Two Town Hall Meetings Planned for Dumbo School Rezoning

The Department of Education and the Community Education Council for District 13 have called two town hall meetings to discuss the controversial new boundaries drawn for Brooklyn Heights’ and Dumbo’s P.S. 8 and P.S. 307. Some parents were caught off guard by the rezoning, which aims to alleviate overcrowding at P.S. 8 by rezoning students to P.S. 307.

A district parent sent Brownstoner an email regarding details of the upcoming meetings:

The first town hall meeting will be at PS 307, this coming Wednesday, September 16th, beginning at 6 pm. The second town hall will take place at PS 8 on Monday, September 21, from 6:30-8 pm. At each meeting, folks from the DOE’s Office of District Planning will do a short presentation on their rezoning scenario, and will then remain on hand for questions. The CEC will be there too. While everyone is welcome at either meeting, those parents who are allied with their respective school are likely to be the primary focus of each meeting, to ensure that all voices and perspectives are heard.

CEC 13 September calendar meeting: A more final rezoning proposal will be discussed during the CEC September calendar meeting which will take place on September 30 at 6 pm at PS 307. The DOE will most likely ask the CEC 13 after this September meeting to vote on the rezoning within 45 days. This meeting is also open to the public.

And some more facts on the zone sizes and new residential developments in the zones: For the school year 2014/2015, the PS 8 zone “produced” 162 kindergarten applications while the PS 307 zone only “produced” 17 Kindergarteners. The PS 8 and PS 307 zones are completely disproportionate for New York City standards (the PS 8 zone is one of the largest in the city and the PS 307 is one of the smallest) according to the DOE. There are around 1,800 new residential units either under construction or planned for in the current PS 8 zone. Around 1,100 of those units would fall into the “new PS 307 zone”, around 700 would fall into the “new PS 8 zone.”

For more information on the meetings, see CEC13’s upcoming events column.

School Rezoning Coverage [Brownstoner]
Photo via DUMBO Parents