Revisiting the Arts and Letters Expansion

There was plenty of conflict last year when Arts and Letters, a progressive public school which shares space with P.S. 20 on Adelphi Street in Fort Greene, announced its intentions to expand from middle school down to lower grades. With a finite amount of space in the building, families of P.S. 20 students—many of whom had attended the school for generations—feared being squeezed out by the growth of a school that clearly also represented a wealthier and whiter contingent. In an article that looks back on the conflict, City Limits includes some interesting statistics about Fort Greene demographics:

That the neighborhood has undergone a dramatic change is as plain as the sparkles on Amira’s party shoes: While in 2000, the district’s poverty rate was 25 percent, a decade later—even after the 2008 economic nosedive—it was 17 percent, according to statistics from NYU’s Furman Center. Housing prices, $225,000 on average in 2000, had nearly doubled, to $413,000 a decade later. The racial scales had tilted as well: In 2000, about 30 percent of the area’s residents were white, and about 45 percent African-American. By 2010, nearly half of the neighborhood’s residents were white, and no more than one in three black. (The Hispanic population dropped slightly in the same interval, from about 30 to about 25 percent.)

The article says that the increase in students has strained the infrastructure somewha, and quotes suggest that there are still resentments and philosophical divides between parents of the two schools, but at least the two heads of school are presenting a united front. “We had an open and honest conversation, just the two of us,” says the founder of Arts and Letters. “We’re on the same side, of what’s good for the kids. Even with mistakes, we’re always focused on what’s good for the children.”

We’re curious to hear how parents think the expansion is working out–for both Arts and Letters kids as well as P.S. 20 kids.

2 Schools, 1 Space: Scars Linger from Controversy on Adelphi Street [City Limits]
Photo by Marc Fader for City Limits