Success Academy Rejects DOE’s Partial “Solution” To Space Requests, Demands Permanent Space For All Six Schools

Success Academy Rejects DOE’s Partial “Solution” To Space Requests, Demands Permanent Space For All Six Schools

In A Letter To Mayor Bill de Blasio, Eva Moskowitz Urges DOE To Find Practical And Fair Solution For All Success Academy Scholars

New York, NY – On Wednesday morning, Success Academy Founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz was joined by dozens of parents on the steps of City Hall to reject the Department of Education’s partial and temporary “solution” to the charter network’s requests for public space. After the city proposed last week to provide space for only a fraction of the Success Academy scholars who need middle school seats next year, parents are demanding a real solution that provides all six middle schools with permanent space.

In a letter sent to Mayor de Blasio today, Success Academy Founder and CEO Eva Moskowitz rejected the DOE’s flawed math behind its deeply inadequate proposal.

“Today, on behalf of all our families, Success Academy rejects this proposal and asks the Department of Education to provide an alternative solution that provides permanent public school space for all six middle schools,” Moskowitz wrote.

For months, parents and school leaders across different elementary schools in Rosedale, Bensonhurst, Bergen Beach, Washington Heights, West Harlem and the Bronx have been urging the DOE to provide their children with adequate space for middle school next year. Now, after months of delays, missed deadlines, and hollow promises, the city’s unilateral announcement offering just two school buildings in East Flatbush and the Central Bronx is far from a resolution.

Both the New York Daily News and New York Post editorial boards have recognized the DOE’s proposal for what it really is: “Too few classrooms in all the wrong places.” At City Hall on Wednesday, Success Academy parents made clear they will not accept partial, stopgap measures that leave hundreds of kids without space to learn.

“For months, we have fought for space for our kids. We’ve gone to public hearings, we’ve rallied here at City Hall, we’ve written thousands of letters, we’ve made thousands of phone calls….but despite all of that, the DOE offered us just two middle schools for next year,” said Success Academy Bergen Beach parent, Miriam Reyes. “This will leave hundreds of parents and kids out in the cold.”

“Let me be clear: being Mayor for all children means giving ALL kids the space they need to go to the schools they love. It does NOT mean forcing my child out of a great school and into the district,” said Success Academy Rosedale Parent, Kimiko Leonard. “I know that the state law requires the Mayor to give Success Academy students space that is ‘adequate, comparable, and reasonable.’ But my daughter doesn’t have any space at all. Is that reasonable? Is that adequate?”

“What the city offered is not a solution. It’s a slap in the face. It means parents in my community and many others are getting left out in the cold, without a middle school,” said Jason Ellison, another parent from Success Academy Rosedale. “How many more times will I have to come back here just to ask that my daughter be treated fairly? How many times must parents like me beg the Mayor for equality?”

Success Academy has repeatedly identified buildings, some that have up to 1,000 empty seats according to city data, that would be far more adequate, comparable, and reasonable for the network’s families. Unlike the two buildings proposed by the DOE, each of these buildings has enough empty seats to accommodate a middle school at full enrollment, and is located in a neighborhood that parents could reasonably commute to.

To read Eva Moskowitz’s full letter to the DOE regarding middle school space, click here.