Re: Charter Schools

Thanks for your response, and for looking into the matter. My understanding of what happened at that meeting was that the plan to place the PAVE Academy Charter School in PS15's building has been temporarily put on hold. While that may be a step in the right direction, and I definitely appreciate Councilmember Gonzales's efforts to support PS15 in this matter, this is still a  a temporary resolution, and the bottom line is that we're still concerned that the DOE will put off making a definite decision until so late in June that it will be difficult for us to coordinate an appropriate response should they decide to place the charter school in our building - and when I've called the DOE on several occasions, they have given me incredibly vague responses that amount to this : they dont know when they'll make the final decision about placement of the school, they don't know when they'll schedule an official meeting with the community about this, and nobody there seems to know (or won't tell me) who's responsible for scheduling these meeting or making the decisions (this is according to Michael Duffy himself, by the way).

 

Anyway, what can parents at PS15 do to make the DOE schedule an official meeting, get them to answer our questions honestly, and how can we best make it clear that we don't want the DOE to place a private business (which is what this charter school is) on the premises of a public school that deserves their full support - especially since PS15 has received honors in the past few years for fully supporting the educational needs of children in a neighborhood that has remarkably few other resources? The combination of both PS15 and the Beacon program that's housed in the school make the place an anchor for the community, and a valuable resource will have to struggle much harder in the face of budget cuts if an additional and  competing institution is co-housed in the same building - this would be completely wrong, and can't be allowed to happen.

 

Thanks

 

Emily Brown 

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 3:14 PM, Sarah Figuereo <sarah.figuereo@gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Emily,

 

I am Sarah and I work for Councilmember Bill de Blasio. I spoke to Mark Schwienzberg at Councilmember Gonzales office and they said they held a meeting with the community, school, parents, and DOE.

 

I am trying to get more information on what the outcomes was of those meetings. I will inform you as I get the information. Thank you for alerting us.

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