CEC 2 Divided Over School Rezoning Process

Parent Council Sorts Through Confusing Redrawing Issue By [Sarah Seltzer] Even before rezoning kicks off for a permanent redrawing of school zone lines on the Upper East Side, it"s causing dissent and confusion among the Community Education Councilˆ  (CEC) of District 2, over how the process will work. The situation started earlier this year when the Department of Education (DOE) announced that there would be a redrawing of school zone line on the East Side, due to overcrowded schools and long waitlists. Although the exact timing has yet to be determined, the process is expected to be contentious and far-reaching in its effect. CEC"s, the Parent Council of the neighborhood, are vested with the authority to approve or veto, by member vote, rezoning proposals floated by the DOE. Frequently, district CECs throughout Manhattan take proactive roles in coming up with, vetting and amending these proposals. The question that currently divides CEC members of District 2 is whether zoning research and decision making should go through the entire council, through a zoning committee formed last year to handle temporary DOE proposals, through a new zoning committee with newly-defined responsibilities or through some combination of the above alternatives. The role of the council itself is at issue. â??Some council members feel it"s our job to simply give the DOE proposals a thumb up or down. Others feel, â??Why don"t we do the work ourselves?" T. Elzora Cleveland, president of the Council, said. She hopes CEC District 2 can balance the benefits of having a committee with whole-council involvement throughout the process, so that coming to a decision should be much easier. Representing the parent-advocate group, Parent Leaders of the Upper East Side, Andy Lachman says that whatever shape or form a smaller group takes, â??you need a small committee to sift through the possibilities and then present them to a larger board. Not only do members disagree over how the procedure should ideally work, they"ve been questioning the exact wording of their bylaws about the function, and composition of smaller committees. According to a copy of the bylaws, the wording is as follows: â??The Council may create ad hoc and standing committees as it, in its sole discretion, may determine. Committees shall be chaired by members of the Council... They shall serve through June 30th or until their successors have been selected. Members of the zoning committee and the CEC have different points on whether the language about â??disbanding on June 30th refers to a committee as a whole or merely to committee chairpersons. At the beginning of July, members of last year"s zoning committee had been planning to continue meeting, while other CEC members assumed that according to the bylaws, the committee no longer existed. Despite this consternation, parents, community leaders and members of the committee are optimistic that once their decision-making process is smoothed out, they will come to a satisfactory solution for the neighborhood along with the DOE. Before the next meeting in early August, Cleveland and other members of the CEC hope to hammer out an agreement on the channels through which the rezoning process will proceed, as well as definitively interpreting the bylaws governing the formation of committees. â??The goals, objectives, roles, responsibilities and limitations of the committee need to be put forward and need to be outlined, Cleveland said. She added that she hopes any newly defined committee under the CEC"s purview continues the data-gathering process initiated by the zoning committee last year, which includes getting sibling enrollment numbers, birth data from the Department of Health, new housing development information and local preschool enrollment figures. Last year, the CEC delayed rezoning the neighborhood permanently, so that data projections for future population growth, not only current school enrollment numbers, could be utilized. â??The DOE needs to know we need more than current enrollment data, Cleveland said. â??It"s not acceptable for a decision like permanent zoning,