This Brooklyn Heights Mom is Furious After Last Night’s P.S. 8 Town Hall on Overcrowding

By on November 21, 2014 11:59 am in Brooklyn Heights

The following is a guest post from a Brooklyn Heights Mom/friend of Homer’s who had a few things to say about last night’s P.S. 8 Town Hall on overcrowding:

If I was a Twitterer, I would have live tweeted this meeting because there was a fair amount of ridiculousness. Here is my tape delayed version of just what went down:

The presidents of the PS 8 PTA thanked everyone for coming and announced that we had several local politicians as well as representatives from the DOE in attendance.

RELATED: P.S 8 Town Hall Addressed Overcrowding

The agenda would be their presentation, followed by short remarks from our elected officials followed by a Q and A.

Their presentation was bleak.

The school is already at 150% capacity. There are no space for music, art, etc. The gym and recess yards are minuscule. The cafeteria is a mob scene. Awesome. Just where I want to send my kid to Kindergarten. Regretting the decision not to apply to private school.

Next up is Daniel Squadron, who is, incidentally the only local politician who didn’t give up on LICH when DiBlasio became mayor and stopped giving a sh*t about Brooklyn. He’s worried. He wants to find a solution so we don’t all have to flee to New Jersey. Apparently there was the same issue in Lower Manhattan and they built another school and we are all cool now.

He is following by Jo Ann Simon, who if I had voted this year I would have voted against her because she killed at least 5 trees with the amount of campaign mail that she sent me. She talks for a minute and says nothing.

Next up councilman Levin. Oh wait, he’s late. Back to depressing slides about the thousands of new apartments that have popped up since we moved here in 2008.

Side note that when we bought our place in a pre-war building one of the things that was so appealing about Brooklyn Heights is that there were no empty lots to build new glass towers on and the neighborhood wouldn’t change.

They start taking questions. First question: “why the f*ck are buildings north of Jay st zoned for PS 8, when PS 307 is right there (like literally 2 blocks north off of Front St).”

DOE canned answer: “rezoning isn’t off the table”.

Next question: “Does the PTA have a preference or a recommendation at this time?” Answer “we’re no fools. This is too political and we are not going to p*ss anyone off by doing anything other than stating the facts”

The woman who stands in front of Trader Joe’s trying to get people to oppose building a tower where the library is stands up. Duh, build a school on the library site. Cheers erupt.

Oh look! Councilman Levin has arrived. This is where the meeting starts to turn into a sh*tshow because he’s totally unprepared and fumbling and pretty much says nothing.

This guy is a joker.

Then the PTA presidents make the mistake of letting Doug Biviano ask the next “question” which turns into his campaign for the next council elections. Our friend calls him “the Teamster”. If he wasn’t using a meeting about OUR KIDS as a platform for his political future, I might have voted for him. (Publisher’s Note: Doug has 3 kids, all have gone to or are in P.S. 8)

Next question: “would the DOE consider moving the 5th grade into the middle school to make more space in the Lower School?” Great Idea!!!

Canned DOE answer “that’s on the table.”

Next question: “what are they using the school in the Dock Street building for?” DOE lady gives a vague answer that translates into “we have no f*cking idea”.

Next question (disclaimer – from the awesome asst head of my kids preschool) “when are you going to figure out how many kids will be accepted into K next year and what alternatives will then be given?”

Literally the DOE lady had NO idea what the answer was. She kept rambling about K applications being due in the fall. The gist of it is that nobody will know anything until at least April.

Some guy from the CEC (Community Educational Council, according to Google) starts talking about how this is a district wide issue from here to Bed Stuy and we should seek out other school and make them exceptional just like he did when he took a chance on PS 8 10 years ago.

Ok, now you want me to send my kid to school in Bed Stuy. When you took a chance on PS 8, it was in your neighborhood, so that argument only flies if you live like a block away from PS 307.

Beyond that there were more inane comments from Levin and a promise from Squadron and the guy from whatever dept at the DOE is in charge of buildings to bring in someone from the DOE who actually knows what they are talking about to answer questions.

In the interim, those of us with kids born in 2010 were encouraged to look at alternative options for next year.

It boiled down to these options for both long term and short term solutions:
1. Rezone
2. Increase class size
3. Build more schools
4. Have a lottery and bus kids out

Build more schools would be the ideal outcome. The library space is feasible. What about Squibb Park does anyone actually use it? What about Hillside Dog Run?

Talked to some friends afterwards and everyone is just freaked out about next year. Thanks again for making this all public AFTER private school applications were due.

The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of BHB. Tweets included in this piece are not from the author of the guest post.

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  • BrooklynBugle

    What is it that you don’t understand about publishing someone’s opinion and impression of a public hearing on a blog?

  • PubliusBklyn

    I’ll keep both homes, genius.

  • Reggie

    I disagree. There is a fundamental difference between a news or feature post and one that is trying to convince people of a certain opinion.

  • nicky

    i would suggest we stop picking this apart. A new school must be planned for now.. Levin and DeBlasio are the go to guys on this.
    Levin should ask for a moratorium on all devleopement until this is sorted out. If not.. what good is he? DeBlasio used us to get elected re LICH and then walked away.. He can make some of this up by stopping the luxery condos at the library site and by giving us a school and refurbished library. We need schools where
    our children can learn and not be packed in like sardines. This is just as important as affordable housing and should not be downplayed. How are those who are notthe 1% to live in this city.
    Bill you owe us a school for taking our hospital

  • nicky

    put the school on the library site. stop the condos in city public spaces

  • nicky

    you do not know about the library site for a school
    I am sure it can be done. It is the last centrally located site for a school… it can be done

  • nicky

    Doug makes perfect sense. Do not sell his comments short. Overdevelopment due to give aways and tax abatemenst are the basis of the problem. We need to stop overdevelopment until there is a plan for a school.. The libray site is centrally located and owned by the city including air rights. This is where a school and refurbished library needs to be. Can our electeds be creative and accomplish this.. Its an easy lift . I do not trust Councilman Levin to act in a forward thinking manner. Maybe Squadron can.. If they cannot .. out they go.. come the next election and Squadron’s dream of higher offfice ends here

    mr

  • Donald Brennan

    Anyone know why the DOE didn’t build more square footage than they did when they undertook the most recent expansion? I was under the impression they could have added significantly more space than they did.

  • Name

    The clear answer is that parts of DUMBO need to be rezoned for 307, which is on a tiny sliver that is actually sliced out of this zone (talk about Gerrymandering), however, everyone is afraid of pissing off the rich residents and developers of DUMBO

  • Name

    I don’t think anyone spoke poorly about the PTA or Mr. Philips – the frustration seems to be about the lack of any clarity of what is going to happen next year for parents applying to Kindergarten and what’s going to happen in the long term with all this building

  • heights res

    The library site needs to remain, as a library

  • Article Author

    That’s exactly my point. Will the Dumbo parents who don’t want to send their kids to 307 with the kids from the projects be more or less upset when Pre-Teen minority kids from all over the district are headed into DUMBO for middle school?

  • Article Author

    Doug,
    Sorry that I was snarky – I actually thought that you had a lot of great points, but it was clear that you were campaigning, you took too much time away from those of us who wanted to address the DOE and I thought it was the wrong forum for that. I lied though – I WILL TOTALLY VOTE FOR YOU if you run against Levin again (I actually have in the past, after having a nice conversation with you by the subway).
    Ranting Mom

  • Name

    Are you a current PS 8 parent? Then it’s easy for you to judge. Imagine that you were trying to get your child into Kindergarten at PS 8 after living in Brooklyn Heights for many years and there might not be room for your child because of all of the building of luxury housing? Imagine that if you even thought of private school then you’d be scraping by, but you want the best for your child. Would you be upset or would you be ok if they bussed your kid to another school in the district where they wouldn’t be getting as quality of an education, where they couldn’t have playdates b/c their friends live too far away (and you can’t afford a car), where you weren’t certain that they would be physically safe, where they would be a racial minority.
    It’s very easy to judge when you have nothing to worry about.

  • Name

    You seen very quick to throw stones. Are you a DUMBO parent who sends their kid to 307? You should be spending some time recruting.

  • Slyone

    In response to d13parent, one area of common ground might be searching for ways to reduce the notable disconnect between the “target size” for lower elementary school classrooms (20 kids in K-3) and the “legal (UFT contract) limit of 32 in 1st – 3rd grades. Another might be trying to figure out and address how and why the DOE often fails in capacity planning. There are several schools in D13 in addition to PS8 that are coming up on capacity problems.

    In response to Name, I think we’d want to look very carefully to make sure rezoning alone was a sufficient fix to address even just the medium term capacity shortfall, especially in conjunction with all the growth in downtown Brooklyn. PS307, according to its register and the Blue Book, is basically at capacity this year (it is growing fast!). Even if there is still some room for growth, there’s not that much capacity there.

  • Lady in the Heights

    This thread amazes me. We sent our daughter to PS8 in Seth’s 2nd year. The school was under enrolled and only 25% white. We worked closely with the BHA and Judy Stanton to get BH folks to consider it. Most of the kids came from outside the zone, and was well over 50% black. People would look at us in horror and wonder how we could take a chance with our daughter’s education. We were shocked at the subtle racism our liberal, educated BH neighbors openly expressed. There were 17 kids in her K class and had some of the best teachers she has ever had (most are still there teaching). She in now in 10th grade and in one of the best HS’s in the city. Lighten up people! I promise the parents of kids in the projects care about their kids too!

  • hicksanthrope

    If it was thoughtful and intelligent, it would be one thing… but it’s not.

  • BrooklynBugle

    Nobody’s perfect.

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