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Teachers and parents from Canarsie's P.S. 114 carried signs at a Panel for Educational Policy meeting where the board was set to vote on the school's closure.

Threatened with closure when their school’s test scores sank, parents and teachers at a Brooklyn elementary school quickly mobilized their local elected officials in their defense. The plan worked. At the last minute, the city pulled its proposal to close the school.

But not a month later, PS 114 parents and teachers are wondering exactly how much their school was saved. That’s because they’ve learned that the Department of Education plans to slash the school’s enrollment by roughly 200 students in the next three years to accomodate a new charter school. The charter school, Explore Excel, was originally supposed to help replace P.S. 114 as the school was slowly closed.

Currently, P.S. 114 enrolls 754 students in kindergarten through the fifth grade, but its enrollment has been on the decline. Last year, it had 844 students and the year before that, 887.

With a new charter school slated to open in the building next year, Department of Education officials have decided to trim the student enrollment further to make room for the new school to grow. (more…)