City Moves Forward with Plan to Bring a Charter School to P.S. 9

Not to be distracted by the yesterday, the city moved ahead today with its efforts to move a charter school into P.S. 9’s school building.

The move comes eight days after a by by the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP), which oversees New York City public schools, to “co-locate” Brooklyn East Collegiate Charter School into  and M.S. 561's building at 80 Underhill Ave.

On March 31 New York State Commissioner of Education David M. Steiner (who also resigned yesterday) annulled that decision, saying the city’s plan for sharing the space was unfair.

So today the Department of Education offered up a revised the plan, which will be voted on by the PEP on May 18. Sometime before then there will be a hearing on the revised plan at P.S. 9, but a date has not yet been released by the DOE.  

(Check back next week for details on how the revised plan differs from the original, or read both for yourself, here and here).

 A spokeswoman for the P.S. 9 parents who filed the appeal as well as several area politicians said they would comment on the revised plan next week, after they had a chance to thoroughly review it, but Laura Lee McGovern, CEO of of the Collegiate Network of Uncommon Schools, which owns Brooklyn East Collegiate Charter School, said via e-mail that she was glad the DOE was moving forward.

 “We are hopeful that the revisions address any remaining concerns,” she wrote, adding that she believed “that Brooklyn East's siting would give parents another high-quality school option, one that parents are eager for, as the 898 applications that we received for our 75 new fifth-grade spots in the school next year demonstrates.”

 Prospect Heights Councilwoman Letitia James condemned the DOE for proceeding with the co-location, saying that any extra space should be allocated to P.S. 9 for expansion and that with the upheaval at the DOE, all plans for co-locations and school closures should be temporarily  suspended.