Rally for more seats at City Hall

Solidarity was the buzzword at City Hall Wednesday afternoon, when parents, children, teachers, and elected officials pressed a range of complaints against the Department of Education’s kindergarten admissions policy. They chanted “build more schools” and “hey, hey DOE, G&T is not new seats.”

After learning that their children were assigned to waitlists atPS 3 andPS 41, parents got together at a Community Education Council meeting and formed a group called Kids Shut Out to share contact information, develop strategies, and connect with like-minded parent groups across the city.

Parents like Katie Fleischer, who has two sons on the PS 3/41 waitlist, showed up in force. “You start panicking,” she said. “I have twins. That is $60,000 a year for private school. I literally was in shock when I got that letter. They didn’t even send me a letter for my second son, just my first.”

The DOE’s decision on Tuesday to move the pre-K programs from PS 3 and PS 41 to make room for the kindergarten students was criticized by several of the politicians and parent leaders an attempt to undermine the rally.<!--more-->

“They tried to pull a preemptive strike,” said Andy Lachman of the Parent Leaders of the Upper East Side Schools.

“The DOE tried to engineer a cover-up job,” said Henry Sidel of Kids Shut Out. “They tried to neutralize us and make this protest look foolish.”

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, one of the rally's sponsors, put it more bluntly. “We have pre-K parents pitted against kindergarten parents,” he said “We have 5-year-olds pitted against 6-year-olds.”

Denise Melroy had been hoping to send her daughter to pre-K in the neighborhood, until she got an email on Tuesday from her nursery school saying that the DOE was planning on cutting the programs. “Here we are in the greatest city in the country, and the mayor isn’t providing seats for the children in the schools,” she said. “They knew this situation was coming. This has been building for years, and they have chosen to bury their heads in the sand.”

Laleyn a Gomez had also been counting on sending her younger daughter to PS 3 for pre-K -- until Tuesday, when the parent coordinator called and told her the program was being cut. She has an older daughter in third grade at PS 3.

“I was in shock,” Gomez said. “It’s too late for another school, but even if she does go to another school, they get out at the same time. What am I going to do? I can’t be at two places at once.”

A teacher fromPS 150, Linda Jones, was also at the rally. She said, “We are a really small school. We have 28 kindergarteners and 18 pre-K students. Kids who are already in the pre-K at our school didn’t get into the kindergarten this year. For them, it was devastating to be put on a waitlist. The system doesn’t make sense. It absolutely isn’t sensitive to people.”

Three of the founders of Kids Shut Out said they weren’t satisfied with the news that their children might soon get off the waitlists if the pre-K programs were cut.

“That isn’t even enough any more,” said David Rosenberg. “It isn’t enough to give us a seat at some overcrowded public school because some other person’s kid got the shaft.”

Henry Sidel agreed. “I sent an email to our preschool this week saying that if you are sending your kid to public school, you better be ready to be an activist.”

Meanwhile, as the overall crowd began to dwindle, a group of budding activists had assembled on the steps of City Hall. Holding up signs, dancing around, and shouting as loudly as their 4-year-old voices could, they chanted, “build more schools, build more schools, build more schools!”

Suddenly, one small boy grinned and began shouting “No more schools!” His fellow Lilliputian protesters giggled and covered his mouth with their hands.

“That’s not right!” a little girl told him. “It is build more schools! We want to go to school!”