Parents Speak About Downtown Schools By Etta Sanders Elementary school crowding and the need for a local middle school dominated a town hall meeting on April 6, as parents and school principals addressed City Councilman Alan Gerson, Department of Education officials and community board members. For more than three hours, parents stressed the urgency of more space as the population at P.S. 234 grows, as well as the problems of safety and convenience for families who have to send 6th graders out of the neighborhood to middle school. “I have heard powerful comments from parents about the idea of community and having a school that’s close,” said Peter Heany, Department of Education (DOE) region nine superintendent. But how to achieve the goal of a local middle school, large enough for all students in the CB1 area, was not clear. “We really need to have a school that’s for the children of the community, whether that’s IS 89 or building a new school, I don’t know,” said P.S. 89 PTA co-president Angela Benfield, who also has a daughter at I.S. 89. Deputy regional superintendent Mariano Guzman said that because a zoned middle school must be large enough to accommodate all neighborhood students, I.S. 89 is too small to be zoned. Additionally, he said, the large majority of Downtown parents chose middle school schools out of the neighborhood, and of those who do select I.S. 89 as their first choice very few are turned away. The students who are not admitted, said I.S. 89 principal Ellen Foote, require resources the school cannot offer. And several I.S. 89 parents said the school is successful and they want it to stay open to all students throughout the district. “I believe in the choice program for our students. I think it’s working really well,” said Cheryl Moch, a Battery Park City resident and mother of a 7th grader at I.S. 89 who opposes the zoning of I.S. 89. “On the other hand, I think we definitely need in lower Manhattan a zoned middle school. It’s ridiculous to ask families who want to go to a local school to go so far away. But 89 is not that school.” The answer is more schools, many parents said, not the zoning of an existing school. “It’s pretty clear to me that we just don’t have the capacity,” said Brad Bodwell. He also took issue with a statement by former CB1 board chair Madelyn Wils that getting a new east side school was a gift. “I think getting schools built here that match our population growth is more of a right than a gift.” According to current DOE demographic projections, lower Manhattan will need 600 new seats over the next five years, said Jamie Smarr of the School Construction Authority. That is the size of the new east side K-8 grade school projected to open in the fall of 2008. But as parents described the rate of residential development, Smarr seemed surprised. “Tonight I’ve heard 30,000 new units, 15,000 new units. It’s kind of scaring me. But if all of these units get built, then we’ll have a new projection,” he said. In an effort to keep residential development from outpacing classroom space, the city promised in an agreement signed by Gerson and Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff in the fall of 2004, to make “reasonable efforts” to have a new k-8 school opened by the time residents move into apartments on site 5B, the lot to the south of PS 234. But the developer of the site, Minskoff Equities, expects the nearly 400 apartments to be occupied more than a year before the new school opens. “Daniel Doctoroff signed an agreement that said the city will make reasonable efforts to have the school ready before the Minskoff building is occupied,” said Andrew Weinstein, a P.S. 234 parent.  “What I’d like to know is, is the Minskoff building going to be denied a C of O [certificate of occupancy] until that school is built?” The idea struck a chord with Heany, although building occupancy is governed by the buildings department not the DOE. “I love the idea of saying you can’t move into the building until the school is built,” he said. Gerson said he planned to “hold the city’s feet to the fire” on the agreement, but he admitted that there is little recourse unless it can be demonstrated that the city is unreasonably delaying the construction of the school. In an interview last month with the Trib, Minskoff senior vice president Carlos Olivieri, said no city official had approached the developer about delaying occupancy. As the meeting neared an end, Gerson said a contingency plan might be needed for PS 234 over the next few years. One parent, Jonathan Levine, floated a solution. Perhaps an out-of-commission cruise ship could be docked nearby and used as a temporary school. It would offer not only space, he said, but also a pool.