P.S. 89 Takes Painful Journey to Feb. 28 By Carl Glassman   P.S. 89’s beleaguered and badly fractured parent body are heading—ready or not—for a return to their Battery Park City building on Feb. 28. That date, offered by the Board of Education as a compromise to the Feb. 4 return it had long insisted upon, was approved by parents and teachers in a 191 to 114 ballot count on Jan. 28. The vote appeared to put to rest a court action brought by the P.T.A.’s executive committee. But it seemed to do little, right away at least, to mend deep rifts among parents over the environmental risks of returning to the school while World Trade Center debris is trucked and barged near its doors. As some parents talked of celebrating the reopening with a grand parade, complete with waving flags and marching band, others were submitting variance applications, applying to private schools, and trading information on homeschooling. By the end of last month, it was unclear how many families planned to withdraw their children from the school, but almost any loss can seem significant for a school population that already has dwindled by more than 40 percent since Sept. 10. "It’s a horrible thing for them to have to make this choice, to pull their child away from a school and their friends and then to feel they lost," said PTA co-chair Sharon Sprague, who took the position over from a predecessor who left the school. "They’re devastated and I feel for them." Pausing, she added, "I may be one of them." Parents and teachers first voted, at a PTA meeting on Jan. 15, to allow the PTA’s executive board to sue the Board of Education in hopes of halting the then-mandated Feb. 4 return. A few days later Board of Education officials offered a new date of Feb. 28. Parents voted again, this time by paper ballots sent home in backpacks. Those ballots were yet uncounted on Monday, Jan.28 as lawyers for the two factions of parents and the Board of Education negotiated in State Supreme Court before Judge Michael Stallman. The judge said he hoped to avoid litigation that would be harmful to the school’s children and parents but he failed to broker an agreement and on Tuesday the ballots were counted, The majority said they wanted to drop the suit and return on Feb. 28. By now parents intent on going back on Feb. 28 had coalesced as Parents for a Positive Return, hoping to show the judge and the media that the vocal group fighting the Board of Education did not speak for them. They rejoiced when Sprague and the board sent a note home, telling parents the executive board would abide by the vote. But opponents of the return went into a rage. Citing recent readings inside the school that showed above-normal levels for particulates, they claimed that a vote by uninformed parents was invalid. Sprague, who began leading the PTA in the fall after her harried predecessor quit the school, said that "numerous" parents have called for her resignation. "A lot of people who want to stay out are kicking and screaming. They feel they have no options and they feel I’ve betrayed them," she said. The Board of Education, as well as the environmental consultant hired by the PTA have told parents at P.S. 89, as they did at   P.S. 234, that readings are within safe limits. But with the most recent concerns, parents organized a Feb. 5 meeting with environmental and health experts, after which they wanted to give parents a chance to change their votes. District 2 Superintendent Shelley Harwayne reportedly blocked an effort by parents to send a note home, informing them of another balloting. PTA board member Maria Ouranitsas said that she would like to use the meeting to mend fences and say to both sides, "we all had the best intentions." "Being on the board has been the worst experience in the last month," Orinitsas said. "There’s so much pressue to try to do the right thing for everybody. And then you realize, there is no right thing for everybody."