Crane collapse at the site of new East Side MS

Posted by Philissa at 10:50 AM

Today's tragic crane collapse on the Upper East Side, the latest in a series of construction accidents in city that's experiencing a building boom, took place at the site of the new East Side Middle School, where developers tore down an old public school building to make way for a new condominium building that will also house a public school. The Times is reporting that the cab of a crane fell as many as 20 stories to the ground this morning, killing at least one person.

Groundbreaking for the new ESMS, a popular school currently located on York Avenue between 77th and 78th streets, happened last September. (View photos of the event.) The new, 34-story building, which will house an expanded ESMS as well as 118 condo units, was slated to be completed in 2011; it's not clear how this accident will affect the timeline but I think we can hope that construction there and elsewhere in the city should not happen until we can be guaranteed it's happening safely.

New seats, fewer out-of-district kids to relieve District 2 overcrowding

Posted by Philissa at 12:08 PM

NYC Public School Parents is hosting a copy of the DOE's much-anticipated "Blueprint for District 2 Enrollment and Capacity." At a recent meeting about overcrowding in District 2, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said the fact that such a document was on its way was one "sign of progress" in reducing overcrowding in the district's schools — but I wonder whether he still feels that way, having read what the DOE proposes in the preliminary planning document.

"We know that an appropriate plan for District 2's elementary schools will require not only new construction but also enrollment adjustments and efficient use of current facilities," DOE officials write. Contrasted with district residents' thoughtful identification of existing space that could be used for schools, the proposal is thin on ideas for new construction, describing only the plan, announced recently, to convert part of one Greenwich Village building into a 600-student elementary school and one other new idea for construction, in Kips Bay. (Two elementary schools are already planned to open in Lower Manhattan in 2010, and a middle school expansion project is also underway on the Upper East Side.)

While the DOE says it is planning to add nearly 3,000 new seats in elementary and middle schools in District 2, it also asks for two unpopular commitments from District 2 officials and schools. First, it calls for a reduction in out-of-district enrollment in some of Manhattan's most popular schools, a reduction that is already underway thanks to the DOE's own "proactive oversight" of admissions and one that is sure to undermine schools' efforts to maintain diversity in some of the wealthiest zip codes in the city. The DOE also calls for a rezoning of the entire district to account for new schools and resolve some current sticky issues, such as the zone-sharing between PS 3 and PS 41 in Greenwich Village and the lack of a zoned school for children in the old PS 151 zone on the Upper East Side. And it suggests that 5th graders at overcrowded elementary schools in Lower Manhattan be bused to buildings more than a mile away, an option that is sure to please parents who secured apartments with the neighborhood schools in mind.

The letter is packed with tidbits about what families in District 2 (and beyond) might expect as the DOE continues to centralize admissions procedures. It's definitely worth a look. And if you're in District 2, you can respond to your local community board, the Manhattan Borough President's office, or by taking an online survey about school overcrowding. And if you're in other parts of the city — perhaps you're in South Brooklyn, where anti-overcrowding momentum appears to be mounting — you might start thinking now about what the DOE can, and should not, do to relieve overcrowding in your area.

Good thing the DOE has tons of extra money

Posted by Philissa at 9:56 AM

Can you imagine what a $52 million capital improvement could do for the increasingly overcrowded Beach Channel High School? Keep imagining -- the $52 million is going to soundproof the building against the noise from nearby JFK airport.

Middle School Muddle: As the wait continues, the need for more quality middle schools grows

Posted by inthemiddle at 2:46 PM

From the minute we dropped our 5th graders off in a sun-dappled elementary school courtyard last September, the search – and the questions – officially began for parents. Would we be able to find a decent New York City public middle school for our 9- and 10-year-olds?

The tours got off to a slow and somewhat confusing start, but one thing became immediately clear as we began to rank our choices one to five: There are far more students who want to get into the most coveted middle schools than there are spots for them.

In recent weeks, a dire picture of the overcrowding lower Manhattan and other areas of the city face and the impact it will have on schools has emerged. The New York Times weighed in, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer has announced a meeting next week to discuss the implications.

A report Stringer released last month found the city had approved enough new residential buildings to add up to 2,300 new students in K-8 – while increasing total school capacity by only 143 seats.

Overcrowding is a serious problem, and it's only getting worse as more families choose to stay in the city.

I wish I could tell parents not to worry or stress, and urge them to shun private institutions or moves to the suburbs. The problem is, plenty of us are already staying in the city and fighting for better public schools, just as innovative educators are working hard to make the schools we do have more appealing by attracting grants and specialty programs.

It’s not enough. Supply does not meet demand. The overcrowding in some areas is causing parents to be shut out of kindergarten in some of the most coveted neighborhood schools, as the Times story noted.

Fast-growing immigrant areas in the Bronx, Queens and Upper Manhattan have spent years struggling with overcrowded schools, classrooms and trailers as immigrant populations continue to surge.

Finding a good middle school – and then getting into it – is hard enough now: the best have a long list of children shut out for lack of space.

Without serious attention it may become nearly impossible in years to come.

Read all of Liz Willen's Middle School Muddle

Not-so-breaking news: Residential construction outpacing school construction

Posted by Philissa at 3:39 PM

Popular, successful elementary schools are overcrowded because too many families want to attend them. Not really news, is it? It is when kids start getting put on waiting lists at neighborhood schools because the city hasn’t planned for the influx of kids living in new apartment buildings in those neighborhoods.

That's the story in several school zones in District 2 and elsewhere, according to an article in today's Times, which focuses largely on downtown Manhattan, where construction and residential conversions have proceeded at a fierce pace in recent years. The discrepancy between school seats and planned construction has been the topic of several recent policy reports – including one issued today by Comptroller William Thompson’s office, titled “Growing Pains: Reform Department of Education Capital Planning to Keep Pace with New York City’s Residential Construction.”

It was also the subject of a hearing last night in Manhattan's Community Board 2, held at PS 41 in Greenwich Village. I stopped by the meeting, which, in contrast to a meeting in January where parents aired their concerns about overcrowding, focused on concrete steps District 2 residents and elected officials can take to influence the DOE's capital plan. I’ll have more details about the meeting next week, but here’s the short version of what I learned: it takes serious organization and serious work to get the DOE to commit to building new schools, but investing time and energy can pay off. (Yesterday, the DOE announced that it has finalized plans to create new school just up the street from PS 41 -- I'm willing to bet the timing of that announcement had a little something to do with the public meeting on the calendar.)

Mayoral control of schools should allow the mayor to require major developers to fund school creation; since I moved to the city, I’ve been puzzled as to why this is not so. It seems like a total no-brainer, not something that should require policy reports and public hearings and families being locked out of their zoned schools to make happen.

Jake G. dishes on life in the 2nd grade

Posted by Philissa at 9:21 PM

Last week, I took advantage of the elementary school half day to sit down with Jake G., a 2nd grader and member of the Insideschools family. Jake leveled with me on what it's like to go to Lower Lab, why having a computer means more responsibility for him, and how parents can keep their 7 year olds happy at the end of a long school day.

Q. What's your typical day like? What time do you get up?
A. I would need to get up at 7:30 a.m. to get to school, but I usually get up at about 6:20 so I can hang out with my dad, who leaves at 7. When I get to school, we go to the auditorium. Sometimes there will be an announcement. Then we get picked up by our teachers, and we start off with a morning meeting.

Q. Do you have a class news broadcast?
A: We do have a class newspaper. It comes out every six weeks. Last time I was going to do a jokes column. This time I am doing a math corner. The math problem is easy, but the idea is hard, so it takes a long time to figure out that it's easy.

Q. What's your favorite thing about your school?
A. My school's a pretty good school. The only thing it has to work on is actually getting good stuff to bring the two schools together [Ed. note: Lower Lab and PS 198 share a building] ... They have lots of ideas, but a lot of them aren't that good. It might be a little hard — the cafeteria might not be big enough — but we could have lunch together or recess together. That's what I would change. I do have a couple of friends who go to PS 198, from my karate class.

Q. What's your favorite subject?
A. My favorite type of book would probably be fiction. It's a little bit hard for me to get new books, so I read the same books over and over. And there's a graphic novel series I like, called "Bone." And I like Mad Libs.

Q. What do you do at recess?
A. I usually play a made-up game, but I also like kickball. I'm a pretty good pitcher.

Q. How much time do you spend on homework?
A. I usually have three pieces of homework, so it takes me maybe 30-45 minutes. I also have a hamster to take care of, named Sparky. And having my own computer is actually a responsibility too. I like to play Webkinz but I only use it for people I know, like kids in my class.

Q. What are you looking forward to in 3rd grade?
A. Learning how to write in script. I'm pretty sure it's going to happen in 3rd grade, but I'm not sure. But a lot of people use script.

Q. What advice to you have for kids who are nervous about going to 2nd grade?
A. A lot of times kids get hungry after school. Kindergarteners and 1st graders get a snack, but not in 2nd grade. The good news is that my dad always gets me a snack, usually a Clif Bar. My favorite food is sushi.

Defenders of large high schools raising their voices

Posted by Philissa at 8:51 AM

As the mayoral control forums have heralded in an open season against the last five years of New York City school reform, I've heard a growing defense of large high schools. Last week at a New School event, Merryl Tisch called on the DOE to "revitalize the concept of large high schools," noting equity issues in the assignment of students to small schools; increased curricular and extracurricular options generated by a larger student body; and increased bureaucracy of having 1,500 principals citywide. Now, in today's Post, we see the smiling principal of 4,500-student Francis Lewis High School, where despite the problems caused by overcrowding, students are successful and happy. It's useful to know that some students prefer having "something for everyone" over small class sizes — although that's a choice students and schools shouldn't have to make.

Déjà vu all over again for Khalil Gibran school

Posted by Philissa at 7:19 AM

Less than a year after struggling to land a location, Khalil Gibran International Academy could become a vagabond again.

The DOE is hoping to move it to PS 287 in Fort Greene for the fall, even though last summer DOE officials said the Dean Street building where it's currently housed would be able to handle a second year of growth. But parents at PS 287 say they don't want Khalil Gibran in the building. The PTA president told the press that the elementary school parents don't want older kids sharing the space.

What they — and the reporters who have covered this so far — haven't mentioned is that for the last four years there has been a high school in the PS 287 building. The Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice is moving to a new building in downtown Brooklyn this fall, but since its inception has been located at PS 287. It's possible that the space-sharing has caused problems. If that's the case, we should know. And if it's not the case, parents at PS 287, which according to the DOE is operating at only 42 percent capacity, should come up with a better line for why they don't want to share their space with a school that clearly needs all the help it can get.

Seeking space for new schools, DOE comes up against into angry parents

Posted by Philissa at 11:04 AM

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.

Richmond Hill cafeteria offering early bird special to unlucky students

Posted by Philissa at 11:07 AM

Lunch at 8:59 a.m.? That's what some kids at Richmond Hill High School are scheduled for -- so they've taken to drinking water all day to feel full. In today's "On Education" column in the Times, Sam Freedman continues his crusade against overcrowding in the city's few remaining comprehensive high schools, writing about conditions at Richmond Hill now that it enrolls 3,600 students, twice what it is meant to hold. He last wrote about the impact on Beach Channel High School of being slammed with dozens of poorly behaved students entering through "over the counter" enrollment.

Principal Frances DeSanctis says only a construction project can reduce the crowding pressure. But while DOE officials say it's a "priority" to reduce enrollment, their only plan seems to be to hope that new small schools in the area siphon away entering 9th graders.

NYC schools built on toxic sites

Posted by Philissa at 2:16 PM

If you were paying attention to the news over the summer, you may have heard that Information Technology High School in Queens was constructed in an old warehouse on a toxic site. The DOE insisted that its tests showed the site is safe for students and teachers, but lawyers were seeking confirmation by independent scientists, and families were worried about their kids' safety.

Now Fox 5, which brought the InTech story to light, has put together a report about the "three most toxic school sites" in New York City. According to an independent environmental expert, Beacon High School on the Upper West Side, Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics in East Harlem, and PS 156 in the Bronx are all sitting on top of potentially dangerous levels of various industrial chemicals. The DOE says all three sites are safe. Public advocates are pushing for legislation that would require the city to submit leased sites to public review -- the law already requires this of sites the city owns -- but the Bloomberg administration opposes such a regulation.

Update: We've heard that a retraction from Fox may be in the works about the Beacon site. From our source: "Fox won't do a retraction until the investigation is complete ... but the brownfield site was 2 blocks away and ... the EPA or whatever already gave the okey dokey" to the site. Beacon families, you can relax. No word on whether this is the case for the other schools in the original report.

Update 11/7: No retraction thus far from Fox 5 itself, but the expert quoted on the segment has issued a letter that says Beacon is safe. "There is no indication that any contamination resulting at the [nearby toxic site] is threatening the Beacon School due to the rigorous 'source-removal' clean up that was undertaken," the expert writes. Phew.

Incident in Red Hook feeds fears about multi-age buildings

Posted by Philissa at 11:47 AM

I don't usually like to post about incidents at individual schools that only involve one kid. The Post and the Daily News get a lot of mileage out of stories where affronted parents and kids tell their tale, but you can never be sure whether their stories point out real flaws in their school, although undoubtedly they sometimes do. But today the Daily News is reporting that a 1st grader at Agnes Humphrey School for Leadership in Red Hook was bound with tape by two older students, who threatened to throw him down the stairs, and I think the situation deserves a little attention.

Adults intervened quickly, the child wasn't hurt, and one 9th grader was suspended for bullying and intimidation. The school has only recently expanded to include high school grades, and the mother says in the article, "Teenagers are going to be teenagers and they are going to be doing things that aren't appropriate for younger kids," reflecting the argument made by angry parents at other elementary schools where the DOE has tried to place middle and high schools. At most schools I've visited, kids in different school levels keep to themselves, but at Agnes Humphrey, these fears appear to have been borne out.

Also mentioned in the article: another older student was arrested "after becoming belligerent with authorities." Another downside of housing middle and high schools in the same building as elementary schools? Younger kids may be exposed to tensions between school safety agents and students.

DOE hires new charter schools leader

Posted by Philissa at 1:05 PM

The city is gearing up to open 50 more charter schools in the next few years, and it needs a charter schools leader to fill a void in the "Office of Portfolio Development" (formerly the Office of New Schools). Yesterday, Chancellor Klein announced that he has hired Michael Thomas Duffy, the executive director of a pioneering charter school in Boston, to fill that position, reports the Sun today. Duffy is familiar with the bureaucratic challenges of getting charter schools up and running and told the Sun that he is relieved that Klein and Mayor Bloomberg will support his work; the leadership in Boston is less charter-friendly.

Duffy also told the Sun, "All of the easy options for charter schools to locate in city space have been taken. We're going to have to get more creative about the locations for these schools." We'll have to wait to find out whether that statement is ominous or open-minded.

School buildings going up all over town

Posted by Philissa at 1:32 PM

The DOE's capital plan doesn't call for too many new schools in the next few years, to the dismay of parents and advocates for small class size, but the DOE announced groundbreaking on two new buildings this week. In Manhattan, East Side Middle School is getting a new building of its own in 2009, after sharing space with PS 158 for years. And Cypress Hills Community School in Brooklyn will also get its own building in 2009, complete with multi-purpose room, cafeteria, "community room," and library.

The DOE was eager to emphasize that the East Side Middle School building is being constructed without public funds, through a public-private partnership with the developers of a new residential building. Mayor Bloomberg is hot on public-private partnerships, for good reason: they let wealthy companies buy the city things it can't afford. In the case of the school, the developers will rent air rights from the city in exchange for paying for the school, allowing them to construct a 34-story residential tower that would otherwise have been prohibited. (Perhaps this is the kind of deal developers seeking to construct a view-obscuring building in DUMBO are angling for?) While the city should be willing to foot the bill for building schools, this sounds like a great solution to the DOE's pressing space needs. But this particular fix is likely to work in areas with lots of new construction by wealthy development companies. I wonder what the city has planned for overcrowded schools in neighborhoods that will never need or want a skyscraper.

Backlash against alternative programs?

Posted by Philissa at 3:22 PM

Gotham Gazette reports that Kew Garden Hills residents are preparing to protest the DOE's decision to locate a new transfer alternative school in the neighborhood. City Council member James Gennaro is more upset that the DOE didn't seek community approval before making the decision than he is about the nature of the program, which will serve older students who may have had difficulty at their previous schools. “It’s really just the community feels so left out,” Gennaro's spokesman told Gotham Gazette. “It’s almost hurtful.”

In the last year, several school communities have successfully protested the DOE's attempts to locate new schools in their buildings. But this situation is different -- the alternative school in Queens will have its own building, in an old Catholic school. And usually, when a community finds out it will be getting a new school, folks are happy. Could it be that Gennaro is concerned about having older, less academically successful high school students in his neighborhood? I hope that's not the case. But I think about how folks at MS 113 in Brooklyn recently told the Daily News that sharing space with a GED program instead of a suspension center was "the lesser of two evils." As the recent story about transfer alternative schools in the New York Times made clear, taking more than four years to graduate from high school is becoming more and more common. Instead of resisting schools that will help older kids graduate from high school, communities should be happy to see them made available.

Another space-sharing debacle

Posted by Philissa at 5:14 AM

East New York Preparatory Charter School, which has been located in the PS 158 building in Brooklyn since it opened last year, was told to hit the road this year, even though the DOE had promised it could stay at PS 158 for two years, the Daily News reports today. PS 158 had made sharing space unpleasant for East New York Prep, denying the school's kids use of a nearby bathroom and instead requiring that they go down four flights of stairs to the basement; the DOE intervened last year to resolve that issue, but evidently things were not going to get better this year because East New York Prep has been told to move to PS 323, about 30 blocks away.

What's interesting about these space-sharing showdowns -- and there have been at least half a dozen at this point, in almost every borough -- is that we're seeing parents who might not have been the most involved before organize for the benefit of their schools. If their unity outlasts the immediate crisis, this shift could help them improve their neighborhood schools even more. But it is just plain spiteful for undercrowded schools to display such open antagonism against new small schools sharing their space. A principal who would humiliate small children to make a point about sharing space is not one I would want making decisions about my kids' education.

Quid pro quo for Brooklyn schools

Posted by Philissa at 1:08 PM

The Brooklyn Paper reports today that the two schools that are being made to share their building with a new dual-language Arabic school will receive a host of enhancements over the summer:

At a Parent-Teacher Association meeting last week, Department of Education officials announced that the building housing the Math and Science Exploratory School and the Brooklyn High School of the Arts will get new computers, a renovated technology lab, and a dance studio. In addition, the math and science middle school will get, for the first time, its own gym.

This past year, so many schools resisted having new schools placed in their buildings, often to success. But if these promises actually come true for MS 447 and BHSA, perhaps other schools will take a different -- and more self-serving -- approach when the DOE comes knocking.

For some background on the Brooklyn situation, read our coverage of the controversy over the Khalil Gibran International Academy.