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WEEK OF OCTOBER DECODING DELACROIX ◄ P.12
4-10 2018
CARRANZA TALKS EQUITY AT UWS TOWN HALL EDUCATION Schools chancellor discusses diversity, charter schools during visit to P.S. 163 PTA activist Tom Wrocklage and his fourth-grade daughter, Georgia, outside P.S. 290 on East 82nd Street this weekend. The 9-year-old girl and her classmates have to nowhere to play but the street. Photo courtesy of Tom Wrocklage
THE SCHOOL THAT TIME FORGOT PLAY SPACES There is no place to play but the street for the children of P.S. 290 on the UES — so their parents, beset by safety concerns, have cast their gaze upon the roof BY DOUGLAS FEIDEN
There are 505 public schools in Manhattan. Virtually all of them house gymnasiums or provide other designated spaces for mandated physical education programs in their buildings or off campus. And then there is P.S. 290 on the Upper East Side. It has no standalone gym. No adequate courtyard space to hold recess. No “gymnatorium,” or converted auditorium. No indoor play space nearby. What it does have is the street, mostly closed to traffic, in front of the school, where more than 600 elementary students are forced to go for their recess, exercise and other physical activities.
That has raised safety and security concerns — and fueled a campaign by parents, politicians and school administrators to retrofit the rooftop for use as an outdoor play space or green roof or both. Advocates want to get the kids off the street and into protected space atop the building. To fund those efforts, they’ve held bake sales, raised cash through Participatory Budgeting and banked $2.25 million. But cost estimates keep skyrocketing. Initially pegged at $2.8 million, projections first doubled. By some accounts, they trebled. Hard figures aren’t easy to come by. The city’s School Construction Authority, or SCA, which builds and renovates schools, didn’t provide them by press time. Nor did the city’s Dept. of Education (DOE). Still, more than four years after the proposal first surfaced, one thing is clear: The drive to green the roof and transform it into a “safe recess space” for children appears to have stalled. At least for now.
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BY MICHAEL GAROFALO
“Equity” has been Richard Carranza’s calling card since he took office as city schools chancellor in the spring. Carranza used the word at least a dozen times over the course of an hour during a Sept. 26 town hall meeting with students, parents and teachers at P.S. 163 on West 97th Street. He spoke of equity for students in access to resources; equity in school enrollment and admissions; equity of facilities; equity for students with disabilities. He named “ensuring equity — not yesterday, not tomorrow, right now” as one of his four areas of focus for the school year. (The other three: accelerating learning and teaching, engaging and empowering communities, developing people.) The word has salience in District 3, which includes the Upper West Side and parts of Harlem, where schools have historically been starkly divided along racial and economic lines. In June, the city Department of Education adopted a plan to increase diversity in District 3 middle schools through an overhaul of the admissions screening process. Carranza drew both criticism and praise early in his tenure for tweeting video of a tense public meeting on the plan bluntly headlined “WATCH: Wealthy white Manhattan parents angrily rant against plan to bring more black kids to their schools.”
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza fielded questions on technology in the classroom, dual-language education and other topics during a Sept. 26 town hall meeting at P.S. 163 on the Upper West Side. Photo: Michael Garofalo Carranza has not since shied away from addressing fraught issues of perceived inequity in the school system head-on, from the lack of diversity in the city’s elite specialized high schools to racial disparities in the demographic makeup of the city’s gifted programs. At the town hall, Carranza pledged to be “open and transparent” not only about the opportunities facing city schools, but also about “the challenges that vex us.” “Some folks appreciate the directness, some folks don’t,” Carranza said. “That’s just what it’s gonna be, because I think we don’t have time to waste when it comes to really impacting what happens in our schools.” Carranza addressed the middle school diversity plan, charter schools and a number of other topics during a question-and-answer period with an engaged and enthusiastic audience, which filled the P.S. 163 auditorium. Below are a selection of his responses. Downtowner
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FOR HIM, SETTLING SMALL CLAIMS IS A BIG DEAL presided over Arbitration Man has three decades. for informal hearings about it He’s now blogging BY RICHARD KHAVKINE
is the common Arbitration Man their jurist. least folks’ hero. Or at Man has For 30 years, Arbitration court office of the civil few sat in a satellite Centre St. every building at 111 New Yorkers’ weeks and absorbed dry cleaning, burned lost accountings of fender benders, lousy paint jobs, and the like. And security deposits then he’s decided. Arbitration Man, About a year ago, so to not afwho requested anonymity started docuhe fect future proceedings, two dozen of what menting about compelling cases considers his most blog. in an eponymous about it because “I decided to write the stories but in a I was interested about it not from wanted to write from view but rather lawyer’s point of said Arbitration view,” of a lay point lawyer since 1961. Man, a practicing what’s at issue He first writes about post, renders and then, in a separatehow he arrived his decision, detailing blog the to Visitors at his conclusion. their opinions. often weigh in with get a rap going. I to “I really want whether they unreally want to know and why I did it,” I did derstood what don’t know how to he said. “Most people ... I’d like my cases the judge thinks. and also my trereflect my personalitythe law.” for mendous respect 80, went into indiMan, Arbitration suc in 1985, settling vidual practice
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MANHATTAN'S APARTMENT BOOM, > PROPERTY, P.20
2015
In Brief MORE HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESS
The effort to help small seems to businesses in the city be gathering steam. Two city councilmembers, Robert Margaret Chin and Cornegy, have introduced create legislation that wouldSmall a new “Office of the within Business Advocate” of Small the city’s Department Business Services. Chin The new post, which have up told us she’d like to would and running this year, for serve as an ombudsman city small businesses within them clear government, helping to get through the bureaucracy things done. Perhaps even more also importantly, the ombudsman and number will tally the type small business of complaints by taken in owners, the actions policy response, and somefor ways to recommendations If done well, begin to fix things. report would the ombudsman’s give us the first quantitative with taste of what’s wrong the city, an small businesses in towards important first step fixing the problem. of for deTo really make a difference, is a mere formality will have to the work process looking to complete their advocate are the chances course, velopers precinct, but rising rents, -- thanks to a find a way to tackle business’ is being done legally of after-hours projects quickly. their own hours,” which remain many While Chin “They pick out boom in the number throughout who lives on most vexing problem. said Mildred Angelo,of the Ruppert construction permits gauge what Buildings one said it’s too early tocould have the 19th floor in The Department of the city. number three years, the Houses on 92nd Street between role the advocate She Over the past on the is handing out a record work perThird avenues. permits, there, more information of Second and an ongoing all-hours number of after-hours bad thing. of after-hours work the city’s Dept. problem can’t be a said there’s with the mits granted by nearby where according to new data jumped 30 percent, This step, combinedBorough construction project noise Buildings has data provided in workers constantly make efforts by Manhattan to mediate BY DANIEL FITZSIMMONS according to DOB of Informacement from trucks. President Gale Brewer offer response to a Freedom classifies transferring they want. They knows the the rent renewal process, request. The city They 6 “They do whatever signs Every New Yorker clang, tion Act go as they please. work between some early, tangible small any construction on the weekend, can come and sound: the metal-on-metal or the piercing of progress. For many have no respect.” p.m. and 7 a.m., can’t come of these that the hollow boom, issuance reverse. owners, in business moving The increased beeps of a truck has generto a correspond and you as after-hours. soon enough. variances has led at the alarm clock The surge in permits
SLEEPS, THANKS TO THE CITY THAT NEVER UCTION A BOOM IN LATE-NIGHT CONSTR NEWS
A glance it: it’s the middle can hardly believe yet construction of the night, and carries on full-tilt. your local police or You can call 311
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DIVERSITY In response to a questions about the resources that the DOE Education will provide to District 3 to support the implementation of its middle school diversity plan, Carranza said that DOE is reviewing community input. He noted that in Brooklyn’s District 15, which recently adopted a similar diversity plan, the DOE granted $500,000 to fund specific requests for support. Carranza praised District 3 as “trendsetters” in pushing for diversity measures, but cautioned against promoting a pernicious narrative around funding such efforts. “We need to be very careful in terms of the enlightened conversations that we’ve had around diversity, integration and why that’s important to us in the city,” Carranza said. “We all just need to be very, very careful in terms of how we talk about the work, so that
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