East Side School Zone Vote Coming

By [Laura Shin] The Department of Education recently presented its final proposal to rezone Upper East Side schools. If approved this month, the plan will go into effect in September of 2011. â??This proposal is the result of collaborative effort with the District 2 CEC Zoning Committee, and reflects current student enrollment data, birth data compiled and analyzed by the CEC Zoning committee, and feedback from the public at several hearings, said Elizabeth Rose, a DOE official, in an email. The DOE presented its new plan after making changes to three previous proposals this year. Judy Schneider, co-chair of the Youth and Education Committee for Community Board 8, said the Community Education Council for District 2 (CECD2), the parent group responsible for recommending or rejecting proposals to the DOE, will vote on the new rezoning plan at a Dec. 22 meeting. â??They can approve or reject the proposal and if they reject it, they can draft a new resolution, Schneider said. â??The earlier we can approve a proposal, the better, said Sarah Chu, a member of both Community Board 8 and the zoning committee of CECD2. If a new resolution is drafted, any new proposals would need to go through the public hearing process and could delay rezoning, Chu said. Parents had their final chance to voice their opinions on the proposal at a Youth and Education Committee meeting Dec. 13 and a CECD2 meeting Dec. 14. More than 15 parents who live at 115 E. 87th St. attended the Youth and Education Committee meeting to show their support for the new plan that keeps the building in the P.S. 6 zone. The Nov. 30 proposal had placed the building in the P.S. 198 zone. Bonnie Ross, resident of the building, said P.S. 6 is a neighborhood school that is five blocks away, as opposed to P.S. 198 located 11 blocks away. Ross, who has a 5-year-old son, said she has a petition with 210 signatures supporting the final proposal. Not everyone is happy with the new proposal. Kalpana Gupta, who lives at 401 E. 60th St., spoke on behalf of her building, which would be placed out of the P.S. 183 zone and into the P.S. 267 zone. â??Most of the children in our building attend private school, so we are not considered a high density building, Gupta said. â??But those of us who do send our children to public school invested a lot to be able to send them to P.S. 183. Gupta has a 5-year-old and 1-year-old. â??It appears that other blocks that are closer to P.S. 267 have been retained in the P.S. 183 school district in the rezoning proposal, while our children will be subject to a significantly longer and inconvenient walk, she said. P.S. 267 is scheduled to move to its permanent location on 63rd Street in 2012, but will remain at its temporary location in the P.S. 158 building at 76th Street and York Avenue until then. One of the main reasons the DOE hopes to put a plan into effect by 2011 is because P.S. 267 needs a zone. The school, which opened this year, is undersubscribed because it does not have a zone, Schneider said. She encouraged parents to continue to offer feedback about the rezoning proposal through Dec. 22 by emailing d2zoning@gmail.com. â??You have to speak out, she said. â??That"s how they make their decisions.