Save the date – City Council hearings

February 21, 2017

A week from today, the City Council will hold hearings on the need to improve school planning and siting process.

When: Tues. Feb. 28 starting at 10 AM

Where: Council Chambers, City Hall

What: City Council joint hearings of the Education and Finance committees on the school siting and planning process

As we have long pointed out, the current process for school siting and planning in NYC is dysfunctional and unless it is significantly improved it will doom NYC students to even more overcrowding in the years to come.

DOE enrollment projections and estimates for the need for seats are badly flawed; the capital plan for school construction is hugely underfunded even by DOE’s own admission; and the school siting process is so protracted that there are overcrowded communities with schools that have been funded for over a decade without a single new school building being built.

Public Advocate Tish James, 22 Council Members, Class Size Matters and many parent leaders pointed out many of these problems in a letter we sent the Chancellor in June 2015 .

Last week, the City Council Speaker announced that the Council would form an internal working group to analyze the many problems with school siting and planning and come up with proposals to improve them. These hearings will kick-off the deliberations of this working group.

Please come on Tuesday to testify about the overcrowding problem at your school, its impact on the quality of education provided your children, and if you can, offer some ideas for how to reform the process. Public testimony starts at about 1 PM. If you can’t testify, here are other options:

• Come in the morning at 10 AM to show your support; bring signs!

• Submit written testimony to City Council by emailing it to [email protected] the day before.

• Email me at [email protected] or by responding to this message with your observations about the situation at your school and ideas to improve the process. Please send me your comments no later than Sunday Feb. 26 so I can incorporate them into my written testimony.

A power point with more background on this issue is posted on my website here: http://bit.ly/2m4KvKB

Thanks,
Leonie