By Noah E. Gotbaum

Concerns that the Department of Education has offered P.S. 199 (West 70th St) and P.S. 191 (West 61st St) as development sites to be demolished and then rebuilt inside of luxury apartment towers have spread like wildfire through our community. And with good reason. DOE’s consultants drafted and distributed a detailed 80-page “Request for Expressions of Interest” memorandum for developers interested in the sites – and subsequently received dozens of draft plans – which could hugely and negatively impact thousands of children, families and community members without so much as a phone call to our elected officials, Community Board 7, Community Education Council (CEC3), and the affected school communities.

And while ensuring multiple and attractive “benefits” to the prospective developers – including “markets starved of luxury housing” – the DOE memorandum is far less concerned with the negative impacts on our schools and community. The memorandum neither requests nor proposes a definitive and clear plan or discussion of the developers’ (or the DOE’s) responsibilities to our children and families during construction or even where those students will go. Equally troubling, the proposal expects that the new schools will be no larger than the current schools. This despite significant overcrowding district-wide – including at 199 as well as 191 – and a district-wide push for new seats, especially at the middle school level. Incredibly, the DOE proposal doesn’t even require developers to provide additional space for the influx of hundreds of additional school-age families who inevitably will be drawn to the new developments which actively market our schools as a key amenity.

But perhaps the most concerning issue is a developer’s ability to undertake the projects “as of right,” outside of the ULURP process and without community board review or City Council approval that might rectify the project’s shortcomings or scuttle it completely. In fact, the documents provided by the DOE to developers cite this avoidance of local input and accountability as “an important element to the…program…which specifically benefits developers.”

When called out on these and a range of other issues by Borough President Stringer and City Council Member Brewer in strongly-worded letters to Chancellor Walcott, the DOE’s point person on the projects, Jamie Smarr, commenced meetings with elected officials, school officials and the CEC. He claimed that our fears were unfounded, dismissed many of the most contentious points in the offering plan, and promised us written confirmation that the projects WILL indeed be subject to ULURP’s detailed community planning review.

Unfortunately, Mr. Smarr has now left the DOE and no written confirmation of any formal (or informal) community review role – including ULURP – has been received by the CEC or other officials as far as we know.

Some counsel patience and an open-mind in regard to these proposals. I certainly believe that we need to seek creative public/private solutions to build more schools, to strengthen our tax base and to provide more affordable housing. But we have been told that the funding provided under these schemes will simply go to plug operating budgets rather than solve our massive overcrowding and class size issues. And having witnessed the Mayor’s and his DOE’s disdain for parent, community and elected official input over the past seven years as a public school parent and an elected parent leader – and the lack of any real checks and balances inherent in the current system of Mayoral Control over our schools – parents, elected officials and community members must be incredibly skeptical and vigilant during the last 10 months of this administration, and not just in regard to these proposed projects.

This community must fight tooth and nail for our kids, schools and community at P.S. 199 and P.S. 191 and beyond, as we did four years ago in conjunction with Borough President Stringer’s “War Rooms” to get the DOE to admit that its planning process is completely flawed, and set up P.S. 452 to relieve overcrowding at P.S. 87 and P.S. 199. We must bond together to demand that developers take greater responsibility for the increased burdens they put on our schools and infrastructure as we were able to do in large part at Riverside Center in conjunction with CB7 and a range of elected officials; and we must ensure that all kids and communities count equally as this community did so beautifully in fighting the eviction of Innovation Diploma Plus High School from the Brandeis Campus. Ours is strong and principled community with great elected representatives. We will need to all pull together to ensure that the needs of our community and our children, are met.

Noah E. Gotbaum is a member of Community Education Council District 3 and a candidate for City Council on the Upper West Side.

The public advocate calls on the administration to find alternate solutions for struggling schools

By Public Advocate Bill de Blasio

If something is broken – fix it. Sadly, Mayor Bloomberg adheres to a different philosophy where our city’s education system is concerned. The Administration’s default response to struggling schools has been to close them, without first investing enough time and resources into turning them around. And instead of laying out a thoughtful plan for multiple schools to share facilities in the same building when they “co-locate,” the Administration turns a cold shoulder to community input. Clearly, we need a new approach for our city’s one million students.

There is a time and place to close a troubled school. But that should not be treated as an end goal in itself, nor an accomplishment to boast about. When all other options are exhausted, it should be the last resort. In 2011, the Department of Education (DOE) proposed for Canarsie’s P.S. 114 to be phased out. Yet the unwavering voices of students, parents and teachers of P.S. 114 were eventually heard, and the DOE resolved to work on lifting the school back up. Collaborating with community members like this – and really listening – should serve as a prerequisite for potential school closings. Too many of the schools doomed for closure have not been given the tools to improve, or the time to apply them.

Students at low-performing schools need the most support. But the Administration constantly misses the opportunity to pinpoint troubled schools, invest in them and turn them around. Too often, the Administration opts for the easier route, which is ultimately school closure. DOE’s policies have actually amplified the core problems that contribute to chronic poor performance. Adding more high-need students to poorly resourced and already underperforming schools is just one example. The end result? Performance results for our highest-need students have hardly budged, and educational disparity continues to besiege our city.

We see the same heavy-handedness in the way the City often shoehorns charter schools into existing public schools, without a well-considered strategy for both institutions to thrive. Co-location can be – and has been – successful in this city. Students at four high schools in the Brandeis Educational Complex, on the Upper West Side, learned beautifully side-by-side – until the DOE squeezed a charter elementary school into the building, despite staunch resistance from the school community. Successful sharing of space and resources can only be carried out through meticulous planning and input from all key stakeholders – students, parents, teachers, administrators, community activists and education advocates. Instead, the DOE has alienated school communities by neglecting their input and depriving them of a venue for meaningful engagement on educational policy.

As a public school parent, I know the difference of being involved in your children’s education can make in their academic success and self-confidence. That’s personal to me, and that priority is reflected in the recommendations my office put forth in 2010 to modify Educational Impact Statements and boost parental engagement. But the Administration failed to take our recommendations on community involvement and use of physical space seriously, resulting in a co-location process that is consistently divisive and poorly attuned to the physical demands of mutually-sited school communities.

That’s why, following Mayor Bloomberg’s latest announcement on school closures, I called on the Administration to freeze school closures and co-locations for the rest of the Mayor’s term. Until we can offer a comprehensive, community-driven plan for co-locations and school turnaround, I urge you to join me in pressuring the mayor to put a one-year moratorium on these divisive tactics. After years of disruption instead of progress, inequity instead of opportunity, haste instead of prudence. Enough is enough.

When the Department of Education proposed this move, they said the new Washington Heights location would provide Innovation students with their own space and would be a shorter commute for many of them.

But the idea sparked outrage among the Brandeis community, which consists of three other high schools and a charter elementary school, and within Community Board 7. Opponents argued that moving the high school would make the already disadvantaged students lose access to facilities in and around Brandeis like internships, extracurricular activities, a gym and child care for the school’s many teenaged parents. Apparently, their arguments were heard.

“We actively engage with and respond to the needs of the community,” said Department of Education representative David Pena. “Based on additional input from students, parents and community leaders, Innovation Diploma Plus High School will remain at the Brandeis Campus.”
Noah Gotbaum, a former president of the Community Education Council district that includes the Upper West Side schools, said the Department of Education had no justification for the proposal in the first place. He had organized a rally to protest it right before the hearing on Dec. 4, attended by over half of the student body, parents, elected officials and community members.

“They were basically destroying this incredible program,” Gotbaum said. “And that’s why you had 100 students come out to the rally and hearing.”

At the hearing, students presented a video explaining why they want to stay at Brandeis. It was an educational experience for them.

“I actually spoke at the hearing, and the Department of Education people weren’t even paying attention,” said Maria Henriquez, 18, a senior at Innovation Diploma Plus, whose daughter attends the Brandeis daycare. “If we had moved to Washington Heights, everyone would have dropped out. If you take away my education, you take away my child’s future!”

Among her concerns, she said, were issues of safety. “It’s dangerous because there are gangs in that area,” Henriquez said.

Gotbaum said he thought the Department of Education probably decided to drop the proposal because of pressure from the community, not the testimony of Innovation students.

“I am still unhappy that our community and school had to take to the streets to prevent something so egregious,” he said.

IDP’s move apparently did not really suit the Washington Heights community either, said Community Board 7 Chair Mark Diller, who said the neighborhood had wanted a science and technical high school in the space.

When the proposal to relocate IDP was first floated, many members of the community assumed the program was getting the boot to make room for the Upper West Success Academy Charter School to expand from early elementary to include a middle school. Upper West Success Academy refused to comment.

But the idea did not come from nowhere. During the October Community Education Council District 3 meeting, Yael Kalban, a representative with the Department of Education, said that they were planning on making room in Brandeis for an Upper West Success Middle School after IDP moved to Washington Heights.

“I don’t think IDP is given much priority at all,” Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal said. “It’s like a sick child. I don’t think they anticipated so much community outcry.”

Rosenthal did say that it is in the Success Academy contract to expand after a certain number of years, and that the community does need another middle school. Gotbaum said that the most likely option would be to open up a middle school when Beacon High School on West on 61st Street moves in two years’ time.

SCHOOL MOVE TO BE DECIDED JAN. 16
The Department of Education (DOE) has moved its Panel for Educational Policy vote on the relocation of Innovation Diploma Plus (IDP) from Dec. 20 to Jan. 16. The controversial vote will decide whether the high school will remain co-located with four other schools in the Brandeis Education Complex at 145 W. 84th St. or move to a soon-to-be-vacated building in Washington Heights.

The move was condemned by education administrators and local elected officials when it was proposed in October because they believed that the DOE was isolating IDP’s students, who are transferred to the high school because of poor performance elsewhere, to favor Success Academy, the education complex’s one charter school that hopes to expand in the building. DOE maintains that the move would be advantageous to students because they would have shorter commutes and be closer to the school’s partner nonprofit community development organization.

EXPRESS TRAIN DERAILS
Passengers on the A express train recently were stranded near 81st Street Station when the train’s last car derailed. According to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, an undetected broken section of the rail caused one wheel assembly of the southbound train to jump the tracks around 9 a.m. on Saturday, Dec. 22, leaving over 400 straphangers waiting underground as a second train came to their rescue. The accident caused subway delays from uptown Manhattan to Brooklyn throughout the day by forcing the A and D lines to run on the local track. No injuries were reported, and service returned to normal in the evening.

CHRISTMAS TREE CLEAN-UP
The Department of Sanitation (DOS) is currently running a Christmas tree collection for mulching and recycling. Through Saturday, Jan. 19, the department is encouraging residents to leave their trees by the curb in front of their homes for pick-up. Tree stands, tinsel, lights and ornaments should be removed, and the trees should not be placed in plastic bags.

According to DOS, the trees will be chipped into mulch that will be distributed to parks, playing fields and community gardens throughout the city.

The Department of Parks and Recreation is also holding a “Mulchfest” next weekend, Jan. 12 and 13, at designated sites around the city. Residents can bring their trees to be chipped into mulch that will be used as ground cover for the city’s plants, and free mulch will be given to anyone who brings a bag to transport it.

THINKING OF SUICIDE? FREE COUNSELING AVAILABLE
In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shootings, the Samaritans of New York reminds the New Yorkers that it operates a free, confidential, 24-hour suicide prevention hotline in the city at 212-673-3000.

“The focus on the details of the tragedy, the memorials and the politics of gun control must also be accompanied by the need for greater access to mental health services for those who are depressed, experiencing trauma and/or experiencing some form of mental illness,” Samaritans said in an e-mail, noting that their service alleviates the intensity of the feelings that those in crisis experience and reduces their risk factors for suicide.

Samaritans of New York, part of the international suicide prevention organization that has centers in 42 countries, is the longest-running suicide prevention program in the city. They have answered over 1 million calls from people in crisis, and provide suicide prevention education programs for health providers and support groups.

IS A PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOL BEING SHOVED OUT OF THE BRANDEIS COMPLEX TO MAKE ROOM FOR A GROWING CHARTER SCHOOL?

Innovation Diploma Plus (IDP) is a high school designed to give students a second chance. A “transfer school,” it accepts people under-credited and over-aged—typically 18 years or older—who had a rough time in their original school, and are at risk of failing. Of its 189 students, many come from unstable homes. Some have children of their own and work to support their families. All are Black or Latino.

The Department of Education recently sparked a fierce debate when it proposed the relocation of IDP from its current place in the Brandeis Education Complex at 145 W. 84th St. to a building uptown at 601W. 183rd St. The Brandeis Education Complex currently houses five schools in one building: four other small high schools and Upper West Success Academy, a charter elementary school. The Washington Heights building will be vacated next school year, so if IDP were to move, it would be the only school in the building.

According to DOE, giving IDP students their own educational space would be beneficial. “The students will get more space, having their own building, and be closer to their community-based partner,” DOE spokesperson Marge Feinberg said in an e-mail. That “partner” is Alianza Dominicana, a nonprofit community development organization at 2410 Amsterdam Ave. Feinberg also noted that many students will have a shorter commute: 21 percent of students live in school district 6, whereas 7 percent live in the school’s current district, 3.

In October, the DOE released a 10-page educational impact statement that detailed the anticipated effects of the move on students and the school’s community. “The DOE does not anticipate that this proposal will impact the partnerships, programs, extracurricular activities and/or clubs offered at Innovation,” the statement said. “Students would continue to have the opportunity to participate in a variety of extracurricular programs, though the specific programs offered at a given school are always subject to change.” The statement added DOE’s intention to provide facilities for science and physical education classes, which do not currently exist in the building.

Many parents and administrators involved with Innovation, however, disagree that the move would benefit students. Leading up to a public hearing on the proposal on Dec. 4, Innovation community members began speaking out against the relocation, and questioning DOE’s intentions.

“As soon as the [relocation] announcement came out, the writing was on the wall,” said Christine Annechino, president of Community Education Council District 3 (CEC 3). Like many of the move’s opponents, she suspected that DOE’s hope for relocation might be motivated by a desire to cater to the interests of Success Academy, the educational complex’s lone charter elementary school. Success is a prominent educational power in New York, with schools open across the city. The Upper West branch moved into the Brandeis complex last year against the protests of many parents and school officials, who went as far as signing a lawsuit to block the school on the grounds that it would overcrowd the complex and take over arts resources.

Tensions between Success and the other co-located schools remain. With many young, high-achieving students and plans for expansion in the complex, opponents to the move reason, Success has a clear motive for favoring the relocation of IDP’s students.

In an e-mail exchange, Upper West Success Academy did not respond to questions about allegations of favoritism. “We are hopeful and confident that IDP, Success Upper West and the other schools that share space in the Brandeis building can continue to work cooperatively and collaboratively to offer the best education to all students,” the school said.

Favoritism or not, though, opponents to the relocation argued that students at IDP and the Brandeis complex in general both would suffer if IDP moved uptown. “You feel bad for the kids. They’re in a really disadvantaged position,” Annechino said. “Innovation students are going to lose a good, proper school environment. They’re being shifted around without any consideration. I don’t think the DOE takes them seriously.”

“The whole thing is just ridiculous,” said Robin Klueber, president of the Parent Teacher Association for Frank McCourt High School, one of the complex’s other high schools. The four high schools share resources, she explained, so IDP’s extracurricular activities would by necessity be affected. Students from the different schools interact and contribute to the same programs, such as sports teams and clubs. A group involved in an inter-school theater production set to premiere this week, she said, was dismayed that they might not be together after this year.

“The after-school programs are just fabulous,” Klueber added. “We share a community with Innovation.”

Numerous elected officials also have added their voices to the protests. “On its face, it appears that the DOE’s primary impetus for moving Innovation is to accommodate the elementary charter school that co-located in the building against strenuous community opposition,” Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal said. “That opposition was rooted in the fear that the charter school would eventually squeeze out the existing high school students in a quest for more space. Transfer schools such as Innovation Diploma Plus provide motivated students with a last-chance opportunity to receive a high school diploma. Innovation students, having found stability at Brandeis on the Upper West Side, are now having the rug pulled out from under them by the DOE.”

With the loss of access to Brandeis’ science, arts, sports and theater programs, Council Member Gale Brewer contended that “the health of [IDP’s] students in the broader sense will decline.” She added that parents of students at IDP had approached her and were “adamantly opposed” to the move.
IDP Principal Casey Jones did not respond to a request for comments. Some opponents to the move claim Jones’ support, but he has made no public statements against the proposal.

In light of the strong opposition, West Side Spirit asked DOE spokesperson Feinberg to address some of the specific complaints that the community surrounding IDP was raising. In addition to a loss of sports and arts resources, for instance, opponents have also voiced concerns that IDP students will lose access to a program called Lyfe, which provides day care for children so that their young parents can gain enough credits to graduate. Feinberg declined, and stated that all the move’s benefits were explained in the impact statement, which can be read online at schools.nyc.gov.

Opponents note that the proposed Washington Heights location Street is 90 years old, with 10 full-size classrooms and currently none of the amenities that Brandeis shares, such as a gymnasium, science lab, auditorium and black box theater. According to the impact statement, DOE intends to invest $1.5 to 3 million to bring the building up to code for physical education and science.
CEC 3 Councilmember Laurie Frey contended that regardless of facilities, the move would still be “socially isolating” for IDP students. “The U.S. Constitution does not guarantee us quality of success, but quality of access,” she said. “What gets you coming to school? The sports, the arts, your friends—those are the little pieces that get you up in the morning.” She argued that at-risk students like those at IDP need all the incentives they can get. To remove their support network, she suggested, is to cast them out from New York’s education system.

“There’s no apparent reason to move IDP unless you have a civil collusion between DOE and Success Academy,” she said. “There’s a real appearance of cronyism.”

Following last week’s hearing, DOE said that it is reviewing the community’s comments. The department will continue to accept oral and written opinions through Dec. 19, and then DOE’s Panel for Educational Policy will vote on the proposal on Dec. 20.

Parents in Lower Manhattan say that overcrowding at Battery Park City School (P.S. 276) is nearing a breaking point, and they have launched an online petition demanding that Mayor Bloomberg and the city’s Department of Education take decisive action and limit the number of incoming kindergarten classes for next year and beyond.

Started late last month, the petition has already garnered more than 600 signatures in the hopes that city officials will limit to three the number of incoming kindergarten classes at BPC and help preserve the school’s noted science, music, art and pre-K programs.

Parents and teachers at the school say that continued overcrowding will jeopardize specialized programs simply due to the fact that the classrooms may have to be used to accommodate increasing numbers of students at the school.

“Next year marks the first year we won’t have enough classrooms to maintain programs if we continue to admit kindergarten students beyond our capacity,” said Matt Schneider, a PTA co-president at BPC, via email.

“Our pre-K program could be eliminated entirely. Our science, art and music rooms could be converted to regular classrooms,” he added. “The quality of education for our kids diminishes.”

The three-year-old BPC School was designed to handle only three classes per grade, but Schneider said the school has been forced by the DOE to handle four classes in 2010 and five classes in both 2011 and 2012.

Posting comments to the school’s online petition, BPC parent Tracie Basch wrote: “Both my children attend this well-regarded school and love going to school. It would be a disservice to our children to alter our well respected science, art and music programs as well as discontinue our pre-K program.”

She added, “For our children to be able to compete in this new global economy, we need to find ways to improve our science and arts programs—not take away these specialized classrooms and revert to them being on a cart. That is not how you get children excited about learning.”

At a recent Community Board 1 meeting, BPC’s Principal Terri Ruyter said that for the coming school year there may not be enough classrooms for students in pre-K through 8th grade. She also said that the time is at hand to develop both short and long-term solutions to the school’s dire overcrowding problem.

Solutions suggested by Schneider and the school’s overcrowding committee include, in addition to limiting classes and class sizes, find and lease more interim classroom space to address shortages now, and build more schools in Lower Manhattan as a long-term solution.

“I think the persistent school overcrowding in Lower Manhattan points to inadequate planning or worse, a lack of planning post 9/11,” said Shino Tanikawa, president of Community Education Council 2.

“We need population projections at the neighborhood level, which neither the DOE nor the School Construction Authority currently undertakes. And, we need better methodology for projecting school-age populations, as has been advocated by Dr. Eric Greenleaf for the past several years,” Tanikawa said.

Greenleaf is an NYU professor, a downtown parent and a member of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s school overcrowding task force.

As of press time, the DOE did not return calls seeking comment on overcrowding at BPC.
However, most recently the DOE has said it is “on track” to meet growing demand for school seats in Lower Manhattan, and will make 700 seats available with the addition of the Peck Slip School opening in 2015.

In the meantime, the overcrowding at BPC seems to be taking a toll on students and performance. A DOE progress report for 2011-2012 gave the school an overall grade of C. The progress reports measure a variety of factors including student’s performance on standardized tests from year to year.

One parent at the school, who requested their name be withheld, said, “What I would love to read is how this beautiful state-of-the-art school based in upscale Battery Park has so very quickly become an uninspired disappointment.”

Asked about the school’s less-than-stellar DOE progress report, Schneider did not fully concur with the report’s findings. “There are a host of problems related to the way schools are measured by the progress report, and I don’t believe that report accurately reflects teaching and learning in our school,” Schneider said.

“That said,” he added, “it’s hard to argue that large class sizes don’t negatively affect learning for some students.”

Moreover, Schneider said that teachers at BPC work hard to overcome large class sizes, but time is limited, and teachers can only find one-on-one time with a certain number of students. “That,” he said, “has to have an impact.”

Upper West Siders are particularly susceptible to injury from speeding vehicles, Sladkus believes. With large numbers of children and elderly residents living around cars and trucks that, as she says, use neighborhood avenues as their own personal highways, residents frequently find themselves in danger of being hit.

“Under 30 miles per hour, you have a much better chance of surviving a collision,” she explained, citing statistics from a UK Department of Transportation study that found pedestrians’ chance of survival in getting hit by vehicles moving at 20, 30 or 40 mph to be 98, 80 and 30 percent, respectively. Slow cars by 10 mph, Sladkus contended, and the city would save numerous lives.

Based on recent accident reports, there are still plenty of lives in New York to be saved. The State Department of Motor Vehicles noted that 143 pedestrians were killed in NYC crashes last year. While this number reflects recognized progress in the city’s pedestrian safety in the past decade (traffic fatalities dropped 35 percent from 2001 to 2009, according to the city’s Department of Transportation), it also underscores work that remains to be done: In 2009, DOT reported Manhattan has four times as many pedestrians killed or severely injured per square mile than New York’s other boroughs. Pedestrians accounted for over half of the city’s total traffic fatalities.

To combat speeding, the DOT recently approved 13 “neighborhood slow zones” that reduce speeds in small residential areas to 20 mph. The department launched a pilot slow zone in the Claremont section of the Bronx last November, and following its success, designated 13 new zones around the city in June after receiving over 100 applications for designation from communities. In addition to lowered speed limit signs, the program installs on-street markers and speed bumps in the zones to ensure drivers get the message.

Originally, Sladkus says, the UWSSR thought about submitting an area or two on the Upper West Side for designation in the slow-zone initiative. As she scoped out different neighborhoods, however, she realized that wasn’t enough. “I felt really ethically wrong to say, ‘I want this one five-by-five-block area rezoned, but leave everything else alone,’ ” so she sent a proposal to DOT for a slow zone that encompasses the entire Upper West Side.

DOT has already rejected the request. According to Sladkus, the department said they were interested in opening a few slow zones around local schools, but could not pursue a neighborhood-wide reduction. (West Side Spirit contacted DOT for comments on the rejection, but they did not provide any statements as of press time on Tuesday.)

Sladkus is undaunted. “It’s a traffic engineering challenge,” she said of the proposal, recognizing that it will not win DOT’s approval unless she can demonstrate significant support from the community. Currently she is sending fliers to local schools and senior centers to gauge interest in speed reduction, and seeking endorsements from politicians, community groups and local leaders.

One supporter, Coalition for a Livable West Side President Batya Lewton, has hired a traffic consultant to review the criteria the DOE used to reject UWSSR’s proposal. “We need to analyze the rationale that DOT has used to exclude the Upper West Side,” she said. “There is no excuse for not reducing speed limits here. Is truck traffic more important than people’s lives?”

Sladkus mentioned that she doesn’t think reduced speed limits are the be-all, end-all solution to ensuring pedestrian safety, nor that the limits could be enforced by the NYPD’s current lax approach. She asserted, though, that better use of technology like speed cameras and red light cameras could reduce violations without further burdening cops.

As for a final solution, she admitted, “I envision a city that’s very, very different and not car-centric at all.” But she sees progress as incremental. “Let’s deal with the safety crisis that we have right now,” she said.

As a father of three children in local public schools and a member of District 3’s Community Education Council (CEC), Gotbaum has led a charge against the co-location of charter schools and has been an outspoken critic of the Department of Education’s policies. He’s also been involved in making the CEC a unified voice for parents from a diverse district that encompasses the Upper West Side as well as Manhattan Valley and parts of Central and West Harlem.

Now Gotbaum has formed a campaign committee and said that he’ll be spending the next six to nine months raising money and garnering support for a potential run, one he will base on his experience as an education advocate.

“I come from a labor family, but I’ve worked for 25 years in the private sector. Public service has always been in my blood,” Gotbaum said in an interview, acknowledging the influence of his father, Victor Gotbaum, a prominent labor leader, and his stepmother, former Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, as well as his family’s history of teaching in public schools.

“I see the public advocate position as a way to really stand up and speak up for those who feel disenfranchised, and that’s really expanded, unfortunately, under Bloomberg,” Gotbaum said. He wants to encourage grassroots and community involvement in local decision-making and would point to some of the collaborative successes of the Upper West Side community as models for other neighborhoods.

Education reform will be the cornerstone of any campaign, he said.

“One in every three New Yorkers is involved in the public school system in one way or another. We don’t really have effective advocates for us as parents and for our kids,” said Gotbaum. “We waste money when it’s not being watched. We are wasting literally billions on no-bid contracts, on services that aren’t being delivered, on funds that aren’t even being collected. We have $600 million in special education fees that Bloomberg has not collected that are owed [from the state and federal governments]. While we’re not getting our fair share, we’re threatening to lay off teachers; we need to hire more.”

He said that neither Mayor Bloomberg nor Chancellor Dennis Walcott have done enough to ensure that every student gets a quality education, and is critical of mayoral control of the school system.

“The office of the public advocate is about ensuring that the services of the city are being delivered properly and efficiently and that they work for our communities, for everyone. When you have essentially close to a dictatorship at the top, that doesn’t happen,” Gotbaum said.

He also said that the lack of services applies to other sectors, like the economy and jobs, and that the public advocate should be watching those areas closely.

“In terms of the middle class and working class, we’re not providing the services that we need. We’re not investing properly in education, which is huge—in training our students and our work force adequately,” Gotbaum said. “We’re also not providing the services that enable people to get into the workforce: child care, after-school programs, job training programs.”

Gotbaum said he will wait for current public advocate Bill de Blasio to declare his 2013 plans—he is likely to run for mayor—before making an ultimate decision on whether to run. City & State reported last week that other likely contenders in the race will be City Council Member Letitia James of Brooklyn and Reshma Saujani, who challenged Upper East Side Rep. Carolyn Maloney in 2010 and has been working for de Blasio’s office since. Manhattan-Brooklyn State Sen. Daniel Squadron is also reported to be considering a run.

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

The City Council’s Committee on Education held a hearing today to discuss two proposed resolutions related to the Breakfast in the Classroom (BIC) program. BIC provides breakfast to children in city schools through one of two models: the hallway grab-and-go option or physical, in-classroom implementation.

(by Alissa Fleck)

One proposed resolution calls on the City’s Department of Education to support BIC in all schools, while the other calls on the State Legislature to pass legislation supporting BIC in every school in the City.

Council members and other advocates pushed for these resolutions as New York City has “the lowest school breakfast participation rate among low-income students across 26 large urban districts,” according to a statement by the Council. The City ranks last in terms of children with access to breakfast; currently less than four percent of kids in the City receive in-classroom breakfast.

Executive Director of the NYC Coalition Against Hunger Joel Berg presented these disconcerting statistics: 500,000 (1 in 4) NYC children reside in homes where breakfast is financially out of the question. The numbers are staggering.

“I understand disagreements on ideology and budget,” said Berg. “But the weight of the data here is overwhelmingly compelling.”

Berg also dispelled the powerful rumor amongst the Department of Health, Mayor Bloomberg and some community members that the BIC program would promote childhood obesity, particularly in cases where children consumed breakfast at home and at school.

“What increases obesity is skipping meals,” said Berg. “This is a hunger crisis. No studies show extra breakfast promotes obesity.”

The Department of Education continues to defer to the DOH on the program, and while BIC is strongly supported by politicians like Speaker Quinn, advocates say the DOH does not appear willing to bend on its stance.

Matthew Nolte of the Greater New York Dietetic Association said registered dietitians support BIC, and cited the importance of breakfast in its ability to positively impact a student’s focus in the classroom. Nolte also pointed to the high rate of obesity (around 20%) that currently exists among children K-8 without the program in place.

Executive Director of the Hunger Action Network of NYS Mark Dunlea said a program like BIC would get the City $50 million in federal reimbursement, but Bloomberg continues to oppose it on the purported “second breakfasting” leads to obesity argument, which Dunlea calls an urban myth.

The USDA requirement for federal reimbursement supports a breakfast which meets guidelines for health and well-roundedness, explained Berg.

Nolte followed up by pointing out the main issue is not so much “second breakfasting” as a lack of quality nutrition in the home in the first place. The BIC program would provide nutritionally-sound meals so kids would not have to depend on what’s available—or not available—at home.

Another concern presented was that advertisement of the program may actually influence parents to feed their children less. Advocates responded by pointing to the numbers; where the program has been implemented, absenteeism has decreased and test scores have increased.

Councilmember Stephen Levin, a co-sponsor who spoke in support of the proposed resolutions, said providing breakfast is crucial in reducing absenteeism in the classroom. In support, Berg pointed to a case in a Bronx school where the BIC program was implemented—systematic tardiness was reduced from fifty-five students to just five.

Responding to criticism that BIC might cause disruption in the classroom, Levin pointed out he brought breakfast to the hearing and was not “making a mess or causing disruption.”

Councilmember Brad Lander joked only hobbits can eat too many breakfasts. “This is not a public health crisis,” he said. He added we need more teacher proponents and ambassadors to back these proposals.

“This is about the real world, not the theoretical food pyramid,” said Dunlea. “The needs of children must be placed higher.”

The new school, which will be called P.S. 342/Riverside Center School, will be located on the corner of West 61st Street and West End Avenue, in one of the five buildings that are planned to make up the new high-rise development. Riverside Center is the last piece of the Riverside South development puzzle, building out what was once abandoned rail yards into shiny new communities on the Upper West Side. The area bounded by West 61st Street, West End Avenue, West 59th Street and Riverside Boulevard will be home to five residential buildings, with an estimated 2,500 apartments. There will also be 3.4 acres of public open space, retail space, restaurants with outdoor dining, a movie theater and an underground parking garage for residents. The original plans, however, didn’t account for the assured influx of children into the local school system.

Helen Rosenthal, a member of Community Board 7 who was chair at the time when the plans first came before the board, said that when Extell presented their proposal, the community was still smarting from the overcrowding that resulted from the construction of the Trump Tower buildings south of West 72nd Street.

Though the developers had made a deal with the city to offer a piece of land for sale to build a school, the Department of Education determined in 2006 that there was no need for a new school in the district. Meanwhile, Rosenthal said, P.S. 99 was keeping track of the stream of new students coming from those addresses and parents were growing more concerned about overcrowding problems at all the Upper West Side elementary schools.

“We were started to track this big overcrowding at 199 and we knew it was going to hit P.S. 87,” Rosenthal said. “Clearly this was the most important piece of infrastructure that had to come with new development. We had learned our lesson that with many apartments going up, of course there’s a need for a public school.”

The board negotiated with Extell, originally asking for a 150,000-square-foot school. Eventually Extell agreed to construct the “core and shell”—walls, ceilings, electrical and HVAC systems—for a 100,000-square foot school, after they initially pushed back against the cost of providing a school building.

One of the questions that had been lingering was whether or not the School Construction Authority could afford to utilize all 100,000 square feet of the space or if the school would be confined to 85,000 square feet. The Department of Education confirmed in February that it would exercise that option, turning the potential 488 seats into an expanded 600 seats.

The school, which is slated for a parcel of land that Extell is currently selling, is currently expected to open in 2015. Extell Vice President Donna Gargano wrote to state Sen. Tom Duane, in response to his letter expressing local concern that the sale would delay the school, to assure him and his constituents that the school would still go up as scheduled, no matter who owns the land.

“The land use approvals granted to Riverside Center by the City Planning Commission and the City Council require that the school be located in one of the first two of the project’s buildings to be completed,” Gargano wrote. “This obligation, like the other obligations incorporated in these approvals, is binding on all successor owners of any portion of the Riverside Center site, including any purchaser as a result of the current offering.”

The school is planned for three sections, with two pre-kindergarten classes, but there is no decision as of yet as to how it will be filled—whether it will be a zoned or district school, and what kinds of programming it will adopt, are now under the purview of the Community Education Council and the Department of Education.