Call Is Growing for Zoned Middle School by Etta Sanders Neighborhood parents ratcheted up their campaign for a zoned neighborhood middle school last month, bringing their cause to meetings of the community board and the District 2's Community Education Council (CEC). A town hall meet- ing about middle schools and school overcrowding was scheduled for Wednesday April 6. (see Community Calendar). "It's on their radar now," said Lisa Lim, a CEC member and a P.S. 89 parent. "It's kicked it up a notch." Currently most Lower Manhattan 6th-graders travel by public transportation to schools outside their neighborhood. The only zoned middle school--meaning one that students from P.S. 234 and P.S. 89 cannot be turned away from--is Simon Baruch on East 21st Street, which requires a difficult commute for children living on the west side. The only nearby middle school is I.S. 89 in Battery Park City, but it is open to all students in District 2 and requires an application and interview. For years, P.S. 89 parents have petitioned the Department of Education (DOE) to make I.S. 89 a zoned school. In a March 24 letter to P.S. 89 PTA co-president Angela Benfield, regional superintendent Peter Heaney reiterated the department's position that the school is too small to be zoned. "If this school was designated as a zoned school we would be concerned that parents from P.S. 234 and P.S. 150, living in the Downtown area, would be denied the opportunity to choose this school for their children," Heaney wrote. The middle school issue heated up in January, when Mayor Bloomberg announced that a new school east of Broadway would be a k-8. With 600 seats for nine grades, some parents said, it was clear that there would not be room for all neighborhood 6th-graders. Students in the new school would have their own middle school, while the rest of the neighborhood would not. “What they in effect have proposed cuts people out,” said Tom Goodkind, a CB 1 member and Battery Park City parent. “A combination of a zoned I.S. 89 and the new east side school will allow all our children middle school seats, but having only one and not the other would be unfair.” This month the community board will vote on a resolution urging that all 6th-to-8th-grade seats in the neighborhood be open to students in the CB1 area, and that, until the new school is built, I.S. 89 be required to accept all local 6th-graders who apply. Convenience is apparently not the only issue. Although P.S. 89 parents have advocated that I.S. 89 become their zoned middle school, few select it as their first choice. According to I.S. 89 principal Ellen Foote, last year roughly half of the 40 fifth-graders put I.S. 89 as their first choice on their middle school applications. This year the percentage was even smaller, with only 18 out of 70 fifth-graders making I.S. 89 their first choice. "What does that say?" Foote asked. Currently 24 percent of neighborhood 6th-graders who select I.S. 89 as their first choice are rejected, according to the DOE. Even though that represents only four or five students, Benfield said, "It is unacceptable to have a school that is in your neighborhood and you list it as your first choice and you are refused." And some I.S. 89 parents, like Cheryl Moch, oppose having the school zoned. Moch, a Battery Park City resident and mother of a 7th grader at the school, said Downtown students need a more convenient middle school, but that her daughter, Hannah, has benefited from going to a school with kids from different neighborhoods. "Are P.S. 89 parents talking about a school just for Battery Park City? I'm totally opposed to that. I wouldn't have sent her to that kind of school," she said. The DOE echoes that position. By having I.S. 89 open to kids from other parts of the district, according to Heany, the school is able to "maintain a healthy level of academic and demographic diversity." While P.S. 89 parents have been vocal on the middle school issue, parents at P.S. 234 have been mostly quiet. There is support for a local middle school, said PTA president Kevin Fisher, but dealing with serious overcrowding and nearby construction is more pressing. "Maybe in a different year it would get more attention," he said. Even with two middle schools in the neighborhood, the number of 6th-grade seats may not keep up with the growing population. "As the number of elementary and middle school students will be changing," Heaney wrote, "we will continue to assess the facilities currently available for use and the potential for constructing new schools."