CEC 6 demands co-locations removed from October PEP meeting

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 19, 2013

Members of Community Education Council District 6 Demand Co-locations Be Removed from October Calendar of the Panel for Educational Policy

At the August 15 Community Education Council District 6 (CEC6) public meeting, the Office of Portfolio Management (OPM) verbally presented proposals to co-locate two new schools in already co-located District 6 (D6) buildings. They stated proposals would be voted on at the October 15 and 30 PEP meetings. This came after OPM released publicly plans for new technical schools throughout New York City; see link here for more information.

Although adding middle and high school grades to D6 is important, these new co-locations will create “tri-located” buildings in our district, which has a history of unsuccessful and divisive co-locations. Two elected members of CEC6 are parent leaders at the affected schools, MS 192 (located at 138th Street between Amsterdam and Broadway) and MS 52 (located at Academy Street and Broadway). At no point were parents consulted regarding siting two new schools in these buildings, although parents at both schools supported grade expansions for their existing schools, recently requested grade expansions were denied.

Despite explicit requests from CEC6, the August 15 OPM presentation was not accompanied by materials that detailed the proposed co-locations for the council or the audience. Further, CEC 6 requested this information in both English and Spanish for several weeks prior to the meeting, because a large proportion of CEC6 parents speak Spanish and several members of CEC6 are new.

The undersigned members of CEC6 are asking for your support in removing both proposals from the PEP calendar, until we as the Community Education Council of District 6 can engage the D6 public education community and understand fully what the potential effects of the co-locations may be. Until schools open in September, it is impossible for our CEC to “walk through” a school and complete the assessment required in order to advise the DOE, as required by state statute.  Our goal is to ensure that no child's education is negatively impacted by these proposed co-locations in District 6.

At the time of this release, the following CEC6 members gave consent: Victoria Frye,Yuderka Valdez, Shenell Evans, Miriam Aristy-Farer

We request your support and presence at the

September CEC 6 public meeting

Thursday 9/19

7-10pm

4360 Broadway, Room 430

We believe that it would make a difference in ensuring that the DOE sees that proper process is not being followed (given the timing of their presentations to parents) and the inability of CEC6 to analyze the proposals.

For more information please contact:

Miriam Aristy-Farer

MBP appointee

CEC 6 Interim President

minks@fristys.com, 212-926-3130

Yuderka Valdez

CEC 6 Interim Secretary

yudy_b@yahoo.com, 917-657-5042