Open Thread Wednesday

Abe, you should be very ashamed of your the many Racist statements you have made….and your repatriation plans…I think we should seriously review the distance of your monument in DC and elsewhere….

Have been meaning to reply for a while, have just been on vaca. Thanks for the thoughtful response. None of the challenges of the issue are lost on me or, I am sure, the other waitlisted parents. I attended every single one of the rezoning meetings two years ago well in advance of our daughter’s kindergarten attendance bc I wanted to understand the issues and alternatives. The biggest issues to my mind now are the lack of transparency and communication. Though you noted the parent coordinator could only say what was authorized by the doe, she typically didn’t even tell parents that much given that she did not return any phone calls or emails… ever. I only got in touch with her via repeated calls rather than getting messages returned, and other waitlisted parents couldn’t believe that I ever even managed to get her to talk at all based on their experiences. Beyond that, no one has told us why it was okay to have 6 k classes in 2014-2015 but not this year, when this year in our understanding there are fewer second grade classes than in the past (though per the new Brooklyn Paper article, the DOE will not confirm this or anything else about enrollment). I have no problem saying that addressing the waitlist isn’t as simple as adding another class, but the lack of transparency on solutions considered and how a decision was made is a real issue. One is left with the impression, as I think you imply, that the doe is content not to address the problem for years to come as long as there is “spare capacity” in district even if most Brooklyn Heights families won’t view that capacity as meeting their needs. These are our tax dollars at work and we at least deserve to understand how these decisions are being made.