On Thursday, the New York Times wrote about changes that the DOE is intending to make. They reported that, “Community Roots Charter School in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, for example, one of the city’s most popular charter schools, has received permission to expand to a middle school. Its proposed location, according to the document, is P.S. 44 in Brooklyn, though it does not specify if the entire school, or only the middle school, will be moved there from its current shared space at P.S. 67.”
Map of P.S. 44 where Community Roots may be relocated
P.S. 44 (Marcus Garvey School) is in Bed-Stuyvesant, in District 13. Inside Schools has this to say about P.S. 44: “WHAT’S SPECIAL: Strong leadership and many dedicated teachers make PS 44 an interesting place to study, learn about the arts and play sports. DOWNSIDE: School needs more technology and materials.”
P.S. 9 (Teunis G. Bergen School) in Prospect Heights is facing a challenge as well. This fall, the Department of Education (DOE) is planning to relocate Brooklyn East Collegiate Charter School (a middle school) into their building. This means that THREE schools will share the building. As one parent said in an email to me, “this plan will severely harm the learning environment for our elementary school students, and guarantee P.S. 9 cannot grow to serve the needs of a growing neighborhood. The DOE’s building use proposal irresponsibly restricts P.S. 9 access to the library, cafeteria, gym and schoolyard. As for the new Book Hive library that our school community worked so hard to create, the DOE gives P.S. 9’s 29 classes only 4.5 hours a week of access. (With a quarter as many students, Brooklyn East Collegiate will get two-thirds more time than P.S. 9!)”
On Monday, January 24th at 6pm, a joint public hearing about the proposal will be held at P.S. 9 at 80 Underhill Avenue and many P.S. 9 parents will be there to speak out against the plan. You can also learn more about P.S. 9 parents’ efforts to stop the DOE plan at http://ps9pta.blogspot.com.