Village and Chelsea parents want more seats…now
Last night, hundreds of parents attended a forum dedicated to overcrowding issues at elementary and middle schools in Chelsea and the Village. The meeting, sponsored by the Community Education Council for District 2 and a series of elected officials, consisted of a speech by DOE official John White, during which he outlined the overcrowding problems and proposed several solutions. His talk was followed by a Q&A session. Some parents used the opportunity to deliver their own 60-second speeches (sometimes veering off-topic). Below are a few of the points White made:
- The proposal to move the School for Writers and Artists out of the over-crowded PS 11 building is “off the table”–for now. Parents wearing buttons and t-shirts protesting the potential move rejoiced.
- The DOE will take a closer look at the state-owned building at 75 Morton Street, which members of the community have lobbied for as a middle school site. White cautioned, however, that they had “serious concerns” about whether the building will be suitable for a school.
- Moving
- Quest to Learn, a new 6-12th grade school partnered with the New< School University, may eventually be moved to the Bayard Rustin building but it would need a temporary space for a year or two while Bayard Rustin High School phases out. Parents from the Lab School spoke out strongly against the new school being incubated in the Lab building. White would not say definitively whether the Lab building was being considered.
- White would like the CEC to consider rezoning the neighborhood for PS 3 and PS 41, since the schools’ populations are increasing. For the fall of 2009, he hopes that all the sibling and zoned students who register will be able to attend one of the two popular schools but mentioned that “cluster” rooms (typically rooms used for music, art, and science) may need to be converted to traditional classrooms to accommodate all of the students. Parents were upset at that suggestion.
“We know that some of the best ideas come from where the rubber meets the road,” White said in the beginning of the meeting. “I am here tonight to listen to your feedback.”
There seemed to be no shortage of feedback, but solutions may be harder to find.
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Many parents have been raising concerns regarding overcrowding in District 2 for quite some time. It was the parents who pushed DoE to bid on 75 Morton. DoE did not bid on the building when it should have. It was the parents in partnership with the CEC and CB2 that organized a meeting in January 2007 presenting the mounting problem of overcrowding - over a year ago. We have been asking the DoE to find a new home for GVMS for a long time.
This is all too little too late. If DoE had listened to the very people who are living “where the rubber meets the road,” we would not be in this mess.
Comment by Shino Tanikawa — February 28, 2009 @ 7:43 am
I did not realize that PS 11 was having overcrowded issues. I know that they have small class sizes in their TAG programs. When our school reached out to their PTA last winter to join in the rallies to end overcrowding, we received no response from them. I believe we received no response because they wanted to keep their class sizes small….very interesting
Comment by Taylor Conte — March 2, 2009 @ 11:38 am
Thank you sincerely for the coverage. Re the last big paragraph, two items:
1) Per CECD2 official information using DOE Fall 2007 data… PS3 and PS41 are already at 92% and 95% of capacity respectively, and that’s based on “historic” class sizes. Both would already be well north of 100% if K-3 is brought down to “target” class size of 20. Converting “cluster” rooms into traditional classrooms would drive those schools even farther OVER capacity without CHANGING the capacity, and at some cost to the educational program. (As I read the DOE’s “Instructional Footprint” document, such rooms are already included in the “Bluebook” capacity calculation.)
2) CECD2 asked the DOE to examine rezoning back in May 2008. (See link.) Note that CEC2 was already aware of cluster rooms having ALREADY been converted to other uses. DOE is since on record as reluctant to rezone, at least in GV / Chelsea, until AFTER the Foundling School comes on line (circa 2015). If DOE now wants to propose rezoning for community review (beyond the conceptual discussion CECD2 called for), an adopted new map still wouldn’t kick in until Fall 2010 at the earliest (and only impact new students, not continuing students). As DOE stated at the forum, rezoning is not a solution for Fall 2009.
Comment by Michael D. Markowitz, P.E. — March 3, 2009 @ 4:39 pm