With the
Bloomberg administration pushing forward in its drive to create more than 200
small schools, city education officials have crashed into a cold reality that
has long vexed
In the
On the
Upper West Side of Manhattan, a furor has erupted at Martin Luther King Jr. High School
because the Department of Education announced last month that a sixth small
school would join five others already jockeying over shared space.
And in
Unlike a
family of four crammed into a small one-bedroom apartment, the new schools and
their burgeoning student bodies cannot move to the suburbs.
“We’re
really in a quagmire,” said Andrew M. L. Turay, the principal of Peace
and
Mr. Turay
said he feared that hard-earned gains of the school’s first two years
— attendance of 91 percent, a promotion rate of 83 percent — would
be lost. “If we end up in trailers,” he said, “if and when it
rains, if and when it snows, attendance is going to drop.”
Peace and
Diversity shared space in a wing in
The space
squeeze comes at a critical time for the city’s small-schools movement,
just after an initial group of schools achieved promising graduation rates
better than the city average, and at a time when many small schools will have
their first 12th-grade classes this fall. Many of these schools are now in
their second locations; some are in a third, still waiting for a permanent
home.
City
education officials say the space shortage is an inevitable result of their
huge and hurried push to create more and better choices for students,
especially in high school. Demographic shifts are also in play with more
students in high school and fewer in middle grades.
Officials
note that the city has spurned no option in creating new schools —
converting old factories and warehouses and even leasing space in office
towers. City school buildings, they say, have never been used so efficiently.
“We
use the existing space better and better, which means there are fewer and fewer
alternatives,” said Garth Harries, who leads the department’s
Office of New Schools. Still, he said, officials believe they can find space
for dozens more schools.
Officials
maintain that there is space available across the city, in some cases precisely
where it is needed most, but that getting the classrooms can be difficult
because principals rabidly protect their turf, at times lying about their
needs.
“There’s
overcrowding,” Mr. Turay said. “And there’s political
overcrowding.”
Since
September 2003, the administration has created more than 170 small schools,
with 48 scheduled to open this September. The small schools are typically
designed to serve 432 students — 108 per grade — in order to build
closer relationships between children and educators.
In some
cases, the shortage of space has prompted officials to order new schools to
take fewer freshmen than had been planned. In other cases, principals lacking
classrooms have had no choice but to cut back on courses.
The city
schools have dealt with overcrowding for decades. But the current problem is
not about whether every child has a chair or an individual class is too big to
manage. Rather, it is about whether entire schools get displaced or principals
even have offices.
Principals
and parents said they did not doubt the city’s commitment to small
schools, but complained of poor planning. Peace and Diversity, for example, has
known since it opened in 2004 that it would outgrow its space at Herbert
Lehman.
Mr.
Turay, parents, and officials from the Anti-Defamation League, the
school’s community partner, had been nudging Chancellor Klein for months.
They were repeatedly told not to worry.
Eventually
they were notified that they would share the old Public School 99 in the
The
building, however, has long been occupied by nonprofit groups. The city has
filed a lawsuit to evict them but the building also needs extensive
renovations. Mr. Turay said many parents do not know the building will not be
ready.
Parents
had hoped to keep the school at an old wing at Lehman but it was taken over by
Renaissance High School of Musical Theater and Technology, another small
school. Even there, space was tight and Peace and Diversity has added only 75
students a year instead of 108.
Sometimes,
parents battle ferociously, as at the New Explorations Into Science Technology
and Math school, known as NEST, on the
The
administration switched course. And the charter school,
But even
as he gave up — for now — plans to add more students to the NEST building,
Chancellor Klein removed NEST’s principal, accusing her of lying and
other misconduct in her efforts to prevent the Ross school from moving in.
Before
opting for space at NEST, the founder of Ross, Courtney Sales Ross, had been
shown space on the top floor of P.S. 147 on
Ms. Ross
rejected that space. But John Elwell, the director of Replications Inc., a
nonprofit group that is founding a new specialized high school called Brooklyn
Latin, quickly snatched it up, afraid there would be no place else to put the
school.
Similarly,
the instant a space seems available, city officials seize it. One such moment
came late last year when the Boys Choir of Harlem, after years of management
problems, was evicted from
But those
plans fell through. And in June, school officials decided to put Theater Lab in
the Martin Luther King Jr. building, near Lincoln Center.
The five small schools already there were not told until mid-July and a small
uproar has ensued.
“Consultation
is supposed to take place before decisions are made,” said Brenda St.
Clair, the parent association president at
In
rancorous negotiations in June, the five principals worked out plans to share
the gym, cafeteria and science labs. The principals have not yet been able to
meet about how a sixth school will change those plans.
“We
understand it’s not a popular decision,” said Mr. Harries of the
Education Department. “But we are doing everything we can to engage the
principals to make sure it’s an easier situation.”
Ms. St.
Clair, however, said parents would fight. “We don’t concede the
point that it’s a done deal,” she said. Deputy Mayor Dennis M.
Walcott said that with space tight, the city would have to work closely with
local communities on a case-by-case basis, until new schools are built.
If work
finished on time, the city would add 2,500 classroom seats in September and
3,200 seats by the 2007-8 academic year. But it is not until 2008-9 that the
city’s ambitious capital plan will provide major relief with the expected
addition of nearly 14,000 seats.
“After
’08-’09 this is not even a discussion,” Mr. Walcott said.