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A highly-anticipated day in court in a fight over school closures and co-locations ended in a draw Tuesday afternoon, with both sides agreeing to keep a restraining order on any immediate plans for new schools.

Judge Paul Feinman extended a temporary restraining order against the city’s plans but said he needed more time to decide whether the plans should be halted permanently.

That means the Department of Education is still prohibited from moving forward with any construction or renovation plans meant to set district school buildings up for co-location.

That isn’t a huge concern at the moment, though, because school doesn’t end for another week. The earliest planned construction for a co-location is at Brandeis High School, where the Upper West Success Academy is slated to open in the fall. That construction is supposed to begin July 1, but in a separate lawsuit, Feinman ordered a temporary stay construction there as well.

Feinman isn’t likely to make a decision until after June 27, when the Panel for Educational Policy holds its next meeting. At that meeting, which some lawyers referred to as “D Day,” the PEP will vote on revised co-location plans for almost all of the charter schools listed in the lawsuit. (more…)

Parents who had been pushing to delay the first day of school in September appear not to be getting their wish.

Discussions between the city and teachers union to start classes on Sept. 13, rather than Sept. 8, as is currently scheduled, fell apart when the two sides couldn’t agree how to make up the missed time, according to an email Chancellor Joel Klein sent to principals today.

Klein said the union declined to turn Brooklyn-Queens Day, a midweek teacher training day in June, into an instructional day. Under the current schedule, students will report for one day of class on Wednesday but because of Rosh Hashanah, a major Jewish holiday, will not have their second day of school until the following Monday.

“We understand and are sympathetic to the stress some families may feel because of the schedule during the first week of school, and regret that we were unable to make a change we saw as straightforward and fair to all,” Klein wrote.

Families came close to ending the school year without knowing when the next one would begin. One reader who sent us Klein’s email pointed out that the message went out at 8:54 a.m., just two and a half hours before school was scheduled to let out for the summer.

I’ll update this story when I hear back from the teachers union. (more…)