P.S. 8 Overcrowding Update: Community Engagement Meeting This Wednesday

By on May 11, 2015 10:10 am in Brooklyn Heights, Education, Kids, News, Parents, schools

The District 13 CEC in conjunction with State Senator Daniel Squadron, Councilmember Steve Levin and Assemblyperson Jo Anne Simon will hold a Community Engagement meeting with the New York City Department of Education this Wednesday, May 13th.   The gathering is scheduled for 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm in the Library of P.S. 287, 50 Navy Street in Brooklyn.

The stakeholders explained the purpose of the meeting in a joint statement.

“It’s critical that DOE address the serious issues that have been exacerbated by their mishandling of overcrowding at PS 8. CEC 13, local elected officials, and community members have asked DOE to hear these concerns and provide clarity on how and why decisions are made.”

Parents representing children wait-listed at P.S. 8 will start the meeting with a presentation to the DOE who will then have a chance to respond.  A broader Q&A will follow thereafter.  The parent group making the presentation calls itself WeArePS8Too, previously launched a facebook page and petition imploring the DOE to restore the 6th Kindergarten class for 2015-16 school year.

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  • johnny cakes

    No more condos.

  • Fritz

    Am I missing something? Why not meet at PS 8, rather than the more distant PS 287?

  • BHMommy

    Because the CEC (David Goldsmith) for whatever reason is involved and refuses to hold it anywhere else more convenient (likely beause they don’t want parents to show up) and the elected officials can’t get the DOE there without the CEC (again, a mystery).

  • Reggie

    Paging Occam’s razor. Occam’s razor to the white courtesy phone.

  • Stonebridge

    Hi there,

    I’m Amy Shire, a CEC member (and also a former PS 8/current MS 8 parent). I want to clear up any misunderstanding as to the decision-making re location.
    1) This is a CEC-initiated/convened meeting, and must be held in a public school. The logical choices were one of the downtown schools, as opposed to something farther out in the district.
    2) The evening of Wednesday, May 12th was designated by the DOE as a parent-teacher conference night. Neither PS 8 nor 307 had room for us on this date – they have their hands full on that evening and there was no space available adequate to the needs of the meeting.
    3) PS 287 has a lovely and spacious library, and could accommodate us (though they also have P-T conferences).

    That’s why 287 was chosen.

    [Speaking personally only: even if it had been possible to hold it at PS 8, I wondered if might feel a bit insensitive to some, to hold it there – might have felt it was a “tease” for those parents who didn’t get in. But this is something the CEC would have consulted the wait-listed parents about, not assumed. In any event, it was not the reason. I’m just saying.]

    Please note this was not the CEC’s first choice of date. It conflicts with many D13 activities, in fact. It was chosen as the only date that could accommodate the schedule of various electeds who wanted to be there.

  • Stonebridge

    Sorry for the typo – I meant May 13th, above. – Amy

  • Fritz

    Explanation accepted.

  • Zoned child on wait list

    If anyone is on the PS 199 waitlist in Manhattan, please email ps199waitlist@hotmail.com to help ensure all zoned children attend their zoned school.

  • ConcernedNeighbor

    Hi Amy, Fritz, It’s my understanding that tomorrow’s meeting was spearheaded by the WeArePS8Too group in order to gain insights – and have a voice, and choice – into decisions impacting their young children’s education. A meeting with the DOE and elected officials was requested. Can you help to clarify the CEC’s role in this specific issue?

  • Stonebridge

    Hi there,

    WeArePS8Too will be presenting tomorrow night – and I assume there will be lively discussion! But no, they did not spearhead this. This meeting was initiated by the CEC, who invited the DOE to come and directly address parents’ (completely understandable) frustrations with both the process and the outcome. We add our own frustration with the overall lack of planning for the district’s needs (more on that in a minute).

    Wait-listed parents/WAPS8T asked to help plan the agenda and make a presentation.

    The genesis of this meeting began several weeks ago, in the period just prior to folks getting their kindergarten placements. Various CEC members – myself, David, others – had been (and continue to be) in conversation with both wait-listed and current PS 8 parents, and could see there was a great need for a forum, for several reasons – definitely to let parents’ voices be heard, but also to address a lot of misinformation and rumor that was hard to quell in the midst of people’s distress.

    We wish this meeting could have been held a lot sooner than now.

    The wider context for this meeting is a great need for overall District-wide planning, and we hope to be able to talk about that a bit as well. A task force is being formed to address the issues related to overcrowding, enrollment, and maintaining/developing quality downtown schools within this larger context of district-wide needs. The thing is – what one school does enrollment-wise affects others in a district. So it’s really not wise to simply make a decision for one school in isolation. This task force is long overdue – but we’re hoping that we (CEC, affected school administrators, reps from the D13 parent community, including those zoned for downtown schools, the DOE, electeds, community groups, etc.) can put together a provisional plan for community input by early fall. Date not set in stone here! Just talking. But that’s the hope.

  • monty

    There wasn’t any room!

  • AnonyMom

    To further clarify, while the CEC was planning their D13 Taskforce meeting, parents of wait-listed children were seeking meetings with their elected officials. One meeting, with Daniel Squadron grew too large for the Brooklyn offices. Because of time restraints and availability of stakeholders WeArePS8Too’s request to meet with officials was piggy backed onto the CEC meeting. WeArePS8Too requested that they have a chance to speak at the CEC meeting because there has been, to date, no other venue for their voices to be heard.

  • Stonebridge

    Thanks for filling in that piece. I wasn’t aware of the entire backstory. – Amy