Education officials got an earful from parents who are upset over two options for temporarily zoning four Lower Manhattan schools.

 

At a public hearing on the plans, held Monday, Nov. 30 at P.S. 89, more than 70 parents filled the school’s auditorium where many voiced frustration, confusion and disappointment over being excluded from the school of their choice.

Click Here for a Related Story on School Overcrowding

 

There to listen were members of the Community Education Council of School District 2, a panel of elected parent volunteers vested with the authority to approve a final zoning plan. (A second meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 9 at 6:30 p.m., 250 Broadway, 19th floor.)

 

A final vote may come at the Council’s meeting on Dec. 16.

 

Both of those plans, released last month by the Department of Education, leave large swaths of Tribeca out of the P.S. 234 zone, and both exclude some Tribeca children who live within one or two blocks from the school. They also exclude Gateway Plaza children in Battery Park City from their closer school, P.S. 276.

 

“We are working on a modification of these plans,” CEC member Michael Markowitz said following the meeting, “because it’s obvious neither one is getting a groundswell of support.”

 

Those plans are expected to be unveiled at the next public hearing on Wednesday, Dec. 9, according to Markowitz.

 

 

Many who spoke live at 270 Broadway/80 Chambers Street, a 28-story condominium building that falls within the Spruce Street School zone in both plans. They presented a petition with more than 70 names, saying their children belong at P.S. 234, and cited the danger of crossing thoroughfares with their children.

 

“It is very dangerous going across Broadway and Park Row,” said 270 Broadway resident Yvonne Chahine. Broadway and Murray are the defining lines of Tribeca. I don’t see how our small slice got cut out.”

 

“We’re deeply committed to Tribeca and our community and we feel our sense of community is being taken away from us,” said her neighbor, Leah Ramella, who attended the hearing with her newborn and 3-year-old.

 

Elizabeth Rose, the DOE’s zoning liaison to the CEC, said it was impossible to devise a plan that would please everyone.

“P.S. 234 is the logical answer for too many children because there is a real consentration of housing around P.S. 234,” Rose told the group. “That is the dilemma we are dealing with and there is no way around this dilemma. "Listening to each other, I hope you can all appreciate the dilemma that we are in. We will work with the CEC to see if we can figure out what is the best answer to effectively solve this impossible dilemma.”

 

If there is an alternative, Rose said, parents would not like it.

 

“The bigger the zone we make for P.S. 234 the greater the chance for a lottery. We don’t want to see that happen.”

 

However, many parents do fear a lottery and Rose was asked if it was a possibility for P.S. 234.

 

“If there does have to be a lottery, we will have to see where we’ve had students register and how many students are registered at each of the other schools," Rose replied. "To the extent that we can try to keep people as close to home as possible, we will. But it is largely dependent on how many children register at each of the schools.”

 

 

The P.S. 234 zone differs significantly in the two plans. One leaves out about 15 blocks of what is commonly considered Tribeca, the other about 10 blocks. Rose said P.S. 234 is purposely zoned to be under capacity by 25 percent, in anticipation of future enrollment by siblings.

 

Residents of 275 Greenwich Street, an 11-story condominium with 130 units between Warren and Murray Streets that is in the Spruce Street zone in Option 1, stands half a block from P.S. 234. They said it was unfair for their children to see the school from their homes and not be able to go there. They also noted that the zoning divides their condominium, 295 Greenwich Street, next door. which is zoned for P.S. 234 in both plans.

 

“The basic problem is this one condominium, built in 1987 is two buildings and you have children in 295 Greenwich zoned for PS 234 and children in 275 Greenwich going two thirds of a mile away, said Grace Flood, of 295 Greenwich Street.  “The condo is being split.”

 

In response, Elizabeth Rose said she would have to check the building notes and would let the CEC know.

 

Brian Johnson, who lives on Warren Street between Church and Broadway, voiced his dissatisfaction with both options. “To lop off the southeast corner inexplicably doesn’t seem to hold a lot of water,” he said.

 

In both options, Battery Park City is divided at Albany Street, with children living north of that street going to P.S. 89. Those below it would go to P.S. 276 in a building that is expected to open in the fall.

 

As in Tribeca, there are parents in Battery Park City who are upset over where their homes fall within the proposed zones. Some parents who live above Albany Street, in the south end of Battery Park City, said they had hoped to send their children to the new and closer school, P.S. 276.

 

“I know you are interested in hearing about the natural patterns of families and how we are actually living. The natural flow and everything we do as a family is from Liberty Street down,” said Gateway Plaza resident Nicolette Sinatra. “Walking here [to P.S. 89] tonight was unnatural to me. I do feel even if you look at the map, we are connected to 276.”

 

Rose told the Trib that the zone was “defined” around Gateway Plaza. “It wouldn’t have fit in P.S. 276,” she said, “and P.S. 89 wouldn’t fill without it.”

 

“Any large building,” she added, “has the potential to make one school not fill and the other school overcrowded.”

 

The preference for the new school is a shift from last year, when it and the Spruce Street School had yet to open in temporary quarters in Tweed Courthouse.

 

Many of the parents, who made P.S. 89 their first choice because it was closer to their homes or had a track record, wound up at P.S. 276 through an unpopular lottery.

 

But both P.S. 276 and the Spruce Street School have received laudatory reports from parents whose children attend kindergarten at the two schools.

 

“Spruce Street has proven to be spectacular with a great principal, fantastic teachers, smaller classes and a great PTA,” Spruce Street School parent Karen Stonely said at the hearing. “Parents out of the zone have asked how they can apply and said that they would be willing to travel. It shouldn’t matter which zone but the implications of the support you will receive in that zone. Support is what we need to be concerned about today.”

 

It is the attachment to a “neighborhood” school, the desire for convenience, and uncertainty over the future that have had many parents feeling anxious over where their children will be attending school in the fall.

 

“Without certainty and calm people obviously get afraid of the unknown,” said Ronnie Moskowitz, head of Washington Market School in Tribeca. “There’s swirling rumor, so the best thing we say to parents is go see and meet those wonderful two principals [of the new schools]. Then they get a sense of what’s concrete and what’s real.”

 

That certainty may come this month, but hardly to everyone’s satisfaction—especially to some in Tribeca and Battery Park City.

As one mother, a resident of 50 Murray Street, told the Trib, “Any way you do it, people won’t be happy and this is still dividing up a neighborhood that moved here to go to P.S. 234.”

 

“But when you think about what’s going on,” she added, “the magic of P.S. 234 seems to be gone.”

Crowding Adds Uncertainty to School Landscape

By Carl Glassman

Suzanne Fine and Christian Salomone live on Warren Street where they seem assured that their daughter Veruka, 4, will be zoned for P.S. 234. Still, they are like some other parents who are considering private school because of the class sizes they hear about.

“It seems as if the two new schools will help a little bit but it still feels like there aren’t enough schools,” said Fine, a former middle and high school teacher. “When I visited P.S. 234 it just felt more crowded.”

Indeed, the principals at P.S. 234 and P.S. 89 both say that, despite the reduction in kindergartners in their classrooms as a result of the two new schools, crowding remains a concern.

First, there is the  “bubble” of current 1st graders who will be moving through the grades. Then there are the anticipated new 1st graders moving into the zone next year. And finally there are current kindergartners who were on waiting lists for P.S. 234 and P.S. 89. Some of them may transfer to those schools if they become zoned for them.

“[P.S. 89 principal Ronnie Najjar] and I were sort of led on this journey last year that we would have these capped [kindergarten] classes to bring the bubble down,” said P.S. 234 principal Lisa Ripperger. “But the bubble shows up a year later so it requires a different planning.”

That planning means once again finding space for new classrooms in order to cap class sizes rather moving towards the maximum of 32, as the teachers’ union contract allows. Ripperger said 25 is her limit. Otherwise, she warned, “You’ll find me in Westchester in a heartbeat. I get offers daily. Forget about it. It’s not happening.”

The discussion of crowding came up at a recent meeting of Assemblyman Sheldon Silver’s schools task force.

At the meeting, Elizabeth Rose, the Department of Education’s liaison to School District 2, tried to reassure the principals that DOE officials would not insist on schools accepting up to 32 children to a class, but declined to say what limit would be set.

 

Najjar said that she already has classes of up to 29 students and would like relief from the large number of 1st graders that will require an additional classroom in the school.

“This class bubble in first grade is problematic. I’m not going to lie,” Najjar said. But it is the class sizes she worries about the most. “It’s not acceptable to me but I have no choice,” she said. “My hands are tied.”

Anne Albright, who has twins in one of those 1st grade classes, told Rose she would like to see P.S. 276 take some of P.S. 89’s current 1st graders. And she would be happy if her kids were among them.

Najjar supported the idea. “I can get my kids down to 25 in a class, which would be very nice,” she said.

At the meeting, several people were surprised when Rose said that P.S 276 would have three, not four kindergarten classes. Eric Greenleaf, a P.S. 234 parent and New York University professor who has provided demographic data to the zoning process, later told the Trib that the difference would be significant. “In 2011 [P.S. 276] is definitely above capacity,” he said. “And by 2012 you’re completely up the creek.”

Nearly two years before it is scheduled to open, the Spruce Street school’s two classes per grade already appear inadequate. Now there are questions about whether the school, planned as a K-8, will contain a middle school after all.

“I think we’re going to have to just watch and see what the registration is for next year,” Rose said.

Greenleaf, who notes that the number of births in Lower Manhattan increased by 46 percent between 2003 and 2007, said the die has already been cast. What that means, he said, is there will be at least nine fewer middle school classrooms than had been promised. And elementary schools will see crowding once again.

“This is not a prediction. The kids are already born,” Greenleaf said. “That’s what’s scary about it.”

—Faith Paris contributed reporting.

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