A meeting about overcrowding and wait lists at popular Upper West Side schools grew emotional on Tuesday night as parents debated whether to add new Kindergarten classes to already-overcrowded schools.
Parents at PS 199 on West 70th street, which has the longest waiting list in the city at 94 students, gave a presentation showing that the city should be able to accommodate an additional class at PS 199 next year, just like they did this year. They said that the schools chancellor needs to make room for all zoned kids based on city rules. They also floated the idea of finding temporary space in another building or trailers. One parent of a child on the wait list for Kindergarten at PS 199 broke down and cried during the hearing explaining her disappointment: “This is a sin,” she said.
“I’m heartbroken and so angry,” said another mother whose daughter is 84th on the waiting list. “You’re leaving us with no option. My option is to leave the city or get fifty thousand a year to go to private school.”
But District Superintendent Ilene Altschul said that adding the 7th Kindergarten class this past year was a one-time solution that they can’t do again. The school already holds more kids than the building’s capacity. One current PS 199 parent at the meeting says kids are even doing therapy in the hallways.
“When we did this last year we very publicly stated this was a one year solution,” said Altschul. “The school cannot handle the numbers.”
“The school cannot responsibly absorb another 25 kindergarten students,” added Ed Aldridge, a member of the parent association at PS 199, noting that there are now 300 kids in the yard at recess. “Our increasing size will tear away at the sense of community. This is a bad situation all around but we urge the Department of Education not to make it worse.”
But parents of wait-listed kids urged the DOE not to “slam the door on us.”
One parent lamented that the city had forced parents against each other by not adding enough seats even as they approved construction permits for more buildings to go up in the district. “Because of lack of foresight, you now have parents at each other. And that’s tearing apart the community.”
Several Department of Education officials sat silently during the debate. Only two of the half-dozen officials spoke, and they talked only briefly in response to direct questions.
In response to a question about whether the schools screen for parents who lie about their addresses to get into a better school, DOE official Sarah Kleinhandler said the schools do check documents, adding “It’s not a widespread problem.”
Current parents from PS 9, PS 166 and PS 87 also lamented that their schools are getting more crowded and urged the DOE to plan better so those schools don’t end up having to turn kids away or stuff more than 30 students into each class.
Parents from some other schools that had an opposite problem to PS 199 were also in attendance — PS 191 on West 61st street is currently underenrolled and looking to fill an additional Kindergarten class. But many parents of PS 199 don’t want to send their kids to 191, where test scores tend to be lower. Kajsa Reaves (pictured at right), the PS 191 PTA president, told PS 199 parents that “we welcome kids from 199 with open arms.” She said a new progressive principal at 191 has added a new energy to the school and that school gardens and a multimedia room have made the school even more attractive.
A parent at PS 75 on 95th street also said that PS 199 students would be welcome at 75, and she criticized “the idea that people can buy their way into a good school,” particularly given growing segregation at local schools. In many of these discussions, race is the elephant in the room — the PS 75 parent mentioned a Berkeley study that found growing segregation in public schools, calling them “apartheid schools.” Given that they are only nine blocks apart from each other, it’s somewhat startling that PS 191 is 88% black and Hispanic, while 199 is 67% white.
Asked after the meeting if their minds had been changed by what they’d heard, DOE officials said no.
Most likely, the UWS school district will be rezoned in the next year, and we’ll be keeping an eye on that. But overcrowding at schools with better-than-average test scores could continue to persist unless more school seats are added. “What we need to do instead of fighting each other is what we did six years ago together as a community and stand up and say this is not acceptable,” said Noah Gotbaum, a member of CEC3, the Upper West Side’s version of a school board. He thinks the city needs as many as 100,000 more public school seats to truly accommodate demand.
I keep hearing the term “bubble year” like these large cohorts of kids are unusual and will go away. This is the new normal. Adding a class here and there won’t solve the problem.
The DOE has dropped the ball on this. It is not the fault of the existing schools and families, or the families desperate to get their kids into a local public school (which is their right!).
The DOE has to come up with a long term solution – it is not going to be any better next year. Make an effort (and pay) to make other schools desirable! Invest in new schools. Hold developers to their promises to create new schools!
What no-one spoke of at the meeting is that these same kids are going to be struggling to find middle-school seats in 5-6 years, where there is already a shortage.
The DOE can’t keep saying they didn’t see it coming.
This already happened in Tribeca. For years the Bloomberg Administration was warned that unfettered residential development in Tribeca without infrastructure planning would have an adverse impact.
This is a mess!!! PS 9, PS 166 and PS 87 will all see this problem in the next year or two. Communities are being ripped apart. Due to overcrowding and lack of space being made available families can no longer plan their children’s education. Please sign the petition if you believe children should be able to attend their zoned school.
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
If you own a condo or coop in your zoned school you are in. Renters should be waitlisted.
If you can afford to buy an apartment (condo, co-op) on the UWS right now, then you can also afford to spend the $50k a year to send your kid to Heschel.
That, or just move back to Scarsdale already.
anyone using the handle ‘abcj’ should be denied access to schools (and blogs, until they get reeducated).
Utter nonsense. Renters pay city taxes just like anyone else. Plus they pay more as renters since they don’t get a tax write-off.
I do not understand why any of this shortage is a surprise to the parents who moved into the area. Over the last decade years families have been moving into the area until it became a flood in the past few years.
How did they expect the DoE to deal with it? Do they think it could just say POOF and have new schools built? How were they to know how many children would show up? Where would those schools be put? Where was there vacant land other than “Trump?” Where was the money to build coming from?
You can’t just put up buildings here. It takes years to deal with this.
And then what happens to the when the Echo Boomers have all had their children? Is the City left with overcapacity?
You want space in the neighborhood? Go to the suburbs. And then see what a long trip to school is.
You are very misguided m pipik
Uh, gee, I don’t know, maybe because it’s 2015? Maybe because projecting student population is not rocket science? Maybe because we have all kinds of data capabilities today? The modern world must be baffling to you if you think these things are impossible to estimate.
Lots of good points. Tough situation. Will say the ‘burbs are probably a good answer for lots of these folks. Kids will love the space. Plenty of ‘burbs offer diversity, reasonable commute, lower housing costs, and GREAT schools. Fighting to get into 199 hardly seems worth it when you consider the other tradeoffs folks are already morning. Yeah, your commute will be a bit longer, but still manageable.
I agree with both. The reason the new residents are fighting fighting fighting is because they are Wealthy Entitleds who bought (expensive) apartments on the UWS because they could, and now they want the world to conform to their wishes just as it always has before.
Reality? They’re *rich*! Don’t talk to them about reality. They buy the reality they want.
Everyone here saw this coming, but so many worshiped the developers anyway. Well, this is the result. The only reason the Wealthy Entitleds aren’t also complaining about the awful upsurge on the 72nd Street subway platform is, well, because they don’t soil the soles of their Guccis down there. That’s for us peons.
+1. Well put.
The problem could be partially mitigated by eliminating all of the loop holes that allow kids to be considered “living in the zone” through suspicious means. I know numerous families who used pied a terres, grandparent apartments, short term rentals, etc. to establish a residency. The DOE should more aggressively check residences. Or easier still, ask the kids where they live – I know my kids could tell you their address when they were 5, so if you ask a kid entering PS 87 where he lives and he says 108th St., that should be a good clue that something fishy is happening.
On a positive note, I think there has been a substantial investment in PS 191 to make it more desirable – it just isn’t happening quickly enough, and it is all well and good that they are trying, but who wants their kid to be the guinea pig.
“Asked after the meeting if their minds had been changed by what they’d heard, DOE officials said no.”
’nuff said
kick these incompetents out
you must know they are running a ‘divide and conquer’ game
I feel for these parents, I can only imagine the horror of a child in kindergarten having to sit in a class with children of different races. I was raised in the suburbs (born in manhattan though) and had very little exposure to people with brown skin or who spoke a funny language – perhaps that’s where these parents should go so they can be happy.
MJ and DB — I think you missed that Rich seems to be saying that tongue in cheek.
That is racist and pathetic. Furthermore this is NYC…a melting pot from around the world. If you actually feel that way get out of NY.
Oh give me a break, Rich!! Who is complaining about race here?? People who live two blocks from their school want to send their kids there. And they should get priority over people from neighborhoods that are farther away. The DOE needs to address the citywide school problem. Suburban communities don’t deal with this b/c their schools are better overall.
PS 9, 87, 166, 199 should be rezoned to reflect economic diversity. Why is it the right of those who live in the zone to go these schools? Families who live a block outside the zone still pay taxes and have to go to crummy schools. There are foreign (and out of state) families that come in specifically to go to these schools for a 1 or 2 years and then leave after their work transfers them else where. They often get corporate housing assistance. This leaves the long term Manhattan family who intend to send their kids to school through high school in NYC at a disadvantage.
Why is it their right?? Because they live in the zone. It’s called rules. Your home location matters if the school matters to you. Look into these things before you get an apartment.
Then don’t move into the “zone” when everybody knows that these schools have the highest waitlist in the city. This is not a recent occurrence. Look into these things before you get an apartment. Make these schools lottery for everyone in District 3.
People have purchased apartments in this area based on the schools when their kids were babies…now the kids are ready to enter kinder….This problem was not at all this bad back then.
Has running a G&T program at PS 191 been suggested? S
This is ridiculous. You can’t keep adding another kindergarten class every year, there is a maximum occupancy on the building! Parents need to suck it up and go to the under utilized school a ten minute walk away, get involved with the schools to help improve them or go private. Why should the education department spend millions on new buildings when there are school places a reasonable distance away? I back rezoning as the solution. We are zoned for PS 87, live across the street from it but budgeting for private.
Thank you 30 something! I know that no one wants to be the pioneer, but honestly the other school, close by, needs your support and it will be terrific. PS 199 wasn’t always that great, it took the involvement of neighborhood parents to get that way. There’s an under served, under utilized building down the street, but if all you parents go there, I guarantee you it will be a rewarding service with life lessons to teach for you and your kids.
Isn’t it up to the DOE to improve the schools. Why is the DOE not held accountable? They are the ones that “underserve” a school. Stop putting this on parents. The DOE has failed miserably, not just with 191, but with 25% of schools with english proficiency at 25% or less.
This makes no sense. This logic says the only way children who are left behind by the DOE will get better instruction is if children from a neighboring zone go there. The DOE should make the schools better, not the parents.
To all the parents campaigning against keeping the 7th class at PS199, you are ungrateful, selfish and smug.
It is only by good timing and LUCK that your sweet little ones weren’t born in 2010. You’ve shut us out—your neighbors and friends (and friends of your children)—and it’s awful.
Instead of trying to find a way to make it work, trying to help future classes out of this mess…you’re only thinking of yourself.
Welcome to PS 199. Several years ago, PS 199 pushed out Center School, saying that they needed the space to accommodate more students. But once they succeeded in pushing Center School out, they put in strict limitations on the number of students coming in. So it’s no surprise that the parents already in the school are fighting to limit your access, even if you are zoned for the school. They are already in the boat, and they will selfishly pull up the ladders so others can’t get on.
The school is full. Like all buildings there is a maximum occupancy. It’s at capacity. It’s just tough luck but you’re going to have to suck it up and take your kids to a perfectly acceptable school mere minutes away. Honestly. Your sense of entitlement is simply sickening. The world doesn’t revolve around you and your precious little ones you know. Get some perspective and deal with it.
Timing, luck, and smart family planning! In any case, timing and luck count for much in life, why not instill that lesson the summer before kindergarten?
Why can’t the space at P.S. 199 be expanded? West 70th is a very wide street. Is there any reason why the road can’t be reconfigured and narrowed..and the school could branch outwards? My kids are grown..but I was just thinking how the area in front of the school is a lot of wasted space.
I thought a majority of upper westsiders have a extra 60000 for privateschool when i go to the park i see 100 nannys and 2 moms
Well both parents have to work so they can afford the Nannies!
Umm, maybe that’s because lots of families need both parents to work in order to afford to live here?
Yeah wow, Rich, wonder why the moms aren’t there. BECAUSE THEY ARE WORKING.
AND SOME OF US ARE EVEN THE PRIMARY BREADWINNERS!!!
How could the DOE permit a school to have such bad test scores, and do nothing about it until there is an overflow from an adjacent neighborhood. As soon as the DOE saw 13% test scores in English and 20% in math, the should have been in that school immediately with resources, extra help and intervention to help those children. The DOE and the city turned their backs on the children in 191. They abandoned these children but letting this problem linger. They should have provided more help to the school years ago. The DOE and the city failed these children.
Why not give PS 191 the G&T classes that may be adding to PS 199’s overcrowding. That seems like a win win. PS 191 will have better stats attracting more parents and PS 199 will maintain there rating and have room for zoned students.
Opening up at G&T at 191 doesn’t necessarily mean that the overflow of kids at PS 199 would qualify. But if the overflow of kids all attend PS 191 then those that are unfortunately concerned by the race issue won’t really have that issue any more. It is possible that the kindergarten will be made up of predominately of the PS 199 overflow. BTW, for those that say that since they pay taxes in the PS 199 zone, they have the right to go to PS 199, all taxes paid by everyone goes into the City tax coffer for all schools, not for your zone school.
There are no G&T classes at 199
If the city didn’t give away space at Brandeis to the Success Charter they could have used that space for an entire additional school on the west side.
Brandeis is a high school building, and there should not be a grammar school in there. Thankfully, the di Blasio administration put an end to the questionable practice of co-locating (or colonizing as some like to say) charter grammar schools within high school buildings.
I don’t have my child in Charter school but I find it weird that you attacked a school that most like is going to take those kids who got wait-listed. Its easy to be a horrible person if your child is already in. You should learn empathy.
DB – Success Upper West is an additional free school on the West side. It is open to all District 3 students by lottery. Some PS 199, 87, 9, 166 parents also apply there and choose to send their kids there over their zone school.
Not sure how your math works here DB – SAUW is fully enrolled and has successfully educated a lot of kids whose parents want this model. We are all D3 kids.
I fail to see how removing 450 Success Students and replacing them with 450 zoned school students would change the math of not having enough seats in D3.
Seems like you want a school that you would choose instead of a school that other parents want to choose.
The issue is about total number of seats – not what kind
I’ll do the arithmetic for you:
Charter school gets space because there’s profit to spread around.
Public School can’t get space. Wonder why?
but DB,
there’s no money to be made in public schools.
stop fighting among yourselves and follow the money
This meeting was a sham concocted by the cec in cahoots with Ilene and Ps199 PTA to defeat the waitlist parents. Shame on you. I advise all parties involved to delete their emails as I know there is massive incriminating written evidence that demonstrates how Joe engineered this entire meeting to crush these poor parents. Someone should sue. If only to expose the hypocrisy. For shame. Dirty dirty CEC. Ed. You were such a shill – you are Joes poodle. Own it.
Why would you blame the PTA and even the DOE for that matter? The school is over crowded, period. They can’t fit more kids. Comprender? No one stood up to Trump when he got permits to crowd the UWS with loads of tall buildings thus wreaking havoc on the neighborhood and the tiny subway station on 72nd St. that now is downright dangerous. No one forced him to save space for a school either. This has been coming a long time and no one gave a crap 15 years ago.
“crush the parents”? If anything, this meeting just exposed the extent of the problem for the DOE. The DOE could have avoided the meeting and kept the conversation with the 100 or so parents that are impacted this year.
Pretty strong words coming from an anonymous source. You know who I am…so expose your identity and we can meet face to face. Otherwise, keep your ignorant and uninformed comments to yourself keyboard warrior.
So, Ed.
I notice you’re not denying you colluded with the CeC leadership on this issue. I know you’re reading and I defy you to go on the record and say that you came up with that statement without joes input or advice or approval. Then we will sue you and the CEC, obtain the evidence in discovery and watch as you’re all exposed.
It was a sham
We are watching.
wait. What? So the president presumably has a personal interest in defeating the waitlist parents. How can it be ethical that he doesn’t recuse himself from the issue? That’s messed up. Isn’t the conflict of interest glaringly obvious??
wow. Silence. Looks like you might be onto something. How would suing work? If there is evidence that the supposedly independent CEC colluded with one set of parents in order to defeat other parents. That would be quite the scandal. Especially if they tried to cover it up or misled the doe as to their role. Does anyone on the CEC have anything to personally gain from this? Are any of their kids in 199?
I believe the CEC 3 president is a ps 199 parent.
Ed who?
Name is in the article.
Ed,
Your the ringleader of the gang who are last into the school.
Not In My Neighborhood has degenerated into Not In My School. I guess you figure you own the place.
Your own Public School.
If the meeting was a scam, why was the 199 wait list ringleader given 20 minutes to speak using using power point slides. They were also given the latitude to respond to virtually any and all comments, despite the structure organized so that many individuals could be heard. The wait list families from ps199 called for and got a meeting to lament over their personal anguish. A justified anguish but one that all parents feel when their kids are starting public school.
Why did only 6-8 of the wait list families show up? Ten percent of the affected families didn’t even show up to make their case. Enrollment numbers are up for next year at both ps191 and at ps75, which may mean that most of these families are willing to be a part of the solution. And that’s what the upper west side needs now. Complain if you like but do the work to make all elementary schools better and they will be better.
divide and conquer.
People need to open their minds and open their eyes. My daughter is going into Kindergarten this year. We are in PS 75 zone and we have found that there are several good options out there: PS 75’s well-reputed dual language program, Harlem Hebrew Language Academy, Success Academy, Manhattan School for Children. The two most popular of these (Success and MSC) are not necessarily easy to get into, but the other two didn’t seem particularly difficult. Yes, my kids will be going to school with (gasp) people who are not white. Their classes will reflect the diversity of our neighborhood and I love that. I encourage these parents to tour a school like PS 75 – they may be pleasantly surprised!
im a zoned waitlisted 199 parent and I DID go to visit ps75. I got no further than the front door as there was a gang of kids kicking another child onto the floor and laughing about it. My son took a look and said “daddy. Don’t ever send me to that school” – true story.
how about 191?
well. I would go to 191 but I need the afteschool program which I hear has been closed because of an alleged rape. Fml. (Also fmkl)
The reason parents don’t want to send their children to these schools is plain and simple – the test scores. The city and the DOE had no interest in helping children at those schools, how could they not offer additional help when they saw the low test scores. They didn’t care about the children at these schools and the still don’t care. Once the city and the DOE shows they care about these children and their schools and offer the correct resources to improve the education at these schools ten parents from other zones will feel comfortable sending their kids there. It’s not about race. If anything the DOE is racist for turning their backs on the kids at the schools that consistently produced low test scores. Shame on them.
KT is really missing the reason!
The DOE doesn’t care – so far so good.
So the parents with resources fight other parents to get their kids into the better schools.
Got it?
It’s test scores. Why did city neglect and abandon these schools when test scores are so bad? DOE and city needs to show they care about these schools and its children. The city and the DOE have to give children at these schools the proper attention and respect they deserve and need. Once that happens, parents from other zones will feel comfortable sending their children there.
Overcrowding issues could also be helped with adding on to the school. Add another floor. Another two floors! Or buy the old, rotting synagogue next door and convert it into the lower school. Or the upper school. There are solutions to this that don’t even seem to be on the table.
But don’t start with how 199 was going to be rebuilt yadda yadda yadda. Because it wouldn’t have solved the problem – only made it worse with an influx of new families from the 50 stories above it.
So there is no g&t at 199 but that doesn’t mean putting some g&t classes in ps 191 couldn’t solve the current problem. If 191 pulled up their test scores with these classes and diversified (which comes along with g&t) more parents zoned to 199 would consider it an option. Parents come from the Bronx to 84th for SAUW I’m sure a rational parent would take the bus a few stops from ps199 to ps191 for good teachers. Which by the way is far more important than what students attend. Just because a number of students from broken homes don’t score well doesn’t mean there aren’t good teachers at 191 that can help your child excel.
I was surprised by this meeting. I didn’t expect a bunch of tearful, desperate parents to revive the Brown vs. Board of Education arguments.
Oh Dennis.
genuine question. What is the link between race, poverty and test scores in 191. People are saying it’s got nothing to do with race. But the racial disparity between 199 and 191 is huge. So are the test scores. We might all wish it wasn’t so. But is race a factor with regards to scores? If not race, what else? Economic factors? Are you saying that poor people are not able to be good students? Putting liberalism aside for a moment and seeing things for what they are – rather than for what we hope. Why ARE the scores so much worse at 191.
To say this is about test scores is ludicrous, because we know that low-performing students all herded into one school can only present as a school that is well- low performing -One person on this string suggested that they did not want their kid to be a guinea pig. I am trying to understand how a high performing kid going to a school with good leadership and teaching can be harmed by being in a classroom with children who may not be. Research says that the high performing kids will raise the standard in the class. I have seen this in my daughters school, where she was the guinea pig. What I discovered was that she found other students capable of higher performance, unfortunately there are just not enough of them in the class or school to make the schools numbers look different enough for public consumption. Our school is improving one child at s time, raising the standards for everyone. We have great options in D3.
i don’t understand why you say it’s ludicrous. It’s more ludicrous to imagine that 100 wait listed parents are actually racists who don’t want their white children mixing with brown people. That’s the ludicrous suggestion. Why would you think it ludicrous that When parents choose a school for their children they would want a school with the best academic record?
Teachers?
Any update on this situation? 1/2 way through summer…(sigh)
yep. Enjoy.
https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20150813/upper-west-side/ps-191-ranks-as-one-of-manhattans-most-dangerous-schools-state-says