The current boundaries of New York City school districts
As overcrowding at the city’s schools reaches unbearable levels and newly hip neighborhoods fill with strollers and nannies, the city’s Department of Education and its head, Chancellor Joel Klein, are considering new options to alleviate the crunch. Since new school construction is so gosh darned expensive and fraught with red tape, the DOE is considering another option–changing the boundaries of the city’s school districts to try and even out the load.
Let the battle begin! Parents, many of whom forked over thousands more than they would have normally paid for residences specifically within the city’s best school districts are furious. One example is in the district that includes the coveted P.S. 321 in Park Slope, where a local Community Education Council official was quoted about considering the redistricting plan that would move many children to another local elementary school:
“I imagine that I would be hung in effigy and/or drawn and quartered by the population of Park Slope for considering this…But I think it’s something that has to be considered.”
Another area of redistricting would include Districts 2 and 3 in Manhattan’s Upper East Side/Midtown, where many students would be moved to a less crowed school on (gasp!) Roosevelt Island or the building that houses a city school for the deaf on East 23rd Street.
The DOE is just floating this idea right now to gauge reaction–so nothing is final yet–and special overcrowding committees will be set up within local districts to try and provide a forum for communities to discuss the idea. Something tells us that free coffee and cookies will not be effective in calming parents’ fears or anger at these upcoming meetings.
