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Late last year there was word that Brooklyn Prospect Charter School, which is currently located in Sunset Park High School, would be building a new facility on Douglass Street between 3rd Avenue and Nevins, and that’s been confirmed by a lease agreement that was recently recorded in public records for the properties at 182 and 188 3rd Avenue and 267 Douglass Street. The school’s website, meanwhile, says that it’s in search of an interim location for next year. (Controversial plans to temporarily occupy space at P.S. 32 were recently withdrawn.) It seems to be the case that the warehouse on the corner of 3rd Avenue and Douglass is going to be torn down to make make way for the schohtol, since its owner just got a permit to demolish the building. As of Monday, though, there was no visible construction or demolition under way on the block.
Charter School Expanding to Gowanus [Brownstoner] GMAP


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. jessibaby – i didn’t read my link wrong. sorry i wasn’t clear. i understand that charters who pay for separate spaces don’t get public money for those separate spaces. the link says that the difference is about $2000 of “in kind” money. and i am fine with that. it’s up to the charter to make up the gap, and it’s up to the state/city (and, indirectly and eventually, voters) to decide whether the charter is able to provide adequate resources to the kids despite the extra budgetary expense. the point is that it costs more money to get exactly what you want exactly when you want it.

    heather – huh? this whole discussion started with real estate, and if there was no problem with real estate i don’t think co-locations would be on the table. this is not to say that the broader issue of charters wouldn’t still be present, but you vastly misunderstand the PS9 situation if you think the issue was the right of the charter school to “exist.” that was not the question – the argument assumed its existence and concerned only where it should go. i’m not going to recapitulate the full debate for you.

    to be perfectly clear, since my analogies seem to confuse you: as a society, we make decisions EVERY day about where to put buildings (and, therefore, where the people and services inside of those buildings), what resources to devote to certain programs, and how to balance competing societal needs. given that, it is not necessarily inconsistent or hypocritical to determine that one charter school proposal effects a good balance and another does not. it’s called subjectivity. and i would have objected to the placement of BECCS in PS9 even if i wanted my kid to go there.

    i don’t disagree with you on many of the issues pertaining to charter schools. but i don’t understand this inclination to pigeonhole every viewpoint that isn’t clearly aligned for or against charters as “hypocritical.” why don’t you focus more on clarifying what disturbs you, and trying to convince people that it ought to disturb them, too, regardless of their own immediate self-interest? that’s how real dialogue works.

  2. since 2000, I agree 100% about the incredible lack of foresight among DOE officials who decided to change Arts & Letters from a middle school to one beginning in K. If anything, they could have expanded the middle school, a popular choice for district kids, and simply made it larger.

    Fortunately, Brooklyn Prospect has no plans to do the same, and the addition of another good middle school choice for parents in District 15 isn’t going to affect all the other good middle schools, since there are ever larger graduating classes from 5th grade in all the D. 15 middle schools.

    Ironically, Brooklyn Prospect would have been serving a far more vital need had it set up in District 13, instead. There is a serious lack of middle school options for families and with Arts & Letters offering fewer spots, it’s only going to get worse in the future.

  3. since 2000, I agree 100% about the incredible lack of foresight among DOE officials who decided to change Arts & Letters from a middle school to one beginning in K. If anything, they could have expanded the middle school, a popular choice for district kids, and simply made it larger.

    Fortunately, Brooklyn Prospect has no plans to do the same, and the addition of another good middle school choice for parents in District 15 isn’t going to affect all the other good middle schools, since there are ever larger graduating classes from 5th grade in all the D. 15 middle schools.

    Ironically, Brooklyn Prospect would have been serving a far more vital need had it set up in District 13, instead. There is a serious lack of middle school options for families and with Arts & Letters offering fewer spots, it’s only going to get worse in the future.

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