A rendering of PS/IS 342, which is being built in Riverside Center at 61st street and West End Avenue. Local officials still need to determine zoning lines for the school. Via Dattner Architects.
The school district that includes the Upper West Side could be rezoned over the next year, as officials try to whittle down massive waiting lists at popular schools while expanding the student body at under-enrolled schools elsewhere in the district. Local education officials will also have to determine zoning lines for a new pre-K-to-8th-grade public school called PS 342 being built at Riverside Center, off of West End Avenue and 61st street.
The rezoning is likely to play out over the coming months as new members join the Community Education Council, but there will be an important meeting on Thursday to hash out some of the issues. Zoning lines are drawn up by the district superintendent, but must be approved by the council, which is mostly made up of elected parent representatives. Superintendent Ilene Altschul said at a town hall meeting last month that the district is considering a rezoning, though she didn’t give a timeline.
The Community Education Council will meet to discuss these issues (though not to vote on any lines or plans) on Thursday night at 6 p.m. in the media lab at PS 191, 210 West 61st street. Nothing is likely to be decided until after new members of the community education council join the group in July.
Changing zoning lines tends to be controversial, as parents often choose to buy or rent homes within certain zones to get their kids into the highest-rated public schools. But popular schools like PS 199 on West 70th street and West End Avenue now has the longest Kindergarten waiting list in the city, with 93 zoned students at last count. Parents of wait-listed students recently started a petition to try to force Chancellor Carmen Farina to add another Kindergarten class at the school. Parents have been reticent to send their children to PS 191 on 61st street; the school has lower scores than 199, but the city has spent considerable money to make the school more attractive, including converting the library into a multimedia lab.
There is also growing racial segregation at schools in the district, and some parents and officials say that the zoning lines help reinforce these trends. “The disparities are shocking,” district official Lizabeth Sostre said earlier this year. Some parents are pushing for a system of “controlled choice” to determine who gets into local schools. That plan “considers geography as one factor along with students’ socioeconomic status, special needs, or English Language Learner status,” according to a Columbia Spectator article. Controlled choice is also being proposed for other districts.
Thursday night’s discussion is likely to touch on many issues, noted CEC3 president Joe Fiordaliso in an email to us:
“Our entire district – think the west side of Manhattan from Columbus circle to Apollo theater – is subject to this discussion. we are reviewing zoning issues throughout the district, including severe overcrowding in the southern portion and under-enrollment in the northern portion of the district (which makes northern schools ripe for charter infiltration).”
Is 61st and WEA “Riverside Center”? It looks more like John Jay College’s old building on 60th and WEA…..
Funny, but I don’t think this would be an issue if the oligarchs paid their fair share, the same percentage as everyone else: https://www.citylab.com/housing/2015/05/why-billionaires-dont-pay-property-taxes-in-new-york/389886/?utm_source=SFTwitter
Of course parents want their children in the highest rated schools. When you look at stats from Inside Schools for Middle Schools in District 3 more than half are worse than the city average for discipline. I can understand and overlook lower than average academic scores – but there is NO WAY I would send my child to a school where the administration cannot ensure a safe and secure atmosphere for learning.
We are zoned for PS 75, and in two years would be sending our children there. Can anybody who’s familiar with the zoning discussions comment on how a rezoning would affect us?
In his 31 years ‘in-the-system’, this now-HAPPILY-retired NYC educator learned one thing that the Department (formerly “Board”) of Education IS EXCELLENT at:
That would be RUINING whatever is working successfully.
Sure as kittens turn into cats, the ‘damagement’ at Tweed Courthouse will find a way to spoil success.
Example: some may remember “Head Start” — a very successful program for inner-city disadvantaged youth…until the “Board” ruined it.
Now they’re going after successful schools like P.S. 199, etc.
Haven’t we “seen this movie before”?
Please email ps199waitlist@hotmail.com if you are on the zoned waitlist for kindergarten at PS 199 this year.
All zoned children have a right to go to their school. Help ensure this by signing our petition.
https://www.change.org/p/city-of-ny-doe-chancellor-carmen-farina-city-of-new-york-mayor-bill-deblasio-city-of-ny-doe-district-3-superintendant-ilene-altschul-every-child-has-a-right-to-go-to-their-zoned-school-make-space-at-p-s-199-for-all-zoned-children-for-kindergarten-for
For parents who are submitting false ‘proof of residence’ documents (eg starting to negotiate rentals in buildings in the zone, just to obtain copies of leases — without actually moving into these rentals), policies should exist to address and prevent this. Other Manhattan school districts with waitlist issues have enacted strict policies addressing this and deny admission to those applying under false pretenses. These abuses need to be curtailed.
While I appreciate and understand the PS199waitlist post, 199’s zone is really too small, as evidenced by the ongoing waitlist problem. The borders need to be adjusted and may mean that families will shift to another school.
What I think you meant to say is that PS199 needs an even smaller zone. Having said that, the problem is not the size of the zone, which I is very small and has only gotten smaller area wise. The problem is that there has been a construction explosion all around riverside drive and WEA and no schools added to take in the new families.
A big issue is not the size of the zone, but rules that allow parents to briefly live in the school zone to get their child in the school then move out and allow their child to continue to go to the school and I believe their siblings as well. I had a conversation with a parent several years ago when I was told that half the families don’t even live in the zoned district having moved out to cheaper part of manhattan to rent but still get the same school.
Wrong.
Students in grades K through 12 who change residence within New York City are entitled to remain in their current school until completion of the terminal grade. Students may not be transferred to their zoned school or district of residence because of disciplinary or academic problems except pursuant to the procedures set forth in Chancellor’s Regulation A-450.
I agree with you. No matter how many classes they add, there will be always overflow students as there will be always more children than who actually reside in the zone. People rent,get in the school and then sublet the apartment. I know people who do that and the system allows that which is so unfair.
Don’t think that is true! The DOE requires you to show proof of residence every year to “re-enroll” your child and the school will send communications and grades and things like that to the address you give you them that needs to be in the zone. If you rent an apt for three months (rare you can do that) or even a year and then move, you would not be getting all the correspondence from the school.
And they will go to their zoned school, it just won’t be PS 199. It will likely be PS 452 instead. Either, as an adult, as a parent, as someone who takes education seriously, you would have to “check out” the situation around schools before buying or renting around PS 199. Even 5-10 minutes on the internet would make it clear that PS 199 (and PS 87) have had over-enrollment issues for years and years and that you are likely to encounter “issues”. People have to take some responsibility or send their kids to private school.
I’m with you on this one. I find the compulsion to crowd into 199 and 87 somewhat pathetic and have no sympathy for families on the wait list. At the risk of introducing sensitive topics, we all know that the lack of housing projects in these catchment zones has something to do with it.
btw Families do move out of the catchment zone, while children are still enrolled.
I hope people come to this meeting! Every CEC needs to hear from more than the usual people who attend.
Moving to the burbs in 5 weeks with the kids after 20 years in NY. can’t wait. 4x the space, mortgage 3/4 of current, diversity in kids school (20% Asian, 12% Hispanic/black) and a completely walkable downtown. oh, can be a natural museum of history in 30-40 mins.
been a blast, but NYC has reached an inflection point.
Where are you moving?
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Back when the Trump buildings were seeking community approved, I asked then-school board members why they had not made building new schools for the anticipated-increased population one of the requirements. I was told that people who could afford those buildings wouldn’t send their children to public school. My response was,”People who buy in the Trump buildings won’t be able to afford to send their children anywhere but public school.” Where were our city officials and city planners back then? Many are still in office throughout the system. Use the proof of residence lists used by NYC courts for jury duty and create a separate district for the Trump “village”enclave. Leave the rest of the neighborhood alone.Don’t gerrymander it.In the beginning, 199 was under-subscribed. Then it housed children with physical/motor disabilities from outside district 3,and brought in children from District 5 to fill the seats.Then it filled up. What sense does it make to force children who live across the street to go to a different school, especially when their parents, acting in good faith, invested everything they had so their children could attend 199? It’s overcrowded because the Trump buildings pushed them out and have political clout. As for 191 and PS/IS 342,it’s disingenuous to expect parents not to understand that a school is more than a media lab… PS 199 is the principal and the teachers who work together and have learned through years of interaction with parents, how to make a school work well. This is criminal.
You are 100% right, Sue.
There needs to be a school built for the new Trump buildings.
Better late than never.