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P.S. 89 Parents Take Lobbying to Albany Armed with placards demanding smaller classes, a contingent of P.S. 89 families boarded a bus early one chilly morning last month and headed for Albany. By the end of the day they returned home, buoyed by the promise of a new Battery Park City school. “Albany really rolled out the carpet for Battery Park City,” said Dennis Gault, co-president of the P.S. 89 PTA. The eight parents and one student hit the road for Lobby Day, an annual event that draws teachers and families to the state capitol to advocate for education issues. The P.S. 89 group scored meetings with two of the state’s highest level officials—Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Manny Rivera, the recently appointed Deputy Secretary of Education. As a result, Rivera said he will visit the school on May 11. Earlier in the month, the parents met with Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. According to the parents, Silver said that Site 2B, at the south end of Battery Park City, formerly earmarked by Governor Pataki for a women’s museum and conference center, will definitely be the location of a new school. Silver said he had communicated with schools chancellor Joel Klein, as well as the Battery Park City Authority about the site. “Assemblyman Silver assured us that parcel will be ours and a school will be built there,” said Steve Salatan, father of two P.S. 89 students. In a statement to the Trib, Silver said he is “working hard to build a new school at Site 2B to address the growing demand for classroom space in our Lower Manhattan community” but he stopped short of confirming that it is a done deal. The opening of a new school will likely be at least four years away. In the interim, some parents are searching for ways to accommodate the burgeoning class sizes. This year, one of the school’s fourth grade classes has 34 students. Next year the school may need to convert a computer room into classroom space. If that happens, the PTA is looking to put computers in the classroom, at a cost that could be as much as $200,000, according to Liz Pappas, who heads the PTA’s fundraising committee. Pappas believes the solution lies with the real estate developers, who she plans to approach for contributions. “We believe they have an obligation,” she said. “They have a direct impact on the overcrowding situation.” Monique Roeder, director of marketing at Sheldrake, developer of the 32-story Riverhouse in Battery Park City and contributor to P.S. 89 fundraisers, said she could not comment on the firm’s position because it had yet to be asked. A call to Milstein Properties, developer of the building behind the ballfields, was not returned. With nearly 1,000 new Battery Park City apartments—many of them with two or three bedrooms—coming online in the next two years, the P.S. 89 school leadership team is also exploring the idea of putting classrooms in trailers on Warren Street for the school year beginning September 2008. It’s an option that will be unsightly, parents say, but it may be necessary. Gault said they are also still hoping to have a school annex in the planned Battery Park Community Center, but the School Construction Authority is said to be opposed to building both a new school and an annex. The School Construction Authority turned down an invitation to this month’s meeting of Community Board 1’s Community Center Task Force.
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