Education council issues zoning demands

The District 3 Community Education Council (CEC) has seen three school rezoning proposals over the last four months – and made clear in a letter last week that it isn’t satisfied by any of them.

No final Department of Education (DOE) presentation was made at the meeting last Wednesday, although one had been expected. Instead, the conversation revolved around the CEC’s letter, which proposes its own plan.

“We did this to own the process,” Kim Watkins, chair of the council’s zoning committee, said of the letter at the meeting Wednesday night. “We wanted our neighbors to know where we stand.”

The demands put forward by the council caught many people by surprise. There has been intense opposition to the DOE’s ideas of re-siting P.S. 452 from W. 77th Street to W. 61st Street and of expanding P.S. 191’s zone size to include residents of the Lincoln Towers apartments, but the council’s letter requested a new proposal from the DOE that does both.

However, the council was not in unanimous agreement on its plan. Member Noah Gotbaum said he was “blindsided” by the demands, which he said he had only seen two days before they were published.

In an 11-page letter, the council dissects its requests and reasoning. “P.S. 452 struggles to meet its financial obligations and currently has a budget shortfall of nearly $100,000,” the letter reads. It argues that moving the school to larger facility, the current P.S. 191 building at W. 61st Street, will allow 452 to increase its enrollment and serve students better. When P.S. 191 moves two blocks west into the new Riverside Center complex, its current building will be vacated.

The council has repeatedly emphasized the focus on diversifying District 3, which includes the Upper West Side and parts of Harlem, and is one of the most segregated school districts in the city. According to the letter, the council’s plan aims to “relieve and prevent overcrowding; make our school populations more diverse and begin to address a segregated school system; and put all of our schools in the best position to succeed.”

By re-siting P.S. 452 further south, the council was able to include under-enrolled schools in the northern part of the district in the plan. Though no schools above W. 110th Street are proposed to be involved, the zoning lines will be redrawn to incorporate families up to W. 116th Street to the west of Morningside Park. There has been vehement opposition to this plan from parents at 452, but some have been supportive. “I want a bigger, better place for my kids,” said one parent. “Whichever way this goes, I promise you I will not have sour grapes.”

At the southern end of the district, the council called for the zone around P.S. 191 and its new facility to be expanded to include residents of the Lincoln Towers as well as 205 W. End Avenue, which are currently zoned for P.S. 199.

“CEC 3 believes more can be done to create a robust zone for [P.S. 191] and is concerned that the projected zone enrollment rate of 75 percent as well as the target of four planned sections of kindergarten could leave the Riverside Center School building under-enrolled when school begins in September 2017,” says the council’s letter. It also calls for the Amsterdam public housing complex to be split up between three schools to more evenly distribute the number of students receiving free or reduced-price lunches.

Many parents who would be rezoned to P.S. 191 from 199 were enraged. “I’m speechless,” said a resident of 303 W. 66th Street. “The latest proposals show that our comments and concerns were completely ignored. I seriously question why did we bother … when you clearly have an agenda.” Another called the council’s plan a “punch in the stomach.”

Because there was nothing new to discuss from the DOE, most of the roughly 100 community members in attendance at Wednesday night’s meeting used their public comment time to react to the council’s letter. Some also bashed Council Member Helen Rosenthal for sending out her own letter in support of the council’s plan soon after it was published on Tuesday. “[Rosenthal] is one of many politicians who advised us to organize and be loud and proud, meanwhile working against us,” said Gary Ramsey, a resident of Lincoln Towers.

Despite this and other criticism she has received for her position on the rezoning, Rosenthal said in an interview with the Spirit that she did not want to give up a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to desegregate the Upper West Side.

“The beauty of the CEC is that these are people who are public school parents from throughout the district and who have as their sole mission educational excellence,” she said. “I’m proud to stand with them.”

The Community Education Council will hold public hearings on Oct. 29 and Nov. 1 before the DOE’s final presentation on Nov. 3. It is scheduled to vote on a rezoning scenario on Nov. 9.

Madeleine Thompson can be reached at newsreporter@strausnews.com