School Rezoning Could Catch New Parents Off Guard

By [Allen Houston ] Overcrowded schools, wait lists and school lotteries are just some of the educational indignities that Upper East Side parents have had to contend with in recent years. The Department of Education hopes to combat those issues by its rezoning push, but a lack of statistical data, compounded with problems on the Community Education Council and low parental participation, has some worried that once this year"s rezoning effort is complete, UES schools won"t be in any better shape than they are now. â??What I"m most afraid of is that there are going to be a lot of shocked parents next year when they find out that their schools have been redistricted and that their kids are going to be sent to another school, said Judith Schneider, a member of Community Board 8. The Community Education Council of District 2 is spearheading the rezoning effort for the DOT and many schools on the Upper East Side, including ones in the CB8 District, which covers schools between East 59th and 96th streets, as well as Roosevelt Island. CEC"s main mandate is to act on re-zoning, to conduct hearings and then accept or reject plans that are submitted by the Department of Education. It has the power to vote up or down on a zoning proposal. â??We take that power very seriously, Council President T. Elzora Cleveland said. The rezoning process started last year, but CEC 2 punted the issue into 2010 because they didn"t feel that they had enough statistical data collected to adequately make zoning recommendations for UES schools. Instead of voting to rezone, they decided to incubate P.S. 267, which will eventually take over the current P.S. 59 location. The new elementary school currently has three kindergarten classes. Currently, the DOE doesn"t supply information such as sibling data, the birth rate in the district or the number of students attending pre-school. CEC 2 has been accumulating census data and other such numbers to help them as they move forward on the rezoning process. â??This is a huge process because there is a lot of information that we don"t have to help us make the most informed choice during the rezoning process, Cleveland said. Once a student is enrolled in a school, he or she is under no threat of being rezoned to a different school, and that includes the student"s younger siblings already enrolled in school. It"s students who have yet to begin school, typically younger than 5 years old, who are the ones that are the most impacted by rezoning, according to Cleveland. Schneider is worried that young parents who moved into the neighborhood for their local school won"t know about the rezoning plans until it"s too late, and they will then find out their child is going to have to attend a different school. â??These young parents are the ones who need to be reached out to, to make sure that their voice is being heard, Schneider said. CEC 2 wants to get a rezoning resolution to the DOE by December, which will mean hosting public forums as well as having parents reach out to the CEC 2 to make their voice heard before the rezoning process is completed. No public hearings have been set as of yet, though the next CEC 2 meeting will take place Oct. 27. â??Our biggest challenge this year is making sure that we have as much value-added input from the community as possible, Cleveland said. Sarah Chu, another member of CEC 2, agreed about the importance of making sure that new parents" voices are heard. â??Above all, I think it"s important to stress how important it is to be part of the rezoning process, she said. _ For more information, visit www.cecd2.net.