PS 32, the Samuel Mills Sprole School, on a stretch of Hoyt Street that is sometimes called Gowanus and other times Carroll Gardens, has a new building sitting next to their schoolyard. It was built to address a growing shortage of educational space in what is defined as District 15, and will be open for business in a year. In the meantime, it is the center of much debate as to how the seats will be filled, occurring at a time when school segregation in the city is a hot topic.
The new addition to PS 32 will have early childhood and special education classrooms, a new cafeteria and library, and a rooftop playground. A proposed rezoning in District 15 may determine who gets to use these modern facilities.
Seven area schools may have to change how they admit students: PS 15 and 676 in Red Hook, and PS 29, PS 32, PS 38, PS 58 and PS 261 in Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and Boerum Hill. The Department of Education’s Office of District Planning (ODP) has put forth two potential plans, over which the local Community Education Council, composed primarily of parents of neighborhood schoolchildren, will have final say.
In Approach One, families would have zoned entitlement to a school in their vicinity (based in some cases on revised catchment areas), whereas Approach Two’s lottery system would guarantee each child a seat at one of the seven schools without geographical preference. As a diversity measure, Approach One prioritizes school access for students in temporary housing, multilingual learners, and students qualifying for free or reduced lunch (an outmoded category – given the 2017 introduction of universal free lunch in New York – that remains in use as a poverty index), but Approach Two gives kids across the district an even chance to attend whichever school their families like best.
At 28 percent capacity, Red Hook’s PS 676, which serves almost exclusively black and Latino students, has lots of unused seats, while many of the other schools (like majority-white PS 58, which operates at 132 percent capacity) are overcrowded. The ODP, which hopes to fill up the PS 32 expansion, doesn’t seem to regard this particular imbalance as an urgent problem. Approach One would redraw some of the lines on the District 15 map to relieve congestion, but despite PS 676’s underutilization, its zone would remain the same, meaning it wouldn’t draw additional students.
When asked about this, Isabelle Boundy from the Department of Education (DOE) responded, “We’re supporting a community-driven rezoning process in District 15 that will meet the needs of students and families, including that of PS 676.” The DOE says it’s working with the CEC to develop a rezoning plan that will be responsive to community feedback. But what if the community feedback is coming from parents who live in wealthier parts of District 15 and, for reasons contrary to the ODP’s ostensibly diversity-oriented goals, want to ensure there’s no chance their kids end up at PS 676?
Tracey Pinkard, who lives in the Gowanus Houses and whose child attends Summit Academy in the same building as 676, prefers Approach Two but would like to see the issue of transportation addressed.
She thinks there are parents who take their children to school and might not be able to afford an extra MetroCard. She wants free train fares to reduce of the burden of the longer commutes that the lottery system would create for some families seeking opportunities outside their immediate neighborhoods. She also thinks there should be reliable buses.
In the rezoning process, Pinkard wants PS 676 to be an option for everyone in the district and wants resources allocated equally. She thinks that, even though sometimes it’s said that the benefit of the community is at the forefront, that is not always what ends up happening.
“I would hope that the rezoning of these schools would be able to provide equity in terms of resources among all seven schools in the district,” Pinkard said. “What you see in terms of resources in Red Hook and what you have across the bridge in Carroll Gardens is vastly different, and it should not be. Regardless if the PTA can raise one million or not, your child should be able to have access to the same quality afterschool programs, same quality teachers and same quality facilities.”
It was made clear at a recent community meeting, held at 676, that the upcoming rezoning would not impact students already attending District 15 schools.
A key point that Superintendent Anita Skop brought up is that 40 percent of the students who are zoned to go to PS 676 opt instead to attend PAVE Academy, a charter school whose higher test scores attract many parents. Even though PS 676 gets extra funding as a Title I school, it still has obstacles going back several years that Principal Priscilla Figueroa has been striving diligently to overcome.
Without help from the ODP, PS 676 will continue to work to improve its reputation in the community as a means to entice new enrollees. The quantity of resources that is allocated to each school is on a per-student basis, which means little money for PS 676, and Figueroa has sought out grants and partnerships with various organizations to improve the experience for her students.
Figueroa, who was born in Carroll Gardens and has been at the school a little over a year, began as an interim principal. She is passionate about her job and said that she has had a lot of support from community members.
“The work we have done in the past year incorporates a lot of thinking about what the community needs and ensuring that we are having conversations with community members, parents, educators, the superintendent, and Enrollment,” Figueroa described.
She is aware that test scores of students are low at PS 676, but she believes that improvements have been made in the last year.
“Of course, our numbers are low in terms of student efficiency, although I believe that this year, we have made some gains,” Figueroa said. “Our science scores are now 89 percent. Many of our teachers have decided that they wanted to take their profession somewhere else, so we are in the process of interviewing new teachers, so that is what I have been doing in the last month.”
She is a proponent of project-based learning and did this at her previous school, MS 88. There is also service-based learning, where students with their community partners get the opportunity to explore outside the building.
Skop, who has been District 15’s superintendent since PS 676 was established 10 years ago (succeeding the old PS 27 in the same location), pointed out that under Figueroa the school has teamed with Columbia University’s Teachers College and the local nonprofit PortSide New York. While working toward universal literacy, it has implemented STEAM (STEM with the arts), as well as other initiatives. Skop observed that Figueroa is a “24/7” principal and that they have had talks about the school on the weekends and at night.
“They are changing the way learning is happening at the school,” Skop added. “Several of the teachers did an amazing lesson that was brought to the CEC where they took fairy tales and looked at the engineering practices. When I came to visit, a little boy talked to me about the Three Little Pigs, but also talked about his model, which included a closed circuit. This is a school that is being innovative, creative and supportive.”
“We are excited about PS 676 under the leadership of Principal Figueroa,” added Boundy, the DOE’s assistant press secretary. ”Since she began as principal, she has started to use more rigorous curriculum, including literacy curriculum; improved teacher training; and improved training around social-emotional learning.”
According to Figueroa, this year a maritime theme has been put into place, making use of the school’s location by the waterfront and the nearby Mary A. Whalen, a historic oil tanker that welcomes visitors. Additional partnerships have formed with the New York Aquarium, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, LEAP, Brooklyn Forest, Studio in a School, the New York Public Library, Music Explorers, Carnegie Hall, the Cookshop, Rising New York Road Runners, and the YMCA.
“We have the YMCA afterschool program,” Figueroa said. “Last year we started a new partnership with the Y. It is comprehensive pre-K through five. I am in touch with the program director to make sure the partnership is solid and provides a choice that aligns with what we are offering during the day.”
Figueroa and PS 676 have had a number of grants come to fruition in the last year, and they will continue to propose more in the future.
“We are speaking to community leaders about attempting to address the schoolyard,” Figueroa said. “We proposed a grant to Borough President Eric Adams that did not get accepted this year, but we are not giving up and will continue to look for that to support the schoolyard.”
