Checking In With the Downtown Brooklyn School Initiative
Downtown Brooklyn School Solutions continues to push for more educational options in Downtown Brooklyn since the group started earlier this year. They’ve written an open letter to developers of sites in the neighborhood encouraging them to include a school as part of their future projects, and identified a few locations where developers could build a…
Downtown Brooklyn School Solutions continues to push for more educational options in Downtown Brooklyn since the group started earlier this year. They’ve written an open letter to developers of sites in the neighborhood encouraging them to include a school as part of their future projects, and identified a few locations where developers could build a school in exchange for concessions from the city. They’ve also crunched some numbers to find that 2,651 new elementary school-aged children will be living in Downtown Brooklyn by 2018 but as of 2011, there were only 396 available seats in the existing schools that serve the neighborhood which spans Districts 13 and 15. An urban planner recently reported similar findings to Community Board Two. Since Downtown Brooklyn School Solutions started, a charter school announced that it was opening at 80 Willoughby Street and will accommodate as many as 300 students.
Families Push for Elementary School Downtown [Brownstoner]
Map of Downtown Brooklyn developments via DBSS
Agree totally with LWSabre98. Plenty of parents white, black, brown or other have tried to make 38 a good school, but the principal has thwarted all their efforts. For many It’s in for pre-k and then out to the other District 15 choices. After 7 years of public school, the parents can only do so much if the principal won’t budge. Ramirez can get an A from the corporate testing conglomerate (she was a Joel Klein acolyte) but the opinions of parents and teachers are another thing. When our child was there, many teachers told us to look for another school as soon as we could. We did and got into a choice school, but just because we knew how to navigate the system. Not many parents have the time, energy or knowledge how to get their kid into a good public school.
That said, I can see the shortage being a real problem for District 13 and 15. Kindergarten entry has been tough for many people.
There is a good reason PS 38 is underpopulated. The administration is not good, to put it mildly. My former roommate taught there for a few years and had so many issues with the principal/administration (including refusals to get students spec. ed evaluations who needed them and falsified memos to try to make it look like my friend, who got in an hour early every day and stayed at least an hour or 2 every night plus the work she did at home, was not fulfilling her responsibilities) who eventually got put on administrative leave after a recording of her threatening the teachers “not to air their dirty laundry” on the end of year principal survey was released and one of her cronies took over. From my understanding, not much has changed since then. As someone who works in education, I am all for sending (my yet to born) children to schools that have the potential for improvement and getting involved to make that happen, but not with that type of “leadership.” http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/brooklyn-principal-yolanda-ramirez-investigation-intimidating-teachers-school-surveys-article-1.166915
Attn white families of Downtown Brooklyn: there are no shortcuts. PS 287–the main zoned schools in dobro–has hundreds upon hundreds of vacant seats. Too many poor black kids for you? Go join the PTA, raise money, and fill it with your Mini Boden-clad tots, which is what happened with all the “desirable” schools around brownstone Brooklyn, some of which, unfortunately, now resemble Darien Connecticut.
I wish there was a real advocacy group working with reality, and worrying about the shortage of placements for middle school in downtown Brooklyn. That would be a lot more productive for all residents.
So who is running “Downtown Brooklyn School Solutions?”
Well said. Pray De Blasio wins!
You seem to know a lot about this. Where do you live and where do you send your kids to school?
There is no over-population problem in the making. Many of the surrounding schools are under-enrolled, including 287 and 38. Incoming white dbbro families just don’t like the schools they’re zoned for. If downtown brooklyn was zoned for PS 29, you wouldn’t be hearing a word about “over-population.”