I.S. 89 Celebrates Return to Battery Park City

		By Ronald Drenger I.S. 89 students returned to the building they fled four months ago, and were met with balloons, gifts, big smiles and hugs. The mood in the I.S. 89 cafeteria was overtly festive Jan. 18 as students, parents and staff spent just a couple of hours inside, enjoying a "community celebration" and touring the freshly cleaned building in anticipation of the resumption of classes there on Tuesday, Jan. 22. For the past four months, the school has been operating at the O. Henry Learning Center in Chelsea while much of that time the building was a command center for rescue and recovery operations at the World Trade Center site a few blocks away. And while environmental and emotional worries have led P.S. 89 parents to vote to sue the Board of Education to delay their scheduled return on Feb. 4, almost everyone at I.S. 89 said that they were glad to be in their old school. "It feels good to be back home," said Selasi Setranah, 13. "I think we’re going to adjust really well. None of us have cracked—yet."

"Going back to school has never been so exciting before," said seventh-grader Nana Yamazaki, 12. "I’m so happy to see my friends and teachers here, even though I’ve been seeing them every day. It’s different seeing my friends in this building."

While P.S. 234, P.S. 89 and P.S. 150 have been comfortably ensconced in their quarters, the O. Henry Learning Center, shared with two other schools, was cramped and I.S. 89 classes were dispersed throughout the building.

"It was really difficult over there," said Angela Fremont-Appel, I.S. 89’s PTA co-chair. "But it’s a little scary being the first ones back."

Paolo Secondo, who lives in Tribeca and whose 13-year old daughter, Donata, was talking excitedly with friends, said he had no doubts about the return. "It should have been earlier," he said. "I don’t see much drama or any concerns. I think it’s good for the kids to feel that things are normal." "This was the last step," said Renee Kopel, whose daughter, Jackie, presented a plaque to the school’s custodian, Sean Casey, for his "heroic efforts" at I.S. 89 since Sept. 11. "Now things are complete again in our lives. It feels good." Rhonda Jensen, who has a 7-year-old daughter in I.S. 89 and an 11-year-old daughter at P.S. 89, said she had very different feelings about her two children. "I’m very happy to have my oldest daughter back here," she said, noting that there had been a few muggings of students in recent months near the O. Henry building, and citing the overcrowding there. "But my younger daughter is doing really well where P.S. 89 is and wants to stay. I would be pleased if she stayed there through the end of the year."

But Nina Rapoport, a seventh-grade math teacher, said she had some reservations. "I certainly feel excitement about being back in the building," she said. "But I personally have some concerns about the air quality, and I’m not totally convinced that it’s safe. I feel that parents and teachers as a whole didn’t have enough say in the decision to return. I would have preferred to stay away a little longer." Stuyvesant High School principal Stanley Teitel reassured parents that he has been closely watching the air monitoring in and around his school, across the street from P.S./I.S. 89, and he will be lifting the ban that kept his students indoors during lunch. "There is simply no good reason not to," he said. In her welcoming speech, I.S. 89 principal Ellen Foote, told the families that she looked forward to a great second half of the school year. "I’m so glad to be back," she said, with a big smile, and the crowd applauded.