Radical cuts in funding and elimination of transparency in new Five-Year capital plan

Nov. 8, 2023

Dear all —

The DoE/SCA released the new proposed Five-Year Capital Plan for FY 2025 – 2029 last week, the first to even mention the new class size law, which will require more schools to be built in overcrowded areas to create sufficient space for the smaller classes.

Yet the number of new schools to be built in the new Five-Year plan has been radically cut, compared to the current Capital Plan. There are only 37 total projects in all and 23,035 seats in the “New Capacity” portion of the plan, funded at $4.1 billion, or two billion dollars LESS than new capacity is funded in the current five-year plan. This is also far less than the inflated estimate that DOE itself had claimed it would cost to build enough schools at $30B-$35B.

Moreover, the vast majority of these projects, including 29 new schools with 17,706 seats, are completely unidentified as to borough, district, subdistrict or even grade level — an unprecedented level of non-transparency compared to all previous Capital plans. This is particularly disturbing, given the need for a clear estimate and analysis of how where new schools will be needed to eliminate overcrowding and lower class size.

Of the eight projects with 5,329 seats identified as to district and grade level, all were already included, funded, and identified as to district and grade level in the current five-year plan. There are six elementary and middle schools located in only four districts: Districts 2, 27, 30 and 31, all already in progress, plus a long-delayed annex for Medgar Evers HS in Brooklyn, now due to be completed by Sept 2028, and an already funded high school in Staten Island, reconfigured as a 6-12 school, due to be completed by Sept. 2029.  Many of the funded yet unsited seats in the current plan seem to have simply vanished.

The fact that 78% of the new projects with 77% of the seats are not identified as to proposed location or grade level is unprecedented. The DOE/SCA explains that instead of listing new schools by location and grade levels as in all previous capital plans, from now on, “projects will be officially listed in the Plan following the identification of a suitable site and the commencement of the school facility’s design process. “

This not only leaves the public out of the potential siting of schools and their input as to where new schools are actually needed, but also appears to violate the law that established the SCA over twenty years ago, which calls for an “educational facilities master plan…including a list of prioritized projects to the extent ascertainable and [to] list each proposed new educational facility and set forth a justification, including demographic data, documenting the long term need therefor.”

We urge you to attend upcoming CEC meetings where the SCA will present the new Five-Year capital plan, and ask why such a radical change has been made to eliminate any identification of new schools as to location or grade level, and what the SCA intends to do to ensure there is sufficient school space in your district to lower class size.

The Office of District Planning is already holding CEC briefings, and you should also attend these meetings and ask the same questions. Soon we will have a resolution for your CEC, Community Board and/or Presidents Council to consider, to demand more transparency and a real class size reduction plan from the DOE.

If you would like Class Size Matters to provide a briefing for your CEC, CB or PC with the latest school utilization and class size data for your district, let us know. The new Blue Book with last year’s utilization data was also released last week, and school and district class size data is required to be reported on Nov. 15. Meanwhile, a very brief summary comparing the new FIve-year Capital plan to previous ones is here.

2.Yesterday, AQE, Class Size Matters and the Ed Law Center sent comments to the State Ed Department, urging them to include in their proposed regulations for the new class size law a specific timeline for the public process and DOE submission of their class size plan, as is required by the law. The law mandates that the public input process and the submission of the city’s plan to the state occur before the school year has begun, and before C4E and state Foundation Aid to schools has been allocated and mostly spent. Yet for some reason, this required timeline was omitted from the proposed regs.

There is supposed to be a second round of public comments on the regulations and we will provide you with info on how to make your voice heard on this important issue, that is, if the Board of Regents does not amend these regulations accordingly at their meeting next week.

Thanks, Leonie

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
124 Waverly Pl.
New York, NY 10011
phone: 917-435-9329
leonie@classsizematters.org
www.classsizematters.org
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Host of “Talk out of School” WBAI radio show and podcast at https://talk-out-of-school.simplecast.com/