls Prep to expand in its current location. To compensate for the loss of P.S. 94, a new program for disabled students would open, sharing space with PS. 184, the Shuang Wen school.

Another suggestion would have the Girls Prep middle school open in a building currently shared by three secondary schools: the School for Global Leaders, the Marta Valle Secondary School and the Lower East Side Preparatory High School. The School for Global Leaders would then move into P.S. 20. This plan would also allow P.S. 94 to expand in the building it shares with P.S. 188 and the Girls Prep elementary school.

The third proposal would have the Girls Prep middle school share a building with P.S. 20.  (The full memo from the Office of Portfolio Planning outlining the three scenarios is below the jump.) (more…)

A public school principal in Fort Greene is asking for a public, face-to-face meeting with concerned community members after Internet and newspaper reports described dissatisfaction with his leadership.

One report, in the Brooklyn Paper, said unhappiness with the principal, Sean Keaton, of the Clinton Hill School, P.S. 20, is behind a surge of interest in the nearby Community Roots charter school. Another report, at Insideschools.org, includes a parent describing Keaton as “authoritarian,” “hostile,” and “abusive.” The frustration comes as a flood of middle class families are moving to the Brooklyn neighborhood – and often searching for options outside P.S. 20, their zoned school. The Brooklyn Paper reported that only 27% of kindergarten-aged students zoned for P.S. 20 attend it.

Parents posting in the comments sections of the Times blog and at Insideschools said they feel Keaton shuts them out of the school. One said that he has a “closed door policy to the parents.” (more…)