CEC 13 Relaxes PS 20 Relocation Fears at School Space Meeting

CLINTON HILL – Last night saw over 30 parents attend Community Education Council (CEC) 13’s strategic space meeting, held at PS 56 Lewis H. Latimer School on 170 Gates Avenue.

The gathering included many parents from PS 20. It was likely they came in response to a DNAinfo article which reported a letter was going around saying that the school was going to be pushed out to make room for The Academy of Arts & Letters, which shares space with the public elementary school.

But the meeting turned out to be a simple yet brief discussion about space issues throughout District 13. Superintendent Barbara Freeman started the meeting by explaining that no school was going to be singled out, and went over what was the main purpose of the meeting.

“This committee is really to make deliberate, thoughtful ideas,” Freeman said, as she stood in the library of PS 56, where the meeting was held. “This is not a committee to go over things that are problematic. It is how we utilize the space, so it is optimized by students.”

She briefly mentioned that Arts & Letters is the school that will be relocated, though the new site has not yet been determined. Freeman went on to address that she was very sensitive to certain issues because of “a domino effect that could happen”.

“We’re not creating hysteria,” she said. “PS 20 is not the only one in this fight. What we want is clarity, and not be the team that hears it first and it sprinkles out. This is about quality of education, not one or some schools, but all of them.”
Her comments were met with applause by the parents.

After that, Freeman left for another meeting, and Shani Jimeta, the Field Support Liaison took over. Jimeta went over a handout that included a list of projections and plans to tackle space issues throughout District 13. They included:

• the truncation of PS/MS 282 in the current school year,
• the overcrowding of PS 9, and
• the truncation of PS 8 and a middle school portion of the same school.

Jimeta also talked about the anticipated increase in enrollment by the 2019 – 2020 school year. Already, she mentioned, “there has been an increase in registration and there’s a lot of buildings going up.”

Overall, the strategic space meeting was brief, lasting just over an hour. The parents seemed satisfied with what they heard, if not relieved that PS 20 was not going to be pushed out of its location.

DNAinfo reported that the letter claiming such came from the school’s PTA. In the same article, both the Department of Education and the Arts & Letters denied such a move was going to happen.