School Board Cancels Third Straight Meeting in Upper West Side Rezoning Battle

UPPER WEST SIDE, NY — The Upper West Side body that will vote on a plan to rezone elementary schools on the Upper West Side is starting to sound like a broken record. For the third straight time, and the second time this week, the Community Education Council for District 3 (CEC) has canceled a public zoning meeting.

The meeting was supposed to be the last before the CEC votes on a proposed plan to rezone the school district, but because the Department of Education has not proposed a plan the CEC has nothing new to discuss.

The CEC sent a letter to the DOE on October 18 — a day before the DOE was scheduled to release its final plan — detailing its own ideas for rezoning elementary schools on the Upper West Side. In that letter, the CEC encouraged the DOE to defer to the CEC's plan.

"Accordingly, we respectfully request that DOE immediately move to formally present the following for District 3’s consideration," the letter said.

The CEC's plan ignored some of the most outspoken parent groups who have rallied against DOE rezoning drafts since they were first proposed during the summer.

Here are some key details from the CEC plan:

• PS 452 would be relocate from its campus on West 77th Street, which is at max capacity, to the building currently occupied by PS 191 — a school full of students from the Amsterdam Houses, a nearby public-housing project;
• PS 191 would then get a brand-new building within the Riverside Center, a fancy new development a couple blocks south;
• Perhaps most controversially, all future school kids living in three of eight buildings in the high-end Lincoln Towers community (165 West End Avenue, 185 West End Avenue and 205 West End Ave.) would be directed to attend PS 191 as their default campus, instead of PS 199, where all their Lincoln Towers peers would still go to school.
• Children would not have to switch schools they are currently enrolled in, and younger siblings would be grandfathered in to the currently zoned schools.

The DOE's response thus far: radio silence.

As of Thursday, the DOE is still working to formulate its final plan.

"We are continuing to work with the community to finalize a rezoning proposal that will best serve all families in District 3," DOE spokeswoman Toya Holness told Patch in a statement.

The CEC was originally scheduled to vote on the DOE proposal on Nov. 9, but the window to meet that deadline is quickly closing. A note on the CEC website says that "the vote will not take place" Nov. 9 but that the council will update parents when it has more details.

Photo: Patch