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Students without placements or unhappy with school assignments in Brooklyn can attend the DOE's new school fair today at Brooklyn's Borough Hall from 4-7 p.m. New middle and high schools with open seats in Brooklyn will attend the fair; students can apply on the spot.
Although students citywide are invited to attend, today's fair is only for Brooklyn schools. A similar new school fair will take place in Queens later in the month.
Not content operating only 1,466 schools and programs, the DOE is planning to open 52 new schools this fall. Insideschools has already told you about more than half of those -- the high schools, for which applications are due tomorrow, and the transfer schools that will serve students who have not been successful in traditional high schools. The vast majority of the new schools will open (with the same students) in the buildings of other schools that are closing or phasing out due to poor performance, although the DOE will be using a handful of new sites in Queens and Staten Island. With names like "Brighter Choice Community School" and "Performance School," there's sure to be an option for everyone.
If it's February, it must mean that the DOE is scurrying to find spaces for all of the new schools it plans to open in September. In addition to the 27 high schools and transfer schools opening in the fall, some number of elementary, middle, and charter schools will also open, and they all need space. Many of the city's schools are officially under capacity, but those schools have been able to make headway in reducing class size and improving performance, and they don't want to compromise their gains. (Official school capacities assume that classes will have the largest legally permitted number of students.)
This year, in response to complaints in the past, the DOE is giving school communities greater warning before placing new schools inside them. As a result, parents afraid of age-mixing, overcrowding, and other tensions have more information earlier — and they're just as angry as they were last year. I don't envy the DOE's Office of Portfolio Development right now.
Here are a few space-sharing issues I've come across this year. I'm sure I'm leaving some out — have you heard of more?
- When the DOE announced that it was planning to place a new high school devoted to the film industry in Long Island City's IS 204, parents and students there protested. It's still not clear where the school will be located.
- In Red Hook, Brooklyn, the DOE would like to house a new charter school in PS 15. The widow of Patrick Daly, the PS 15 principal who was killed in 1993 in gang crossfire while searching for a truant student, says he would have opposed the charter school.
- Without any available space in the North Bronx, where it has been open — and housed in trailers — for the last two years, the Young Women's Leadership School is being moved into IS 162 in the South Bronx.
- Kingsborough Early College School, previously located on the community college's campus, which lacked many amenities, will be moving to the Lafayette building; according to the Daily News, some parents won't be allowing their kids to move along with the school.
- When the principal of PS 21 in Queens received a letter that said the DOE was considering putting another school in the building, parents were angry, saying that sharing space would diminish the quality of their excellent school.
- At PS 84 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where last year middle-class parents reported being made to feel unwelcome when they asked for new programs, the DOE proposed creating a new elementary school. Hispanic parents protested, saying the DOE was trying to create a system of "separate but equal" schools in the building. The DOE now says no new school will open in PS 84 this fall.
Nestled in a Times article yesterday about the pedagogical values of graphic novels was the information that fans of the genre tried to start a comics-themed high school but were not approved by the DOE. I'm not sure if I feel better to know that there is some limit as to what school themes are approved, or worse knowing that the DOE thinks wildlife management and fire safety are more likely than comic books to get kids excited about learning.
The Comic Book Project is a national program run out of Teachers College that aims to trick kids into developing literacy skills by reading and writing comic books. Since starting in a Queens elementary school eight years ago, the project has expanded to almost 900 schools nationwide, according to the Times. Check out some comic books by New York City kids at the Comic Book Project's gallery.
And if you're looking for something to do this holiday week, go see "Persepolis." It's based on Marjane Satrapi's excellent graphic novel series about growing up in Iran.
Brooklyn may be getting an advertising-themed high school next year, the Daily News is reporting. Borough President Marty Markowitz is leading the push for the school, which will have the American Association of Advertising Agencies as its lead partner. The DOE says the idea of the school -- which Markowitz hopes will attract more minorities to the overwhelmingly white advertising field -- is "very interesting" but that it hasn't yet been approved.
The advertising high school would join the Ghetto Film School's cinema high school in the Bronx in 2008. One school not opening next year? The parent-proposed District 15 middle school, Brooklyn Prospect Charter School, whose proposal the SUNY chartering board recommended not move forward after the first round of charter school applications. Organizers are confident they'll be able to secure approval for a fall 2009 opening date.
