Children suddenly realize the rezoning process is nearing its end… Or is it just getting started?!?
Mark your calendars and get a sitter! The Department of Education is set to release its final rezoning plan for the Upper West Side this Wednesday, November 9. The meeting is scheduled to start at 6:30 p.m at the Joan of Arc Complex at 154 West 93rd Street.
The timeline after that isn’t clear; the process was initially expected to end on Wednesday, but it would seem very unlikely that CEC3 would vote on the plan on the same day it’s presented.
Photo by Alex de Carvalho.
In the course of 2 days, one of the worst presidential elections of all time and what could be one of the most improperly handled government processes will all be over (just my humble opinion)…..
My $5 says the DOE gives back a plan that is exactly what the CEC presented. Any takers on the bet?
452 parent,
Everybody on the CEC has a prek-8 child in a public school. It is a requirement. Helen Rosenthal may have had her family in a private school, but she is following the City Council’s passing of the School Diversity Accountability Act.
https://bradlander.nyc/news/updates/city-council-passes-school-diversity-accountability-act
Just Saying – Your statement is not quite accurate. When first elected to the CEC you must have a child in K-8 in the district. However, you can be reelected to additional terms even if your child is no longer in the system.
And to be clear, I agree with you that Helen may be following the City’s Diversity Accountability Act, but moving 452 doesn’t add or subtract diversity in the former PS 191 building – a new school would satisfy the Accountability Act. Second, she actually stated at a meeting last week, that while she supports the CEC’s plan to rezone and resite 452, she hadn’t analyzed the data the CEC used to formulate their plan. How on earth can you support a cause without knowing the data??
If The DOE gives back a plan that is exactly what the CEC presented, it will open itself up to a lawsuit, I think. So my guess is the DOE will tweak the CEC’s plan and call it their own.
Anon1, my money is also on that outcome. Not looking forward to the remainder of this year at PS 452.
Agree with anon1 and another 452 parent. Let the mass exit of 452 families begin.
Just FYI, Helen Rosenthal, at the meeting yesterday, dared everyone to vote her out next year.
how did this woman get elected??!!
At the same meeting yesterday she (1) said that she supports the CEC plan but hadn’t analyzed the data and (2) referred to the current PS 191 building as the PS 452 building. Think she knows the outcome??
Unfortunately, she is backed by the political machine and the lobbyists (including the CEC President) so I believe she will be reelected even though she shouldn’t be.
This whole rezoning and relocation process is worse than the presidential election. Regardless of how one might feel about Trump, at least we all have confidence that democracy worked and that the result was what the majority voters wanted. In the rezoning case here, it’s wrapped in mystery and conspiracy. WE NEED TO CHANGE HOW THE ZONING PROCESS IS RUN – MAKE IT TRULY DEMOCRATIC AND TRANSPARENT. People who send their children to private schools shouldn’t dictate which public school parents send their children to.
You might want to change the picture and caption, WSR. Not the best choice.
I think the photo is meant to be tongue in cheek. It is kind of funny, in a sad kinda way.
How does this offend you?
Yep – not the best choice if you ask me.
Help us out. What’s wrong with the picture?
Happy students of ps 452 on a bus heading to their school’s new location
NP – You are so true. It’s all 8 of the 452 students that will actually move with the school.
On the day culminating a long and historic Presidential Election, we now learn about the announcement of a final proposal for District 3 School rezoning. Will due process be followed? Will feedback be meaningfully considered? As it stands currently:
• Data has been presented very late in a process meant to allow time for change and meant to be thorough in analysis. Data has been reviewed and shown to contain various errors and misstatements, especially in the southern portion of the district – including buildings with wrong addresses, missing buildings, under-forecasted buildings, etc. This directly impacts assumptions to enrollment projections, underlying all plans.
• This data has resulted in 3 Draft Scenarios (A, B, and C) which have various options, EXCEPT for the southern portion of the district that are exactly the same. Community feedback has been provided, including alternative options that support, achieve, and exceed the Department of Education goals. Will they have been considered?
• New Parents whose kids aren’t in school are not given a true voice in this process, and are the most impacted. It is disappointing and unthinkable that less than one year from entering Kindergarten, which should be a joyful occasion, parents are riddled with anxiety, not yet knowing where their kids can go to school.
• In the midst of the public, community planning process, representatives – both elected politicians and parents in the CEC – have chosen to meet privately, construct and devise strategies, and lobby schools, parents, and groups behind-the-scenes. Why the secrecy and lobbying? It is wrong and unjust.
• It has been reported that families fake addresses or temporarily rent in locations to be zoned in. How is this validated to ensure appropriate locations? How are families zones verified after Kindergarten?
Will a fair and meaningful process be followed? Will the opportunity to have been heard result in those in power actually listening? Please carefully consider to do what is right.
Anon3 – A few points of clarification. There are actually 4 plans. 3 that the DOE have put forth and 1 that the CEC has proposed. To be clear, I don’t care what the CEC calls their proposal (letter, recommendations), but it is essentially a plan. It’s not accurate to say these plans are exactly the same for the southern portion of the district. 2 of them involve relocating PS 452 and 2 keep 452 at 77th Street.
I certainly sympathize with new parents and agree that they will be impacted. However, I think the families and children at 452 will be the most impacted if they are forced to move school buildings. I’ve never seen a zoning plan that impacts current students (always future students).
And I agree with you that this process has become a political and lobbying fiasco. I heard yesterday that CEC members were standing in building lobbies trying to convince people to support their plan.
The zone lines in the southern portion district are the same in all 3 DOE plans, though agreed that plans differ for the 191 building initial population with respect to PS 452. Why are the zone lines exactly the same in this area south of 72nd St? Nothing has been stated or validated to show that this is optimal, or even that other options were examined. Additional scenarios were provided back to the DOE by some in the community – were they actually considered? Finally, DOE is even admitting their process is flawed by asking for outside help in a contest: https://www.nyc.gov/html/cfi/html/DOE/index.html Aren’t there companies that do this type of statistical work successfully?
The CEC letter and process is riddled. A carefully coordinated letter release and Helen Rosenthal public response right after. Media follow-ups. Individual school lobbying, PTA lobbying, SLT lobbying, individual synagogue lobbying, who knows what else. And all this coming from some individuals with children in private school or untouchable Anderson G&T. This feels like collusion not community collaboration.
Yes, 452 and new K-entering families are most impacted. Is the process really representing if those deciding are not impacted with their own kids? True rezoning and immediate realization would impact all children, including existing enrollment.
And what’s being left unanswered – what is the DOE plan to actually increase school quality and educational excellence in ALL schools? Citywide test passing rates of 30-35% – it’s atrocious and unfair to all children.
Everybody on the CEC has a child in a prek-8 public school. It is a requirement. Helen Rosenthal may have had her family in a private school, but she is following the City Council’s passing of the School Diversity Accountability Act.
https://bradlander.nyc/news/updates/city-council-passes-school-diversity-accountability-act
Yes, Ms Diversity herself, Kim Watkins, has a child in a segregated Gifted & Talented program. She must be motivated by deep liberal guilt….
I guess I’m a dum-dum but I still don’t understand why moving PS 452 promotes racial integration more than starting a new school in the old M191 building? Why is the CEC so eager to do this?
Why is the NY Times writing editorials proclaiming that it is “worth it to give the children of PS 191 a better education”? (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/opinion/diversify-city-schools-and-make-them-better.html?ref=opinion). Again, how does moving PS 452 to 61st street help with this? Enlighten me.
Hmm, then the plan hinges on the assumption that current 452 parents will remain and support the school, and that parents in the former 199 zone view the 452 principal as trustworthy, despite the fact that he slandered and scorned their neighbors.
I’m not sure this is going to work out so well, but I guess time will tell.
I think the concern is that it’s hard to jumpstart attendance at a new school, having already gone through that process already with 452 itself. They’d have to start all over.
Because of our favorite un-representative – Helen Rosenthal! She waits for data to take a position (then doesn’t look at the data), calls her constituents racist, claims to know the best for the district’s children (while sending her own to private school), and speaks for the “people” (while living in a $7.5mm apt).
It doesn’t. It’s so the CEC could appease the group of people zoned out of 199 to the old 191 building.
“On the day culminating a long and historic Presidential Election, we now learn about the announcement of a final proposal for District 3 School rezoning.”
this point gets to me. i stayed out of the Presidential Election as best that i could, because i felt that there was little that i could influence. Focused locally instead.
so now i discover i have little influence locally as well.
is the next step to find that i have little influence over my private life?
what is going on?
It is being released now (one day after election day), to get things over with and done before the new year.
The 2017 New York races will soon kick off and BdeB along with probably others likely want any unpleasantness or hard feelings either resolved or largely forgotten by next November.
Ask Mayor Christine Quinn how that worked out for her….
If they insist on taking 165, 185 and 205 would of the community, then I insist that take 1 teacher from each grade into the new school!!!!!
There should be fireworks at tonight’s meeting. Early report indicates that the DOE plan is almost a mirror image of the CEC plan – PS 452 moves and 165 and 185 WEA remain part of the PS 191 zone.
I think it’s time for 452 parents who don’t wish to commute to start making new plans.
I wonder what they will do with the empty space in O’shea? My money is on an expansion of Anderson.
Anon – Nope, not an expansion of Anderson. They are going to move another middle school into the space. So, get rid of one school because the students are tripping all over each other, but add one right back. Makes total sense.
District Three rezoning plan is out.
Read it and weep. *LOL*
https://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/ny/2016/11/09/city-unveils-long-awaited-rezoning-proposal-for-the-upper-west-side-and-a-new-plan-for-schools-in-harlem/