The auditorium at PS 87 was packed on Monday for a meeting about rezoning.
By Anthony Ferrara
A school board hearing Monday night about plans to rezone Upper West Side elementary schools resolved very little — and nearly resulted in an 85-year-old man being ejected by police for speaking out of turn.
The packed hearing at PS 87 on 78th Street was already filled with uncertainty because the city has vowed to create a third rezoning option, after presenting two potential rezoning plans in July. The third option is still “confidential,” officials told parents at the meeting. The point of the rezoning is to reduce overcrowding at some schools and increase diversity.
After the Department of Education explained the changes but before the public comment session had officially begun, 85 year-old Tom Kranidas, a Lincoln Towers resident, stood up. “Gerrymandering the quality of schools in order to appease some semblance of diversity, when our building & location are already diverse, is unnecessary,” he said. Superintendent Ilene Altschul sped down the aisle asking for security. She returned with a police officer, but Kranidas had already returned to his seat so they didn’t escort him out.
Many of the residents who spoke were from Lincoln Towers, which would be split up under the zoning plans that have been floated. Both 165 and 185 West End Avenue would go to PS 191 under the plans, while residents from other Lincoln Towers buildings would attend the coveted PS 199. The map for third option is set to be released by the end of the month, and there will likely be more hearings after that, and a vote in late October or early November.
It is outrageous that anyone would even consider cutting off any Lincoln Towers buildings from PS 199.
PS 199 and LT have a long history together. Furthermore, the LT families from all buildings are a close knit community and the kids should all stay together. There are even some PS 199 teachers who live in LT.
“A school board hearing Monday night about plans to rezone Upper West Side elementary schools resolved very little…and there will likely be more hearings after that…”
Excellent!
Great!
our community is really dysfunctional on this
Keep Lincoln Towers Together. We cannot let these corrupt split our community from random lines they draw on a piece of paper.
Then all of Lincoln Towers can go to PS191.
Why doesnt LT go to PS191- Oh yeah I know- Because how can their kids be next to color kids, who are poor and their parents can’t offer them much.
The Upper West Side parents always showing how racist they truly are!
And yes, I am a mom who has kids in PS199 and one of the few mom of color.
For shame, Sally Ann Schuster, for such a mean spirited comment. The protestors are middle class people who are genuinely concerned about children continuing to have access to their neighborhood school. One of the proposed rezoning proposals “mysteriously” zoned in luxury buildings that are actually further away from PS 199 then 165 and 185 west End Avenue. If you don’t consider this to be outrageously unfair then perhaps you also believe that Middle class families should be deported from Manhattan in order to make more room for the 1%
And those middle class families living in million dollar apartments at Lincoln towers don’t want their kids to go to school with the poor kids from NYCHA.
Your post Sarah reminds me of something I always thought odd: if one attributed bad motives to a bunch of people based on their race or religion, all heck would break loose, but if you attribute bad motives to a group of people who live in some buildings, it is perfectly ok. I never understood that.
Given the apartment prices in Lincoln towers, I’m not sure how it is a middle class protest. People who have lived there for years, sure – but the families who moved for ps 199 are paying top dollar!
I wonder if part of the outrage is the drop of housing value that is sure to happen if the towers are split.
Agreed. Same for 303 w 66
So the DOE can’t get its act together to fully bake this third option yet they plan to have the vote on it in October or November and implement it in time for next fall? Right… I think there are some good people on the school board trying their best to do the right thing (the definition of which is subject to debate, but they mean well) and their hands are really being tied.
Is the final decision in the hands of the CEC3, or the DOE? I’m curious what happens if the “community” soundly rejects all proposals – what then?
uwsresident – here is my understanding of the process. At this point the DOE has put forth 3 re-location and rezoning scenarios. The CEC/DOE has been holding all of these hearings to get “community” feedback of each of the scenarios.
At some point in early October, the DOE will present one proposal to the CEC. The CEC will then have a period of time to evaluate the proposal and then they will vote “yea” or “nay” on the proposal.
This process is a bit more complex because of the relocation of 191 to the new riverside center school, so the PEP of the DOE needs to approve the relocation.
At the end of the day, the “community” may reject the plans, but it likely won’t matter. What I have heard loud and clear, is that there is going to be some plan voted on because the UWS needs it.
Thanks Anon. Where I’m confused is in whose hands will the vote(s) actually count? From the process outlined, it seems CEC3 is firmly in control and doesn’t necessarily need to listen to their “constituents” after they’ve been voted in.
Reading the CEC site, I noticed the following: “Community Education Council members are selected for two-year terms by the Parent Associations or Parent Teacher Associations (PA/PTAs) of the schools in their district. Each CEC has 12 members, including nine parents selected by the district’s PA/PTAs, two members appointed by the Borough President, and one student selected by the Community Superintendent.”
Except, if we assume that the 12 members of CEC3 say “nay” to the DOE proposal(s), then does the DOE have the power to override and impose their own zoning lines, or will district 3 need to wait until CEC3 votes “aye” to a DOE-approved proposal?
Given the passionate appeals in person and online for and against, I’m curious to know whether somebody has “veto” power to force the issue assuming CEC3, “the community”, and the DOE cannot agree on a proposal.
What “community”?
Did you read earlier Comments
including this, just yesterday:”What can we do? says:
September 21, 2016 at 2:18 pm
Charles – While I agree with the first part of your statement, I think it is very naive to think that all of the Upper West Side is “one neighborhood” I’m not saying your view is right or wrong, but I would suspect very few people share that sentiment and quite frankly, neither does the DOE. If they did, then there would be no reason to have zoned, neighborhood schools.”
The current plan is to have the NYCHA buildings be shared among 3 schools to help desegregate the area. P.S. 199 gets the 2 northern buildings, and the rest are shared between P.S. 191 and P.S. 342. Few people are complaining about splitting up the NYCHA buildings.
So what the Lincoln Towers people are basically saying is that it is okay to split up the NYCHA community but it is not okay to split up the Lincoln Towers community. Why does the Lincoln Towers community feel they are more entitled than the 191 community?
The only thing that binds the LT community together is their private gated park – and their entrance into it (and others’ exclusion from it) is not going to change because of this rezoning.
They claim that the school was “built for them” in the 1960s – as if the politics of the Robert Moses era is one that should be emulated today.
They also neglect to say how there were many years when the two communities shared the schools (with one being the upper and one the lower).
Stop acting like you are entitled to a particular education because you bought that right. Public education is not a commodity – to pretend like it is denies the equal access to education that actually is an American right.
Lincoln Towers residents – you have no more right to stay in your zone than any other of the dozens of buildings being sifted in 8 zones. If you don’t like it, sell your 1.4 million dollar apartment already. Most others have bigger problems than you do.
RIGHT ON!
Well said – history is irrelevant what matters is the community today and what is best for the children throughout the upper west side not just the children of Lincoln Towers.
A decision just needs to be made already this is getting ridiculous.
Thank you!
I haven’t been able to decide which is more disturbing – the lengthy, multi-paragraph explanations posted in these comments sections about how much more 199 and 452 families value education and community than other families or the parents whining about catchment zones, as if they are set in stone, never to be changed.
I wish the DOE would just rezone and be done with it already.
This reminds me of going to public school in Queens in the 1950s.My class was all WASPs exvept for us 8 Catholics.The school board decided we needed to be desegragated and diversified.So they bused in several Jewish kids from Bayside(now Korean).We had no Asians or Afro Americans.The school is now Caucasian/Asian.Still no Afro Americans.
Maybe the proposed changes will improve (or keep PS 199 equally good) AND help the newer students.
I believe so
The Next Meeting to attend if you are concerned and want to be heard:
CEC3 SPECIAL CALENDAR MEETING OF THE ZONING COMMITTEEE
Wed., Sept. 28th 2016
@
6:30 PM
Location:
PS 166 Auditorium
132 W. 89th St.
Questions? Contact:
Kim Watkins @
kwatkins@cec3.org
Many people speaking were also from 303 w 66 which would also be rezoned out and we disagree with this plan
Residents of W 83rd also disagree with this plan – we want to stay at ps9
w82 and w85 agree with you
I’m a resident of 200 Riverside Blvd and have been following this rezoning process with trepidation for a while since I have a 3 year old who will be going into kindergarten in 2018 and another one on the way this year. I have been in this neighborhood and building for 14 years, and am also enraged by the latest change to the zoning plan presented this past July 21, which cuts ONLY 200 RB out of the catchment area. There are families who have specifically moved into this building and those who have been planning to send their children to PS199, ready to apply for the 2017 year who have now been given 4 months notice of this change before the application process commences. The latest map was drawn in the middle of the summer at a time when many were out of town, presumably in the hopes that we wouldn’t notice. This is OUTRAGEOUS. The rezoning process may have started last year, but giving families a mere 4 months notice for our building alone is NOT fair and 200 Riverside Blvd will fight this.
If you can afford to live at 200 Riverside Blvd and stay out of the loop for the entire summer, then maybe you consider many of the excellent private schools in the area
Indeed that would be great if I could afford it but I can’t. I live in a 1 bedroom with 2 children and sleep in the living room to make this work so please don’t assume that we are swimming in money because of my address. We have just as much a right to access to PS199 as our neighboring buildings. We simply have not had the benefit of having had the time to organize ahead of this latest change.
Just because someone lives in 200 RSB, doesn’t mean they can afford $40K tuition at a private school. Asinine comment, Jerry.
She obviously moved to the building so her kids could go to a good public school. If she could afford private school why would she sending her kids to a public school you nitwits. I bet Private school is more expensive then her mortgage.
Exactly my point. Thank you!
“If she could afford private school why would she sending her kids to a public school you nitwits.”
Well, many people with enough money to send their children to private school opt to send their children to public school.
can you imagine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you Jerry – agreed!
Oops and by Jerry I mean JR 🙂
If the child of any Lincoln Tower resident were excepted to Hunter elementary school or the Anderson program, and needed to be bussed, concern about proximity would vanish. One could view all of the upper West side as one “neighborhood”.
Charles – While I agree with the first part of your statement, I think it is very naive to think that all of the Upper West Side is “one neighborhood” I’m not saying your view is right or wrong, but I would suspect very few people share that sentiment and quite frankly, neither does the DOE. If they did, then there would be no reason to have zoned, neighborhood schools.
“I think it is very naive to think that all of the Upper West Side is “one neighborhood” I’m not saying your view is right or wrong, but I would suspect very few people share that sentiment”
sad times
What is sad about it? The UWS is a pocket of many smaller neighborhoods, loosely joined together, often with public elementary schools as the unifying feature. Just because sometime in the past someone drew district lines doesn’t mean those define a “neighborhood.” District 2 is a big exercise in gerrymandering – I wouldn’t call that one big neighborhood.
this Zoning Debate is between the Shark’s Neighborhood and the Jet’s neighborhood.
…or maybe the U of M Neighborhood.
And they would know the difference between excepted and accepted…
I know many people on the UWS who either didn’t apply to G&T programs or turned down acceptances because they preferred a “neighborhood school.” In hindsight, schools were not optimally located (452 being next to 87 makes no sense), but every student should be entitled to attend an elementary school a relatively short walk from their home. Even the least diverse schools in the areas being considered are more diverse than 98% of the schools in America and the large majority of schools in NYC, so letting the goal of increased diversity have equal weighting to the goals of proximity and managing enrollment levels does not make sense – it should be considered, but far down the list of priorities in this complex puzzle. If diversity is so critical to you and proximity is not, there are plenty of open spots at 191 so feel free to send your children there.
I would like to get rid of the public school system entirely and replace it with a voucher system in which parents can send their child to a school of their choice.
That would get rid of this problem entirely, where parents and bureaucrats battle it out to achieve educational and social engineering objectives. It would also give schools an incentive to provide a good product.
Until that happens, there are alternatives such as home schooling, private schools, and private tutoring (for those who can afford it). It is a difficult situation out there for parents right now, as they are at the mercy of a monopoly.
I would like to get rid of the Charter Schools.Don’t like the profit motive so deeply embedded in Public Schooling.
It is a difficult situation out there for parents right now, as they are at the mercy of Corporations.
“this Zoning Debate is between the Shark’s Neighborhood and the Jet’s neighborhood.”
Would have loved to been around to have seen that part of the UWS in 1960, before all the demolition and “urban renewal”.
https://www.popspotsnyc.com/west_side_story/
How about we kick John Jay College out of the former DeWitt Clinton High School building on West 59th and Tenth, redo the place and turn it back into a public school?
kicking a college out of the building it is currently occupying is not as easy as kicking families out of apartments that they are currently occupying.
but that’s next
I am a mom of two little mixed girls who are zone to Ps199. As a parent of color I am disgusted by the comments these parents toward other children. Calling them “project kids” is degrading and hateful. I been living in the Upper West Side for 6 years, I seen/heard the racism from parents. I seen the way I get treated as less. Reading all these comments from “caring” parents is disturbing . No wondered why racism, sexism. xenophobia will never end. Calling children “project kids” “Color kids” “poor kids” is unacceptable. No wondered kids grow up to feel entitled.