The Upper West Side will get a crucial new middle school and high school starting in 2015 in the building at 227 West 61st street that now houses the Beacon School. Upper West Side elementary schools have been getting increasingly crowded, and that overcrowding was expected to spill over into the local middle schools. The Department of Education had been very slow to expand space, despite studies showing an influx of new parents.
The Beacon School, a highly rated citywide public high school, is moving to a new building in Hell’s Kitchen. The building will be renovated to accommodate the new school.
Both Assembly member Linda Rosenthal and Council member Helen Rosenthal sent out similar press releases trumpeting the victory.
“Everyone knows that School District 3, which spans the West Side from 59th Street to 124th Street and boasts some of the best public schools in New York City, has seen an explosion of growth in population over the last several years. This growth has created a dire need for new middle school seats to accommodate growing families and newcomers alike. The community has also expressed a desire for a high school that serves District 3 families…
Students will be able to enroll in the new middle school for the September 2015 academic year. The school, along with critical information such as the school leader and programmatic details, will be listed in the Middle School Directory in time for the first round of middle school admissions. Many decisions still need to be made about the new school, and made quickly. The community will continue to work closely with the DOE in the coming weeks, and I urge you to share with me any suggestions that you might have.”
Image via Community Board site report.
The don’t build new schools any more, they just shift students around in the available spaces and change the name. That what Charter Schools are about, a decline in transparency.
Agreed 100% with first sentence. I think, though, that charter schools are more about activist philanthropy in terms of the hedge fund dollars initiating and sustaining them, and about political positioning, in the case of people like Eva Moskowitz.
Christ more hormonally addled delinquents. Fabulous.