City Approves Co-Location of Charter School at PS 92

Last night, as expected, the NYC Panel for Educational Policy voted to approve plans for Lefferts Gardens Charter School to co-locate at PS 92. (See the Daily News.) For supporters of the charter school, it's a huge victory; if the vote didn't go their way, the school could have ended up being sited some distance from the neighborhood.

So what now? Certainly some celebrating is in order. But the charter school leaders need to also dig in their heels and get started on seriously building support in Afro-Caribbean communities around here. If the charter school student body is overwhelmingly white and relatively affluent (as it was at Monday's public hearing), it's going to make the tensions between the two schools at 601 Parkside all that more tense, particularly if the school draws a bunch of kids from out of the district.

There's been a lively discussion on the Lefferts Yahoo group about the local school situation. If you're not already on that list, you may want to sign up and read the archives. (Reading archives requires a Yahoo account but subscribing to the email list does not.)

One standout item was a post by Johnny Kline, a neighbor on Hawthorne, including a list of suggestions for building community support for the school. We like them so much that we're copying them here:

• Build committed individual relationships with leaders who are trusted in the community with which you want to partner. Around here, that means clergy and congregational leaders, teachers and principals, parent groups, and CBO (community-based organizations) workers.
• Gain invitations to the places where these leaders meet with their groups and make presentations in their environment. Build more individual committed relationships with potential allies from these meetings.  
• Use listening and understanding as the primary tools in building these relationships.
• Be willing to adjust goals and strategy in order to include the perspectives and interests of these groups.
• Be certain the leadership of your organization reflects the communities with which you want to partner.
• Judge your success by the strength of the individual relationships you are building.

Comments

[CityPragmatist]

The rapidity of the DOE decision says a lot about its lack of respect for public input.

[BCTOBK]

The PLCS organizers and supporters (of which I am one) have 7 months to help make the first day of school a celebration of educational choice in PLG and a model for community integration.

I am prepared to do whatever that takes. But who should be leading "the willing" on this?

[carrie]

> The rapidity of the DOE decision says a lot about its lack of respect for public input.

I wouldn't say that. Many more people who spoke at the hearing supported the charter school than opposed it. From what I've heard about these hearings (at least, what the DOE claims) is that they are essentially numbers games: whoever has the most speakers in favor wins.

Also, schools opening their doors this fall need to know where they'll be located ASAP, as the location will help determine who decides to go there.

[Seth]

> The rapidity of the DOE decision says a lot about its lack of respect for public input.

Yes.

I am a strong supporter of Lefferts Gardens Charter School, but the public hearing is really pro forma. I believe DOE approved all charter co-location requests except one which wanted to mix 12th graders in a school with 6th graders. The speakers in opposition to the charter on Monday night were completely correct that Chancellor Joel Klein wants charter schools located in existing public schools and that he isn't really listening to them. This is pretty much true.

(it's important to clarify that I'm not talking about the approval of charters, but the approval of their location)

I think the real benefit of the public hearing on Monday was a fostering of a much greater awareness in the community of the feelings about the new school. This has already inspired a lot of discussion and interest in forging better relations and better understanding. I was a little unnerved by the meeting on Monday but today on Thursday I think it's the best thing that could have ever happened.