A look at the challenges facing schools in Manhattan

As students pack their backpacks and get ready for the school year that will kick off next week, parents and education advocates are gearing up to fight the continuing battle for quality public school education in New York City.

While downtown, which includes Community Education Council District 2 (CEC2), enjoys many top-notch public schools, overcrowding and budget tightening are constantly threatening the balance.

The biggest concern in the district is the lack of school space for future classes.

“The inclusion of new school spaces will certainly help, but it does not eliminate the challenges that we have today,” said Council Member Dan Garodnick on the problems of overcrowding.

CEC2 recently won a long-fought battle in gaining a new elementary school at the Our Lady of Good Counsel building on East 91st Street. Over the summer, DOE Chancellor Dennis Walcott joined U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Assembly Member Dan Quart at the official announcement of the DOE’s deal with the Catholic Archdiocese to lease the space for 15 years. The building had been the temporary home to P.S. 151, the Yorkville Community School, before it moved into its permanent location on East 88th Street, and then P.S. 51, which had relocated from Chelsea while its building was under construction. The DOE’s lease on the building had been set to expire this fall, and parents in the community pushed hard to renew the lease for a longer term. Now the building will be home to P.S. 527, helping alleviate some of the area’s elementary school crowding.

“School overcrowding remains a critical problem on the Upper East Side,” Quart said at the ceremony. “As enrollment rates continue to increase, it is crucial that school construction keep pace with this growth.” Quart had a real-life prop to back up his claim—his 5-year-old son, Sam, who will be attending the school as a kindergartener this fall—standing at the podium with him.

Shino Tanikawa, the president of the District 2 Community Education Council (CEC), said in a letter addressing this year’s upcoming challenges in the district that overcrowding continues to be a major concern.

“District 2 schools continue to be overcrowded even with new schools that have started in the last four years,” Tanikawa said. “This coming year, we will be rezoning the east side of Midtown for a new school located on First Avenue at 35th Street. Plans are under way for a new school in Chelsea and another in the Financial District, and negotiations to acquire 75 Morton St. are ongoing.”

Most new school plans are for elementary schools, which is what the DOE says the district needs. Some parents and elected officials, however, say that the numbers don’t indicate the real picture of what the district needs, since it encompasses many different neighborhoods—the Upper East Side as well as most of Lower Manhattan.

Assembly Member Micah Kellner has been leading the charge to ask the DOE for a new middle school, petitioning local parents to get on board. He said that many parents with middle school-aged kids feel that they face a choice between private school and moving out to the suburbs instead of relying on public middle schools.

“In September the DOE is expected to release Educational Impact Statements from co-location [of charter schools],” said Tanikawa. “While it seems the elementary and middle schools in District 2 are spared of co-location, we still need to voice our concern for having elementary students with high school students in the same building, and for potential overcrowding that could result from co-location.”

One small victory that parents around the city are celebrating is the reinstatement of a program that was recently cut—Wellness in the Schools, which pairs professional chefs with public-school cafeterias to create healthy, scratch-made menus for the kids. Earlier this week, DOE officials said that they would have to cut the program to ensure that all schools would be able to meet more stringent federal school lunch regulations or risk losing federal money. Thanks to an immediate outcry from parents and elected officials, including Council Speaker Christine Quinn, the DOE announced that it would keep the program and work with the schools and chefs on keeping the menus within guidelines.

By Gavin Aronsen

When the former P.S. 151 shut its doors on a nearby corner in 2001, parents had no option but to crowd their children into schools in surrounding neighborhoods.

The new P.S. 151—aka Yorkville Community School—began reversing the exodus when it opened in September last year, after the city’s Department of Education leased a former Catholic school building on East 91st Street and renovated it that summer.

A teacher helps a student with his classwork at P.S. 151. Photo by Andrew Schwartz

Under the leadership of Principal Samantha Kaplan, the cash-strapped school now teaches 179 kindergarteners and 1st graders on the building’s first four floors. The fifth floor is under construction for 2nd graders next year, and there are plans to add another grade each year after up to 5th grade.

“I had to write a proposal about what my vision for the school would be if I had the opportunity to open it,” Kaplan said. “My proposal was based on creating a school that was centered around the community, and using the community to develop our curriculum. That was our starting point.”

After getting the job, Kaplan said her first move “was to develop partnerships with community-based organizations to provide enrichment opportunities.”

Without enough money to hire gym or music instructors, the school has relied on funding secured by City Councilmembers Daniel Garodnick and Jessica Lappin, who both represent the Upper East Side, to afford outreach to community-based and other organizations.

The fitness club Asphalt Green now helps keep P.S. 151’s kids in shape, and the non-profit Arts Connection runs a music and movement program, to name just two examples. The school is actively seeking new grants as it continues to grow.

An integrated curriculum model, in which math and writing fuse with a common social studies theme, drive the school’s lesson plans.

“I think it’s really exciting that the curriculum is so engaging, because it’s all child-based,” Kaplan explained. “ Everything we do is based off how they respond, and the teachers are flexible and willing to look at the work they’ve done and are willing to change it.”

First-grade teacher Tara Torre came to P.S. 151 for this reason.

“I thought it would be a great opportunity to start from the ground up and watch something really develop,” she said. “And it has been. Creating the curriculum has been an amazing experience.”

She also embraces the theme of community on which Kaplan founded the school.

“It really helps the kids with building a sense of knowledge about the world around them,” Torre said.