SCHOOLS

P.S. 89 Teachers Denounce Feb. 4 Move

By Carl Glassman

When Rebecca Caban contemplates returning with her kindergarten students to P.S. 89 in Battery Park City, she can’t help but recall their terrible last day there. She remembers pulling children away from the window where they watched the towers burn, and calling to other teachers for blankets to shield innocent eyes from the horrific view. She struggles with the notion of leaving the comfort of the Lower East Side school where P.S. 89 is now housed, and going back to that classroom, with its vista of Ground Zero and lonely sky.

Like her fellow teachers at the school, Caban insists that she and the children will not be ready on Feb. 4, the day the Board of Education says they must return.

In an interview late last month with three P.S. 89 teachers and Principal Ronnie Najjar, Caban said she would have to "think very seriously" about returning.

"I got into this job because I care very deeply about children," said Caban, pausing to choke back tears. "And I’m a teacher, but teaching young children does not come without the caring and without the protection of them."

The teachers interviewed said two or three of their colleagues would consider resigning rather than move back early next month.

"I don’t even want to think about that," said first grade teacher Ingrid Blinken. "The community has already been broken up in so many ways. To have the children suffer another loss like that would be so sad."

P.S. 89 teachers say that moving to Battery Park City on Feb. 4, the day also slated for P.S. 234’s return to its nearby building in Tribeca, could put the children at risk both emotionally and physically, and disrupt the routine they had finally achieved. They believe that their uprooted families would be further disturbed by a third move in less than five months. And unlike P.S. 234, P.S. 89 has no expiring lease forcing them to move.

The Board of Ed’s final pronouncement came last month, with P.S. 234 parents winning an extra month at St. Bernard’s school on West 13th Street, to return on Feb. 4, the same date P.S. 150 is expected back in its building in Independence Plaza. I.S. 89, far more eager to return than the lower school, will return Jan. 22.
The teachers demonstrated their conviction on Dec. 17 when they appeared en masse, along with Principal Ronnie Najjar, before Deputy Chancellor David Klasfeld and other Board of Education officials.

The staff presented a five-page statement of concerns and "conditions" for returning. Najjar did not lend her name to the document but said Feb. 4 is "incredibly premature" and called the teachers’ action "courageous."
"My big question is, what do you lose by staying here?" said Najjar. "The only gain I see of us leaving is for [the Giuliani administration] to have their normalcy vision of downtown. I’m glad that downtown is rebuilding. I’m committed to the area. But I don’t want to be a pawn in that. We need our own timetable that meets the needs of our school."

Board of Education and District 2 officials insist that P.S. 89 children are as ready as any to return. "Every other school is going back on Feb. 4 or before," said Board of Education spokeswoman Catie Marshall. "They are eager to go back. What makes 89 different?"

Marshall refuted Najjar’s argument that there is no urgent reason to leave their temporary home, which houses NEST+M, a new District 1 science, technology and math program.

"They have a state-of-the-art school building in their neighborhood and they are guests at NEST, just as P.S. 234 is a guest of the archdiocese and P.S. 150 is a guest at P.S. 3," she said.

In their written plea to the Board of Education, the P.S. 89 teachers said that "numerous" pupils are "displaying regressive behaviors, experiencing nightmares, behaving erratically, and expressing overwhelming anxiety about violence…"

Recently, psychologists began visiting the school almost daily, but Najjar and the staff complain that the counseling is coming too late for the Feb. 4 move. "It’s been addressed very slowly," said Najjar.

"It just is not true," replied Marshall. "What is going to happen [in the beginning of January] will be intense counseling in all the downtown schools every day. Mental health experts have told us that one month’s time is enough to get kids acclimated to the notion that they’re going back to the school."

While the teachers unanimously oppose a move on Feb. 4, the parents do not. A recent survey showed that two-thirds favor staying put until certain conditions are met, including moving the barge operation from Pier 25 and the debris-carrying trucks from West Street. They fear the air will make outdoor recess unsafe.

PTA co-chairs Sharon Sprague and David Bushman sent a lengthy letter to Chancellor Harold Levy late last month, urging him to reconsider. "We need a written explanation from you as to why you are pushing us back so soon," they demanded.

"The fires are out, the air is safe. What is the delay?" said Marshall, speaking for Levy. She cited the city’s efforts to wet debris and wash down the streets and its plan to continually clean the school’s floors, playground and mats.

The teachers have said they would like to return in May, a few weeks before the school year ends, but they acknowledge that the date is a starting point for negotiation. Najjar said that she might favor going back at the end of February, during winter break.

"I’m still holding out that we can compromise," the principal said. "But if it comes back that it’s Feb. 4, then we’re moving Feb. 4. I don’t know how much more I can fight."