Leonie Haimson writes:
Surprise; the organized opposition of the CEC in D3, the local electeds, and the parents and teachers at PS 145 seem to have beaten back the threatened co-location of the new Success Academy branch in their building.
Now the community and their leaders must do the same for PS 165, the new proposed home for that charter school, which already shares its building w/ Mott Hall II and suffers a similar dearth of seats.
To the D3 Community,
Elizabeth Rose informed the PS 145 School Leadership Team yesterday afternoon that the DOE would be siting our D3 middle school West Prep Academy at PS 145 instead of placing the Upper West Success Charter school there. Ms Rose continued that instead of freezing PS 145’s zone to accommodate Upper West Success as originally proposed, the DOE now will propose to increase the PS 145 zone while decreasing the PS 165 zone and in turn will find another D3 building in which to co-locate Upper West Success.
The new target building for Upper West Success clearly will be PS 165 on West 109th Street, and they were told as much earlier today via various channels. The M165 building, which PS 165 shares with the middle school Mott Hall II, has between 250 and 280 available seats according to the DOE’s 2009 numbers, still far too few to accommodate Success Charter’s proposed 689 K-5 enrollment. Ms. Rose wants to present the new outline zoning proposals at our Nov 17 Public CEC meeting at which point we assume she also will discuss the new plans for 145, West Prep and 165.
This new proposed plan is better news for PS 145, and for the other magnet schools, including West Prep which has been lacking a home (although they would far prefer to stay in the southern end of the district). It is decidedly bad news, however, for PS 165 and for the district as a whole as at best we would still stand to lose up to 300-400 sorely needed D3 seats over the next few years from an Upper West Success co-location. PS 165 also would be at risk of getting squeezed out of its own building by Upper West Success, much in the same way that PS 241 has been marginalized by Harlem Success IV, and PS 149 by Harlem Success I. We also would still need to ensure adequate growth space for the 8 magnet schools including West Prep and PS241, and to protect encroachment by HSA 1’s middle school in its proposed move to the Wadleigh and FDA II building. More generally, we still need to find additional NEW classroom space to deal with the district’s acute overcrowding situation, a problem which has only worsened since last Spring.
My colleagues and I will continue to fight Success Charter’s attempt to take over any additional seats in District 3, especially since the DOE still has yet to explain how it will accommodate our current and projected space demand for D3 students and schools next year, much less for the next 5 years. Additionally, the district-wide rezoning discussion, which is material to a number of our schools, and has been high jacked by the DOE’s desire to accommodate this unwanted Charter school, will need to find some resolution.
My colleagues and I will be discussing these and other district-wide overcrowding/space utilization issues – including the coming middle school shortage - at our working session tomorrow (Wednesday) evening at 6:30 at the Joan of Arc building on W 93rd, as well as at additional upcoming full Council and Committee meetings, the times of which will be posted on our web site cec3.org. We also will continue to work with the schools in question, with our elected officials, and with entire District 3 community to ensure that before any new schools are brought into the district the DOE clearly demonstrates how it will provide adequate resources and a proper educational environment for all of our excellent existing D3 schools and current students, now and going forward.
We hope you will join with us in this effort. Given the enormous power and money being channeled to compete against and to weaken our district schools - rather than to improve them - we all will need to work together on this.
All best,
Noah
Noah E. Gotbaum
President, Community District Education Council 3 (CEC3)
154 West 93rd Street, Room 204
New York, New York 10025
212 678 2789 office
Addendum
On 10/19/10 the District 3 Community Education Council (CEC3) held a press conference at PS 145 that included members of CEC 3, parents, teachers and students from PS 145 and elected officials who stood unanimously against the DoE's plan to give space at PS 145 to Eva Moskowitz's and Harlem Success Academy Charter School (HSA).
The DoE's planned co-location, according to Noah Gotbaum, who is the President of CEC 3, is taking place without any public comment, without any discussion with the schools or district and without a vote. This planned collocation by Joel Klein and the DoE puts an $11 million dollar grant for 8 Harlem public schools in serious jeopardy. The DoE is willing to sacrifice both PS 145's and the 7 other District 3 public school's share of the of the $11 million dollar grant. Watch the videos to learn all about it. They may be long, but the speakers speak powerfully about the hostile takeover and destruction of public education in the Harlem Community.
Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-2TYzOCrQs
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGZVGtDEg88
Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncjAkC2NW9M
Oh, my.. that looks really disturbing.
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