Water, Water Everywhere

It was pouring yesterday when I scurried down Underhill to pick up my six-year-old from school. My little one had fallen asleep in her stroller under the plastic cover, so a friend offered to watch her while I darted in to the auditorium to collect her brother. In the lobby, though, our principal, Ms D’Avilar, was directing traffic:

“Second graders are in the gym!” she said, catching sight of me.

The rain, it turned out, had flooded the basement, forcing the pre-K and Kindergarteners—who are usually picked up from their classrooms—up to the auditorium. I’d been wondering, as I hurried over, if the four-day rain forecast would spell trouble for PS9.

When my son was in Kindergarten, flooding was a routine thing. A combination of sewage pipe problems and bad drainage from the backyard that slopes gracefully down from St Mark’s Ave. to the lower classrooms and cafeteria means that with every heavy downpour, a tide of water and sewage rises up into the classrooms, destroying rugs, books and equipment.

As I later learned, the water rose so fast on Friday that it was like a scene from Titanic, with children grabbing their backpacks and filing out along corridors as teachers and a helpful LAVA instructor rushed to drag out rugs and bookshelves. (The main difference, apparently, was the level of calm: Ms D’Avilar inspires deep trust in the kids, so there was no panic as she shepherded them out of the classrooms. Luckily, no water actually touched the kids.)

As I hugged my son and interrogated him on the whereabouts of his raincoat (“Um, I left it in the classroom…”), I was thinking: “This is ironic.”

Our flooding problem should have been fixed this summer. Federal funds had been allocated and work was all set to go ahead, conveniently dovetailing with the stripping-down of the backyard to prepare for its transformation into a much-awaited, beautiful new playground.

However, other changes were afoot this summer as well. PS9’s upper floor was to become home to Brooklyn Collegiate, a charter middle school placed here by the Department of Education in its current craze for what’s known as co-location.

The story of PS9’s fight to reclaim its building from the DOE’s co-location plan is a complex one that was followed closely by the . For me, though, it’s been a story of a political education—mine, that is. In the nine months since the plan was announced, I’ve learned a great deal about the school system in New York City about the value of an ordinary, budget-challenged, yet flourishing local elementary school like ours and about parents.

It all started in December of last year, when the DOE—out of the blue—published its plan to carve up our building between three schools: the “failing” Middle School 571 (now phasing out of our building), Brooklyn Collegiate and us. Tight space allocation meant PS9 would have to curb its rapid growth—due to soaring popularity—and stop letting in children from other zones.

In its haste, the DOE made some strange blunders like saying we had two gyms when we only have one and miscalculating student numbers. However, what really stung was the part about the library. Just that fall, PS9 and MS 571 had proudly unveiled their beautiful new “,” designed by a PS9 parent, funded (in part) by PTO efforts and a small oasis of birchwood and calm in an otherwise bustling environment.

The new plan more or less handed over the keys to the Book Hive to Brooklyn Collegiate, granting PS9 students a mere 9½ minutes a week in the library. Likewise, our kids were to lose large chunks of gym and cafeteria time to the new middle school.

Why—asked parents—if MS571 was going to be closed, hadn’t the DOE given PS9 the chance to move into its space? Our district desperately needs good middle schools. PS9 is beloved in this neighborhood. Why couldn’t PS9 do what PS282, over on Sixth Avenue, is doing and expand up to eighth grade?

I should confess that I’m not one of the core group of parents who immediately marshaled to fight the co-location and (as the banners put it) Let PS9 Grow. These parents form a bedrock at PS9; their miraculous efforts nourish everything from the library, the new playground, and the impressive afterschool program to the daffodils that sprout along St Mark’s Avenue in spring.

They galvanized the school into a herculean lobbying and publicity campaign as we approached the day of the public hearing. I did contribute to their serious efforts, however, by bringing along a giant can of sardines to the pre-hearing rally. Yes, sardines. (Well, actually our children, in sardine cut-outs designed by an artistically gifted fellow parent. “Don’t Squash PS9,” was the message.)

I also joined the crowd of PS9 parents who gathered in February to speak up before the DOE’s panel that makes the final vote on these issues. As the clocked ticked past midnight and my stomach growled and palms sweated (nervous of speaking in public, I’d swapped tickets to stand up late in the proceedings), I marveled at the articulateness and passion of my fellow parents’ pleas to stop the co-location. One held up a “rubber stamp” sign and I remember thinking that was a little premature. Surely, the panel was an intelligent, free-thinking group of individuals?

As it turned out their vote fell very neatly along party lines. The majority who are appointed by Bloomberg voted in favor of co-location; the minority independent members voted against. And so the co-location was set to go ahead.

What happened next took all of us by surprise. A team of PS9 parents including various attorneys devoted a stunning amount of time and brainpower to a filing an appeal, and we won. The State Commissioner for education found that, yes, the DOE had been unfair in the way it parceled out library, gym, and cafeteria time between the schools.

Our win only temporarily halted a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut. The DOE revised its plan, resubmitted it and held another public hearing in May. The panel listened to our protests and once again voted along party lines. We appealed and this time, we lost.

In August, Brooklyn Collegiate moved into our building. Somehow, mysteriously, the flood elimination work that had been scheduled for July, which would have delayed their entry into the building—while benefitting only PS9—was dropped. Once upon a time it wouldn’t have occurred to me to think there might be a link between these two events. However, after witnessing the zeal with which the DOE pursues the interests of its charter schools at the expense of its ordinary neighborhood schools—even the successful ones (the “failures” like MS571, arguably doomed from the get-go, are another story altogether)—I can easily imagine one.

Brooklyn Collegiate are our neighbors now and I’m sure we’ll get along. Our battle was never with them: it was with the DOE for failing to see the potential of PS9. One thing that my year of political education taught me was this: when you have a good local school, a talented principal with an open and nurturing attitude, and a smart, feisty, and committed bunch of parents, you have a formula that deserves the wholehearted support of the education system. Long and late though those panel votes were, I enjoyed every minute of being part of the PS9 community as it struggled to be heard.

Our dazzling new playground is being installed right now; after repeated delays last year, work suddenly started and will be completed in the next week or two. (“Perhaps there’s an upside to having a charter school in the building!” was my immediate thought when I heard this.) My son’s already excited to play in it. Let’s just hope we don’t have to rip it all out again to fix those pipes.