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Will Craig decided to send his two girls to P.S. 153 an Amsterdam Avenue near W. 147th Street because of its Arts Intensive Institute (AII), choosing the school’s arts program over its gifted and talented program.
The Washington Heights resident is not alone.
The parent resource site Insideschool.org specifically mentioned the AII program as a draw from outside the school’s zone, noting that students from P.S. 153 have been accepted to programs at the Juilliard School.
Nearby on W. 153rd Street, parents of students at M368 the Hamilton Heights School also love their arts program.
Beth Venn, a founding parent of the young school and co-chair of the school’s leadership team, believes the Hamilton Heights program is a model for the city.
Several times a week students at Hamilton Heights have special arts instruction – projects that are woven into the curriculum of the class. The instructors come from two groups, the Children’s Arts Carnival, a local organization, and Studio in a School, who sit down with teachers and plan out lessons that complement what the students are already learning.
This year the school lost the funding for the program, and parents are actively fundraising to bring it back.
“It was really a big thing, and it’s really a loss not to have that,” Venn said.
Aside from the never ending funding issue, the future of arts education at the two schools is in jeopardy by a plan by the Department of Education. The DOE has decided to co-locate the two schools by moving the Hamilton Heights School into the P.S. 153 building on Amsterdam Avenue.
In its proposal, the DOE put it this way:
“To ensure that there continues to be sufficient space in M153 for both Hamilton Heights and P.S. 153, beginning in 2010-2011, P.S. 153 will need to monitor its kindergarten enrollment to ensure that it only enrolls students residing in the zone. By doing so, P.S. 153 will gradually reduce in size by approximately 1 section per grade, or approximately 125 students, which will allow Hamilton Heights to be fully housed in M153.”
Three programs accept out-of-zone students at P.S. 153, a district-wide Gifted and Talented program, a district-wide Universal Pre-K program and AII.
“The arts program when it was created was designed as a district-wide program,” said Craig, who is now co-president of the parent-teacher association. But something happened with the paperwork. “It never got set up,” he said.
Officially it’s a zone-only program and after the two schools are combined no new students will be accepted from outside the zone.
But regardless of funding or enrollment, a vibrant arts program at either school might not be possible.
According to the DOE plan, for at least a year, until out-of-zone enrollment at P.S. 153 drops, there will be no room for “cluster rooms” like a science lab, dance studio or an art room for either school, scuttling any program regardless of enrollment or funding.
Craig believes that losing or trimming back the art program will hurt his school in other ways, too.
“The children of these parents tend to do well,” Craig said. “We’ve got this great arts program that helped the school improve city wide.”
Craig admits, however, that by the numbers the proposal seems reasonable at first. “According to the statistical formula they’ve created it makes sense,” Craig said. “They can prove every child has the square footage they need.” But, he said, “It doesn’t include elements that are essential to a child’s educational process.”
Parents at Hamilton Heights aren’t happy with the proposal for other reasons, too. Led by an energetic parent group, the K-5 elementary school started in 2000 as Hamilton Heights Academy, and was granted full school status in 2007, but there wasn’t a building for it. The young school is currently located in two buildings, a leased site on W. 153rd Street and shared space with P.S. 28 the Wright Brothers School on W. 155th Street.
“It’s frustrating,” said Venn. “We’re an excellent school. … They need to give us the room to grow.”
Venn feels a little cheated. Why grant full status to the school if the adequate space isn’t going to be provided?
“It’s going to be bad in both schools,” Venn said. “They’re not supporting both schools. … It really affects the kids.”
Venn also believes the numbers don’t work. For example, she said, to get the students from both schools into the cafeteria once a day for a meal, the first class would have to have lunch at 9 a.m. and the last class wouldn’t eat until 2 p.m., just before dismissal.
“There’s no way to physically get these kids into the lunch room,” she said.
The facilities aren’t big enough for the school, said Craig. Originally P.S. 153 was built with 39 classrooms, and a gymnasium, cafeteria and playground with enough space for children from 39 classrooms. Then a 10-classroom extension was built onto the school, taking up a quarter of the playground – leaving a tiny place for a combined projected population of over 1,000 students to play in.
Hamilton Heights parent Ingrid Rodriguez said the parents she’s spoken to don’t like the decision.
“It’s like the majority are not okay with it,” she said. “It’s good because it’s all going to be in one building; it’s bad because we need our own space.”
She feels like her school will be an interloper in the new building.
“Why invade their privacy? Why invade their school?” she asked.
A number of parents worried about how next year will work are looking elsewhere to send their kids to school.
“I love Hamilton Heights so my kids will go there no matter what,” Rodriguez said.
“[But] this school right here is going to lose a lot of families.”
Editor’s Note: This article was developed through the New York Community Media Aliiance’s Ethnic and Community Media Press Fellowship – Developing an Education Beat.
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