JESSICA TERRELL / TRIBECA TRIB

The Community Education Council meets Wednesday night. The panel voted unanimously to reject the Department of Education's most recent zoning plan for Lower Manhattan.

To the jubilant applause of parents, District 2’s Community Education Council (CEC) voted unanimously Wednesday night to reject a Department of Education proposal that would send some Tribeca kindergartners to P.S. 1 in Chinatown.

The revised plan, meant to rezone five Lower Manhattan elementary schools, including a new school at Peck Slip, had been presented only a week before by the Department of Education. But within days, Tribeca parents in the affected zone had organized a campaign to have it rejected. The CEC, a panel of parents empowered to approve zoning plans, is expected to vote on a final plan in December.

"We've had a lot of significant feedback and it's been overwhelmingly negative at this point," said Eric Goldberg, co-chair of the CEC’s Zoning Committee. "That's why we are introducing a resolution to reject the plan."

In an interview with the Trib on Tuesday, even the P.S. 1 principal, Amy Hom, said she had serious doubts about the plan.

In its resolution, the CEC called on the DOE to come up with a new proposal, its third since September. The panel demanded a plan that would "keep neighborhoods intact" and prevent children from having to cross Canal Street or go farther east than the Civic Center. But they warned that however the map lines are drawn, some Tribeca children will not go to P.S. 234.

"This does not mean everyone gets to stay in their zoned school," Michael Markowitz, Zoning Committee co-chair said. "It just means we are not carving you out ahead of time."

Markowitz said the CEC was hoping to see a new plan from the DOE by its scheduled Zoning Committee meeting on Nov. 28 so that it could vote at its December meeting. If the DOE does not return with a better proposal, he said, the CEC will either vote for a plan it doesn't like or Peck Slip will go without a zone and be filled by lottery with kids from across Lower Manhattan. The school will "incubate" in Tweed Courthouse until its building opens in 2015.

"Effectively what we are doing at the community’s request is dumping these two schools into a lottery situation," Markowitz said.

The DOE presented its “formal” proposal on Nov. 8 after a first draft was opposed by Community Board 1 and appeared to be headed for rejection by the CEC. That plan would have split Tribeca at North Moore Street, sending children in the northern part of the neighborhood to P.S 3 in Greenwich Village. North Tribeca parents said they feared the commute across Canal Street and complained their children were being separated from their community.

Residents affected by the revised plan, who had come to the meeting expecting to speak out in opposition to being zoned for P.S. 1, found themselves thanking the CEC for its unexpected action or leaving the meeting before it was their time to comment.

"I was rather stunned to see the scheme for Tribeca," said James Sanders, whose 3-year-old would have been zoned for P.S. 1. Since zoning is an ongoing issue, Sanders said, he hoped the DOE would do a better job of considering the commute to school for parents. "There is literally no transportation between Tribeca and  P.S. 1," he said. "I would ask that in the future that is given some thought."

In fact, Elizabeth Rose, the DOE official in charge of the zoning, had said better transportation—north and south—was part of the reasoning for the first plan, which would have made P.S. 3 on Grove Street the zoned school for north Tribeca.

In recent interviews, some parents affected by the second proposal said they would consider moving rather than being zoned for P.S. 1. Others said they'd prefer to cast their fate with a lottery.

"At least in a lottery everyone has an equal chance of getting in," said Dawn Ryan, the mother of a 3-year-old.

Another mother, who asked not to be identified, said she would rather that class sizes be increased at P.S. 234 "than send my child to other communities where he doesn't know anyone and doesn't feel part of the community."

"There's elementary school fatigue at this point," the mother added, "and my son's only three."

— Additional reporting by Faith Paris