GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Leonie Haimson at a rally last month outside of the Tweed Courthouse.

Leonie Haimson’s career as a New York City education activist started when her older child was assigned to a first-grade class with 28 other students. That was in 1996, and since then, Haimson has advocated for public school parents — through her organization, Class Size Matters; the blog and online mailing lists she runs; and the national parent group she helped launch.

But her personal stake changed last summer, when Haimson ceased to be a public school parent. Her younger child started at a private high school in September, following a trajectory from public to private school that her older child, now an adult, also took.

Many of Haimson’s close friends and colleagues in the parent advocacy world have known for months about the change in her status. But she did not make it known publicly until today, after learning that GothamSchools planned to disclose the information in a story. “I myself don’t think it is either particularly interesting or relevant,” she wrote in a post on the blog she started in 2007, NYC Public School Parents, before going on to explain the choice.

“It is a parent’s responsibility to find a school that they believe best fits their children’s needs,” Haimson wrote in a statement she sent to GothamSchools before publishing her own post.

The disclosure caught some other advocates off guard.

“I’m surprised,” said Sheila Kaplan, a student data privacy advocate who has worked with Haimson in recent months. “She’s never said anything about her kids being in private schools.”

After shaping much of her identity around her role as a public school parent, decamping from the city’s public schools puts Haimson in a delicate situation. It also opens her up to questions from her many opponents in the polarized education policy debate. (more…)

Robert Powell is Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.'s choice to represent him on the Panel for Educational Policy.

The latest addition to the citywide school board responsible for signing off on school closures has a child at a school that could be on the chopping block this year.

Robert Powell is replacing Wilfredo Pagan as Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.’s pick for the Panel for Educational Policy, starting with tonight’s meeting in Manhattan. Pagan served on the board, which is controlled by the mayor, for just a year.

Powell attended city schools, then sent six children to them, according to a press release Diaz’s office put out today. One of his children currently attends Herbert H. Lehman High School, which last month was told for the third time in a year that its performance is so weak that it might be closed.

Powell has a long history of participating in school governance.  (more…)