Open Charter to Local Kids, Board Says

By [Rebecca Douglas] Mark Diller, chairperson of Community Board 7's youth, education and libraries committee, began last week's meeting with an emphasis on courtesy, but the atmosphere was strained as parents tried to remain polite as they discussed the future of their children's education. "We're going to be pretty strict about civility," he said to a room packed with parents, teachers and community members. The committee met to discuss opening the proposed charter school, Upper West Success Academy, within the Brandeis Educational Complex on West 84th Street. Committee and community members rose one by one to raise concerns about situating this new school for kindergarteners in one of the most overcrowded areas in the district, and in a building shared with other high schools. One of their greatest concerns was that community children would not be fairly represented within the 84 kindergarten seats that the school promises in its application. Success Academy spokeswoman Jenny Sedlis explained that students zoned for low-performing schools have the higher priority, followed by other students in District 3. "It's at-risk [schools] in-district," she said. "Then at-risk out-of-district. Then in-district. Then out-of-district." Sedlis referred to the admissions system as a "lottery," but community board members found that word misleading, since groups with priority will have their applications processed first. "If there are 84 at-risk in-district kids, do you ever get to the next pull [priority]?" asked Diller. Sedlis said they might not. In order to qualify as at-risk, students must be zoned for a school that received a "D" or an "F" grade in the category of student performance. Only one such elementary school below 96th Street and relatively close to Brandeis falls under this label, P.S. 84, while there are "more than five" within District 3 as a whole, according to Sedlis. Some parents are nervous that the school will fill with at-risk out-of-district kids and that very few local children will have a chance at a spot. "Would I rather take a child that's zoned for a failing school or a child who lives across the street whose parent wants to be able to walk them to school every morning?" said Sedlis. "For me to say I would pick one child over another, that's very difficult. So, in designing these preferences we wanted to be sensitive to the challenge that we do want to serve both of those constituencies." Many attendees didn't seem convinced by her statement because she didn't offer much hope of changing the application priorities. Noah Gotbaum, president of the Community Education Council for District 3, said the council is "very much against Upper West Success." He cited particular concerns about the "well over a million dollars" he says the school has spent on marketing to parents. "I wish you were a true additional option to the neighborhood," said local parent and co-chair of the overcrowding committee Eric Shuffler. "I don't think you are." Shuffler said that parents at P.S. 87 and P.S. 199, both schools within 15 blocks of Brandeis, have been objects of Success School marketing. These parents are afraid that, due to the overcrowding problem, their kids will be waitlisted at their local schools. Shuffler says that they view Upper West Success as a possible option for their children, but he has been telling them that it really isn't. But access isn't the only thing that community members are worried about. A great deal of the meeting centered around putting the charter school within a building that will house four high schools-a fifth, Brandeis High School, is being phased out this year. The site is not yet finalized but it is now the preferred location. Board 7 member Gabriella Rowe was adamant that bathrooms for the young children should be separate from facilities for the high schoolers. Other parents raised concerns about kindergarteners being affected by "teenage behavior" like smoking and cursing. "Co-locating with older children is certainly not ideal," Sedlis acknowledged. "We want to preserve their childhood and not expose them to high school behavior that they shouldn't be exposed to." She added, "But the way it has worked with the school in which we do have that arrangement [a special education high school], the principals work very well together." Additionally, everyone who enters the Brandeis building must currently walk through metal detectors. Community members wanted a promise that young children and parents of young children would not be required to do the same. Sedlis said that the Department of Education had told her that the kindergarteners would not need to go through the detectors, but that parents may be required to do so. At the end of the meeting, the committee discussed whether or not to support opening the charter school within the Brandeis building. Their vote reflected the resistant voices of many of the parents present. In an advisory vote, the committee voted unanimously not to support the co-location because they did not believe the new school would provide seats to children in the immediate area and because they felt that it was an inappropriate venue for kindergarteners. This vote alone will not halt plans for Upper West Success Academy, and many community members plan to continue to resist its development. "We have just begun to fight," said Brandeis teacher Harvey Lichtman. Individuals sitting around him nodded in solidarity.