PAVE charter may "share" NYC's PS 15 public school building for 5 years.

[madfloridian]

I put quotations around the word "share" because it implies the consent of both parties. In this case it is not really the case.

PAVE was supposed to leave the building by the end of this year. Now they may be staying with the permission of the Department of Education until 2015. They will be allowed to add 5 more grades, thus crowding the public school students and teachers even more.

Unbelievably, it appears this school fought the same battle against PAVE Charter School in 2008. They thought they had won then.

From February 2008:

Parents win: Education Department agrees not to add charter school to Red Hook’s PS 15


The Brooklyn Paper / Tom Callan
Parents at PS 15, an elementary school on Sullivan Street in Red Hook, are fighting a city plan to house a charter school inside their building.

“Initially, the DOE presented this as a fait accompli,” said Michael Schweinsburg, spokesman for Gonzalez. “Now they’ve stepped back from an entrenched position. That’s important.

.."“It looks like they’re trying to correct the way they went about things,” said one teacher requesting anonymity.

Parents don’t want the charter school in PS 15 because they say the loss of space jeopardizes the “A” grade that the school just earned on its city report card.

“The kids are going to lose out on a lot of the things they have now,” said Vicki LaSalle, a parent who was gathering signatures on her anti-charter school petition last week.

The school had made an A...so there goes the bad school argument.

This is going on in many NYC public school buildings. Many have thought it is in a way a hostile takeover of public buildings. It does seem that way.

DOE proposes to let PAVE stay in P.S. 15 an additional five years

The Department of Education released details of a controversial space-sharing proposal for a Brooklyn charter and district school today, and it would allow the charter to remain in the building until 2015 and add five more grades of students.

The plan follows months of controversy about whether PAVE Academy Charter School should be allowed to continue to share space with Red Hook’s P.S. 15, and if so, whether the charter should be allowed more classrooms in the building.

PAVE originally agreed to leave the P.S. 15 building at the end of this school year. Its request earlier this year to extend its stay sparked worries among P.S. 15 parents and teachers that the charter school would stay indefinitely, squeezing the district school.

When the public school parents protested, the DOE decided to allow a hearing and a citywide school board vote.

In October, DOE officials notified the schools and the district’s parents council that PAVE would stay in the P.S. 15 building. After the parent’s council protested that the unilateral decision dodged the new mayoral control law, which requires a formal proposal and hearings before changes to building space can be made, the DOE switched course.

A hearing on the proposal will be held next month, followed by a vote by the citywide school board to approve or reject the plan at the end of January.

Update: I found a little more on the hearing.

Last month, DOE officials notified the principals of Red Hook’s PAVE Academy and P.S. 15 that the charter school would remain in the P.S. 15 building, even though PAVE originally agreed to leave the building at the end of this school year. At the time, DOE spokeswoman Ann Forte said that there was no need to follow the new rules since a hearing had been held before the charter school moved into the building two years ago.

But after protests from the district’s Community Education Council members, DOE officials said this week they will follow the new procedure after all.

CEC President James Devor drafted a resolution this week calling on the DOE to follow the new law in the case of P.S. 15. The resolution also states that if the DOE does not follow the new procedure in making space decisions regarding P.S. 15 and PAVE, the CEC would join any lawsuit designed to force the DOE to adhere to the law.

Hearing on the topic in January

At least there will be a hearing, but for the DOE to be in the picture like this is really alarming.

There are going to be more problems like this. It appears that either the taxpayers will have to ante up money to buy buildings for charters which may revert to private ownership...or there will be more cases like this in NYC where they may be forced to share public buildings with privately run schools. Some of these schools can be controlled by school districts, some can not.

Here are two other NYC public schools being affected this way. I hear there are many more.

JHS 126 being squeezed out of building, getting only limited access to library they redecorated.

Students and parents at a Brooklyn middle school are fuming after they were pushed out of their newly spruced-up library by an expanding charter school.

Junior High School 126 kids have severely limited access to the cozy, mural-painted reading spot this year so the three charters sharing the Greenpoint building can use the space for planning, meetings and small classes.

...""It's unfair," said JHS 126 parent association President Janeen Echevarria. "Kids need to get in there to get books out to do their reports, to read, to further their education."

Access to the library for more than 400 middle schoolers will be restricted to one side of the space for less than two hours each day, with an extra hour on Wednesdays. Eddie Calderon-Melendez, founder of the Believe High School Network, which runs the charters, said the use of shared space is negotiated every year.

Another public school, PS 123 is being pushed out. They are calling it the the invasion of the charter schools

They are calling it the invasion of the charter schools.

It seems to work this way:

Parents at a neighborhood public school suddenly learn Chancellor Joel Klein has decreed they must surrender scarce classroom space in their building for a new charter school. No parent or faculty meeting to gauge whether anyone wants the new school. No official vote of the local Community Education Council.

Some young bureaucrat from the city Education Department's Office of Portfolio Development arrives one day with a bunch of maps under his arm and promptly orders a new allocation of rooms. Boom. Done. All part of Klein's rush to create 100,000 new charter school seats over the next few years.

..."The tensions began when the charter school first moved into the building, but increased this year when P.S. 123 lost its computer room to the charter school, as well as part of its teachers’ lounge and half its library, now devoted to Harlem Success Academy office space, said Hargraves.

P.S. 123 was offered basement rooms to replace some of the space Harlem Success Academy has commandeered, but “there’s no way a kid can learn in that environment,” Hargraves said, describing the basement as “no more than a storage area.” The school squeezed in classes elsewhere in the building.

Moving the public school students to the basement. Taking their computer room and half its library.

It is wrong, and there will be a price to pay for losing our tradition of public schools.

[elehhhhna]

1. normally when you're invaded you try to deny accesss to the occupiers.

I'd start there, parents of ps 15

[madfloridian]

2. The parents have fought hard. EdNotes blog has great coverage.

PS 15/PAVE Story Redux

"CAPE, which was formed to battle the PAVE invasion at PS 15 (and is now working with GEM to reach out to other schools in the same situation) posted an announcement this morning that it ain't over 'till it's over.

The CEC15 has bravely forced the DOE to at least pretend to function within the realm of our republic and has agreed to have a public hearing and have the PEP vote on whether PAVE Academy should be able to extend their two year agreement, an agreement by which this charter was sold to the Red Hook Community who fought it.

Please join in our fight to protect and preserve public education, our children and our school! Sign the online petition and circulate it. Contact the NYC PEP and tell them to vote no in allowing PAVE to break their agreement and stay housed in PS 15's building past June 2010... further, we need to fight to expose the faulty DOE formula that is hurting schools and our children.

While some people thought the battle was over when the DOE ruled, as expected, to give PAVE its 2-year extension, Jim Devor of CEC15, which held a contentious meeting at PS 15 back in September, filed a complaint that under the mayoral control renewal law, the PEP must discuss the issue first and then rule in favor of PAVE. This will happen at the January 26 PEP meeting, which will held in the crater of the moon where water was discovered. I'm guessing the vote will be 9 to 2 for PAVE (money and influence talks) but it all should be a worthwhile event.

More here:

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2009/09/ps-15-makes-their-case.html

[stray cat]

3. Who owns a public school building? Its not those who work in it.

[madfloridian]

4. Nor do CMOs. The public owns the buildings.....

but that has been forgotten.

[madfloridian]

5. Blog shows parents fighting to save an "A" public school from charters.

From Concerned Advocates for Public Education

The DOE Does it Again

Saturday, December 12, 2009

It is unclear what is more disturbing: The Department of Education’s surreptitious school space utilization and formulas, their incompetence in interpreting these very formulas, their damning disregard for what is best for children not to mention parent and community voices, their corrupted charter school movement, their deliberate defiling of public education and community public schools, or their lubricated lies that slide off their tongues dripping and oozing with Orwellian language that loudly proclaims, “we have an agenda, and we fully intend to execute it.” The DOE has done it again; they prove with Friday’s announcement to continue to house a charter school, PAVE Academy, beyond the two year agreement promised to the Red Hook, Brooklyn Community and its AAA school, PS 15, that their interest lies with not the children and the citizens of this city, but with the corporations, hedge fund managers, billionaires and sons of billionaires, who propagate, organize, and oversee the charter school movement plaguing our public school system.

There is more from this blog:

Friday’s announcement sets a new precedent and elevates the intensity of existing policies that privilege the charter school movement. The Department of Education with this impact statement, with the way they tried to usurp the mayoral control laws in the granting of the PAVE extension in the first place, with their continued manipulation of faulty school space sharing formulas and dishonest decision making, takes an aggressive step forward in promoting and supporting charter schools and signals Mayor Bloomberg’s willingness to spend his political capital on undermining and attacking public school families and their educational opportunities.

The battle lines have been drawn. New York City now finds itself on the frontlines of opposing movements. On one side, there are those fighting for the protection and preservation of public schools. On the other side, those who seek to separate and sort our children with a philosophy that privileges some, while subordinating others, and the intention to privatize education, to outsource public money to private interests, to dismantle public schools and replace them with charters. This is clearly a fight the DOE wants to have: raise your swords.

Glad to see them fighting back.

In Florida public taxpayer money is being turned over to Catholic and other religious schools who were having financial trouble. They are calling themselves charter schools now. No one is speaking out on it that I can find. Taxpayer money is being given to charter schools like Imagine who are breaking state laws about control of the schools. Hillsborough County spoke out about not allowing one, but not much else is seen about it at all.

I am glad to see the NYC parents and teachers fighting. I would like to see some of our Florida teachers fighting like this.

[madrchsod]

6. this is`t going to end well.

there could be a huge backlash from the students being thrown out of their school.

[madfloridian]

7. Just think about it.

Students being thrown out of their schools, yet few are speaking out about it. Mostly blogs, most of them ignored loudly.

I agree with you, not likely to end well.

[Hannah Bell]

8. "loss of space jeopardizes the “A” grade that the school just earned on its city report card."

i bet this is one of the goals too.

[madfloridian]

9. I agree.

:(

[BolivarianHero]

10. This will never happen in Ontario...

If Mike the Knife didn't do it with 6 years, nobody will.

[LiberalFighter]

11. Who the hell are the DOE people making this happen?

Where do their kids go to school? If they don't attend public schools then I see a problem.

Who the hell put these scumbags in the DOE?

The parents and others concerned need to lobby their state legislators and Governor. And they need to make life miserable for those in the DOE.

[madfloridian]

12. Here's who making it happen.

Duncan messing around in schools

[LiberalFighter]

15. Duncan is a dork. He only spent 2 years as a teacher?

[madfloridian]

16. Not sure. I did not think he actually taught.

Maybe at the school his mother ran? Not sure, would have to look it up.

I am not fond of him at all.

[madfloridian]

13. Already having problems sharing with charter school...upping to 5 yrs would be worse.

http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/2009/09/public-school-15-and-pave-academy-in.html

"'Whatever the charter asks for, we're forced to give,' says Sandra Serrano, mother of Hannah, who's in the fourth grade at Public School 15. The school shares its building with PAVE Academy.

A simmering turf battle between a charter and a traditional public school sharing a Red Hook building is boiling over, with public school parents charging their kids are treated like second-class citizens.

Parents at Public School 15 say they're being squeezed out by PAVE Academy, which has asked to extend its stay in the Sullivan St. building despite promising to be out at the end of this year.

Deepening the rift are differences in the schools' styles and the challenges of operating apart, but under one roof.

PS 15 parents and teachers said their kids waste time traveling all the way around the school, forced to avoid hallways and a stairwell allocated to PAVE. Separate playground and mealtimes mean a constant scheduling shuffle.

Some parents say charter students are discouraged from even greeting PS 15 students and staff, creating an unfriendly atmosphere."

This is absolutely shameful.

[madfloridian]

14. In 2008 a parent blogger was told by DOE and PAVE not to blog about....

this situation.

PS 15 has been fighting this so hard.

Charter schools: the billionaire's boys club?

There were public hearings last night about the proposed move of the PAVE charter school into the building of PS 15 in Red Hook, the Patrick Daly school – where there is much parent and staff opposition to the move, including Daly’s widow herself, who justifiably fear an increase in class sizes and a loss of cluster rooms as a result.

Emily Brown, a parent at PS 15 was told by DOE to stop blogging about the controversial move until after the hearings. Today in her blog, she describes how a bunch of people showed up last night with PAVE tee shirts, some of whom are really operators of other NYC charter schools.

I say good for her.