P.S. 145 is, according to the Department of Education and Principal Ivelisse Alvarez, a good school.

The city gave P.S. 145, located on 150 W. 105th St. between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues, a B in this year’s progress report card. Though the school did receive some poor marks for school environment and student performance, it also achieved an A in student progress.

Yet a charter school—often viewed as an alternative in areas with failing public schools—is being planned to open up in P.S. 145’s building.

Success Academy, a charter school network with locations in Harlem and the South Bronx, is seeking a spot in the Upper West Side and recently, the city deemed P.S. 145 “underutilized”.

Student enrollment at the school—currently at 59 percent capacity—declined to 431 this school year, from 524 in 2006.

Alvarez, the school’s principal, sees the situation inside P.S. 145 differently.

“You can say it’s underutilized, but on the basis of what?” Alvarez said. “The classes are being used, the rooms are being used.”

The principal at P.S. 145 believes that a charter school occupying the school building will hamper future expansion plans. She wants to grow the school so that it includes K through 8th grade.

This year, the school received part of an $11 million, three-year federal grant awarded to eight Upper West Side schools in late September. The funding, $3.7 million for the district this year, is meant to help these “magnet” schools attract a diverse set of students. P.S. 145’s student body is mostly black and Latino.

“It’s not a failing school and there shouldn’t be a charter school in the building,” Alvarez said.

The city, however, seems intent on keeping student enrollment at P.S. 145 low.

The Department of Education presented a draft redrawing of school zones in the neighborhood’s school district Oct. 14. P.S. 145 was the only school to keep its boundaries in the draft rezoning.

“P.S.145 has been identified as an underutilized building. It is the only one on the Upper West Side,” Elizabeth Rose, a Department of Education official, told a crowd of parents and educators at a recent Community Education Council meeting. “Underutilized buildings are very rare.”

School zones are being changed to ease overcrowding in the southern part of the Upper West Side school district where there are waitlists. Crowded schools like P.S. 199 and 87 in the West 60s and 70s saw their zones shrink, while the catchment area for P.S. 75 on West 96th Street grew.

Alvarez wants P.S. 145’s catchment area expanded to attract new students.

“We don’t have that many blocks in the school zone to register children from,” Alvarez said.

Eva Moskowitz, the former East Side Council member who is the CEO of the Success Academy charter schools, said that Upper West Side parents need a choice now and cannot wait years to see if P.S. 145’s enrollment increases.

“Parents need options now. Their 5-year-old can’t wait five years,” Moskowitz said. “What are we going to tell parents on the Upper West Side, ‘Well this school might expand so we’re not going to use the 300 seats’?”

In New York City, charter schools have proliferated in economically disadvantaged areas. But Moskowitz believes parents in the Upper West Side should be able to send their children to a charter school as well.

“Even parents of means have a very anxiety-producing challenge and I didn’t think that should be the case,” Moskowitz said. “There’s nothing in the charter law that says you’re only supposed to serve the most disadvantaged.”

The State University of New York’s Board of Trustees, which can approve charter schools in the state, scheduled a vote on Success Academy’s new Upper West Side location Oct. 27.

Noah Gotbaum heads the parent body that holds meetings on education policy, known as a Community Education Council. The council has to vote on the new rezoning map for the 2011 school year.

Gotbaum, a critic of Success Academy charter schools in Harlem, is supporting Alvarez, the P.S. 145 principal.

“They also want to be able to grow their school, which is a terrific school, and use this federal money to really draw in students,” Gotbaum said. “Harlem Success will stop this in its tracks.”

By Lydie Raschka

Gabriela Klassen is reluctant to share her secrets of time management—perhaps because they go against the grain in this test-prep, skills-based climate. One trick is to “compact” the basics: spend an entire morning on math, for example, so that the afternoon can be dedicated to projects.

Gabriela Klassen was a professional musician playing in orchestras before she became a teacher.

And projects are the meat and potatoes of Klassen’s curriculum. They spring from extensive interest surveys she administers when she first meets students to get a good sense of the group’s curiosities (Klassen has recently taught the same gifted and talented class from 3rd through 5th grade).

In 3rd grade, a boy wanted to go to China. She developed a series of lessons centered on the New York Chinese Scholar’s Garden, comparing Chinese design principles with the tradition of Western classical architecture. The idea of yin and yang was applied to vocabulary: Kids made lists of opposites. During their visit to the garden, students identified design elements and then designed their own gardens. The study ended with a Chinatown lunch.

An emphasis on architecture is another hallmark of Klassen’s teaching. She has taken summer classes on everything from drafting, design and theory, to model-making and computer-aided design. She first thought about bringing this passion to the classroom when a student said he wanted to climb to the top of the Empire State Building. This launched a survey of architectural structures, from the simplest to the most complex.

“These are structures they can build, make and find all over New York,” she said.

Learning through thematic projects requires lots of planning, something Klassen does when she gets home, after she collapses for an hour or two and takes Mishka, her dog, for a run. Klassen lives with her husband Arnold near the school. In her spare time, she plays violin or Renaissance lute in chamber music ensembles. A previous career playing in orchestras took her from Japan to Italy, but Klassen eventually wanted to settle down. Her younger sister, Helen, suggested teaching: starting at age 14, Klassen began to teach Helen to play violin and continued to do so for 10 years.

Rekha Menon, the parent of one of Klassen’s students, has found that she brings out the best in her son.

“He was advising us on our stock picks in 3rd grade,” Menon said.

In 4th grade, he got into playing piano in a full-length production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In 5th grade, he became fascinated with red-tailed hawks in Central Park.

“My son identifies birds while walking down the street with binoculars,” Menon said. “I don’t think this is something you would find in a standard curriculum.”

Now, Klassen’s 5th graders are deep into reading and writing mysteries—and learning about the musical leitmotifs in North by Northwest, how sound brings about suspense—and they’re working their way through Shakespeare’s Richard III.

Samantha Deutsch, a fellow teacher, is amazed at Klassen’s talents.

“She has a natural ability to channel her student’s own passions—for trains, rocket ships, skyscrapers, butterflies, planets, whatever,” she said. “As a colleague, I learn something every time I walk through her door.”

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Gabriela Klassen
5th grade, P.S. 145