CARL GLASSMAN / TRIBECA TRIB

Elizabeth Rose presents the DOE's school rezoning plan at a public hearing held early this month. Tuesday night she said that plan may change because of criticism leveled against it.

The Department of Education appears to be having a change of heart over its much-criticized proposal to send north Tribeca kindergartners to school in Greenwich Village.

“What I hear is, 'We want you to go back to the drawing board. We want you to rethink the Canal Street issue and placing 234 kids above Canal Street,'” Elizabeth Rose, the DOE’s Director of Manhattan Planning, told a meeting of District 2’s Community Education Council Wednesday night. The CEC is expected to vote on a final version of the plan in December.

“We need time to figure out if there are ways that we can still address the 234 wait list without this particular strategy. If there are ways that we can accommodate some of the specific requests that we’ve heard,” Rose added.

At a hearing held early this month, the proposal, which splits Tribeca in half at North Moore Street, was roundly denounced by parents living in northern Tribeca. They said it would separate their children from their own neighborhood and expose them to the dangers of crossing Canal Street.

CEC members also have spoken out against the plan for Tribeca. At a special zoning meeting held on Oct. 17, they appeared unwilling to support the proposal if it came to a vote.

In a resolution passed on Tuesday, Community Board 1 also sided with north Tribeca parents, saying the DOE proposal “provided no significant remedy” to the demand for kindergarten seats at P.S. 234.

Though she had not spoken out publicly, P.S. 234 principal Lisa Ripperger told the Trib Tuesday that she, too, agrees with the north Tribeca parents.

“I hear what people are saying in northern Tribeca about wanting to be part of the Tribeca community and I support their desire to want to stay here,” Ripperger said. “There’s no easy alternative in terms of what other slice of the 234 zone we’re going to slice off and move someplace else.”

But Ripperger cautioned that if the P.S. 234 zone remains intact, a kindergarten wait list is a near certainty next year. Four-year-olds throughout Tribeca (who do not already have siblings in the school) will be subject to possible assignments at another school. So far, residents from the southern end of Tribeca have not voiced their opinions on the DOE’s zoning proposal. “They should be coming to the hearings, too,” said Ripperger. “This is not just about the people who live in northern Tribeca.”

CEC members have complained that the DOE’s proposal, which sends Tribeca children to P.S. 3 on Grove Street, only serves to push the crowding north, in a domino effect, into Greenwich Village and Chelsea schools, where rezoning is also taking place.

It is not known, of course, how many children in north Tribeca would end up at P.S. 3 under the proposed zoning. But according to figures provided to the Trib by P.S. 234’s parent coordinator, Magda Lenski, there are 13 kindergartners from that area attending the school this year who do not have older siblings in the school.  (In total, 26 kindergartners from north Tribeca go to the school, Lenski said.)

Rose said on Wednesday that she expected to present the next "iteration" of a proposed Lower Manhattan zoning plan at a CEC zoning meeting to be held in November.

COMMENTS? Write to tribeditor@tribecatrib.com

It is with some surprise that South Tribeca residents have read in the last online Tribeca Trib article that:
"So far, residents from the southern end of Tribeca have not voiced their opinions on the DOE’s zoning proposal. “They should be coming to the hearings, too,” said Ripperger. “This is not just about the people who live in northern Tribeca.”

This is simply a gross misrepresentation:

The residents from the southern end of Tribeca DO follow very closely ALL the meetings. Representatives of south Tribeca residents such as Grace Flood or myself DO talk at meetings and always in a spirit of community: we did talk against DOE plan sending North Tribeca children across Canal Street. We also email our suggestions to the District 2 Community Education Council, bring data to the whole community (at yesterday meeting Grace Flood gave data projections on new developments, a research nobody did so far) and of course we discuss about the rezoning issues with our fellow neighbors pretty much every day.

"Thanks" to the previous rezoning two years ago, South Tribeca parents are very well connected and the ones who attend meetings send reports to the whole group allowing us not to appear in number and letting more speech time for others. We are in fact much more engaged in the rezoning process than any other part of Tribeca. For memory, two years ago North Tribeca residents virtually vanished from all the rezoning meetings once they felt on the “safe” side, something we are not doing as we believe in Tribeca as a whole neighborhood and the south as an essential part of it.

PS.234 is our neighborhood school, we can say it loudly and in great number if needed but we are willing to be thoughtful and caring first.

Thank you.

Estelle Artus, parent of a 4 year old and resident of South Tribeca.