This month, Lower Manhattan parents begin enrolling their kindergartners in four now-zoned elementary schools.

The decision over which schools many of the children will attend arrived just days before the sign-up was to begin.

It came at the end of a long and tortuous debate over which neighborhoods would be assigned to which school this fall. On Jan. 27 the District 2 Community Education Council endorsed the so-called Option 2. The Council, which has final approval over zoning, voted 6 -4 over a competing proposal known as Option 3 Revised (3R).

The zoning is called temporary but it appears that it may remain in place for at least two years. CEC members have said they want better demographic information, and they need to see how the zone lines affect the schools’ populations.

The vote was hailed by Option 2 proponents, many of whom live just to the south of P.S. 234 in Tribeca and would have been zoned for P.S. 89 across West Street if Option 3 had been adopted. The safety of crossing West Street, as well as other busy streets, had been a focus of contention for both sides.

“I can’t believe we won. I’m so re lieved my kids don’t have to cross the highway,” said Anneliese Pfeil of 101 Warren St. For the last two months, she said, she has been trying to motivate hundreds of people by sending emails, circulating petitions and attending meetings. “It’s my first time as an activist so I didn’t know how much work was involved. Now I can focus on my kids.”

“I’m very relieved,” said Grace Flood, a leader of the Option 2 proponents. “It will keep communities together and now we are going to work to try and heal the divisions that have happened because, sincerely, it’s gotten too out of hand.”

But there were no words of healing among dejected Option 3 advocates, many of whom live in eastern Tribeca, parts of the Financial District, the South Street Seaport area and Gateway Plaza in Battery Park City. They denounced the decision as giving preference to several buildings around the Whole Foods building complex.

“What is surprising is that they disregarded everybody’s feeling within Lower Manhattan because of three buildings,” said Grace Fakr, a John Street resident with a child in P.S. 397. “We’ve been working with wonderful people in eastern Tribeca [who will be zoned for P.S. 397] and we welcome them to our community—but they never are in the Seaport.”

“Why am I all of a sudden not part of the Tribeca community?” said an eastern Tribeca mother who declined to give her name. “I’m not going to send my children to the Downtown Community Center any more. I feel very betrayed by the community.”

It was feelings like those that the principals of the four schools plus Tribeca’s P.S. 150, which is unzoned, had hoped to ease that night. Before the vote was taken, they stood together in the emotionally charged Chelsea school auditorium and took turns addressing the parents.

“Lower Manhattan is a wonderful com munity that offers a wealth of educational opportunities for all families,” P.S. 89 Principal Ronnie Najjar assured the parents. “It has five exceptional schools, committed leadership and staff and parents who understand how important their involvement and support are to their children’s education.”

Lisa Ripperger, the P.S. 234 principal, reminded the parents that they are now teaching their children how to face conflict. “Tonight is a good place to begin,” she said. “I want you to ask yourselves, when you go home tonight, do you want your children to hear that they are getting to go to a great school or do you want your child to hear that they are getting second best?”

Two weeks earlier, the CEC voted 5-4 for Option 2, but six votes were needed for the plan to pass. Diane Florence, the Council’s 10th member, had been absent for that meeting. On Wednesday night, she cast the deciding vote.

Before the vote, Shino Tanikawa, co-chair of the CEC’s zoning committee who favored Option 2, said she would have changed her vote to avoid a tie. “I will be that tiebreaker vote because I know that Option 2 or Option 3R, either one is better than a lottery.”

An open 11th seat on the panel, reserved for the parent of an “English language learner,” was to be filled by Janet Roitman, a P.S. 234 parent who lives in the South Street Seaport area. Roitman withdrew her name, citing the “acrimonious climate” around her appointment and the zoning debate.
CEC president T. Elzora Cleveland read her letter to the gathering. “Since the time of my interview, I have been literally accosted by various groups in the Lower Manhattan community,” she wrote, adding, “I found this to be particularly distasteful both for the transgression of my privacy and because my youngest daughter attends P.S. 234.”

Roitman’s withdrawal short-circuited a potentially public dispute among CEC members over a decision to exclude her from voting on the night that she was to become a Council member. It also rendered moot a formal complaint by Foster Maer, an Option 3R supporter and a lawyer, filed with the Department of Education over the CEC’s actions.

Before the vote, some Council members explained their positions. For Eric Greenleaf, a supporter of Option 2, the danger of crossing West Street trumped all other considerations. Lisa Urban, a 3R supporter, said she wasn’t discounting safety, but “it’s really not our concern.” She said she saw P.S. 89 as a Tribeca school—and therefore suitable for residents in the nearby Whole Foods complex—even though it is technically in Battery Park City.

“In Option 2 we are dividing Tribeca right down the middle, which I don’t think is appropriate,” she said.

Sarah Chu, also an Option 2 proponent, said she feared Option 3R would overcrowd P.S. 397. “I was ashamed be cause we haven’t talked about overcrowding as a Council and that’s the whole point of this rezoning,” Chu said.

“Community building” was a central theme for many supporters of both options, each claiming the one they opposed removed them from the community where they live and belong.  Council member Mary Silver took issue with that belief.

“Communities happen within schools,” she said, adding: “It happens because of instructional leaders, it happens because of wonderful teachers and it happens because of the magic of your kids.”

Looking drained, the CEC members lingered on the stage following their vote, talking to parents and one another. Tanikawa said she was taking no pleasure in the outcome.

“It’s not a triumph,” said Tanikawa, who called this the hardest decision of her life. “It doesn’t feel like an achievement or a success.”

“I’m very relieved to have it done,” said Eric Greenleaf, another zoning committee member. “I think people need that sense of certainty. Now let’s hope they get together and support the schools they are going to.”