DOE planning official Debra Kurshan says that therapy spaces and instructional spaces are counted more accurately by planners when they "walk the school" to assess the potential for a co-location. She also notes that instruction and therapy should not take place in landings and hallways—despite the common practice of conducting pull-out, small group work in nooks and crannies of crowded schools. "If it's happening, it's not supposed to," said Kurshan, of the impromptu teaching spaces.
DOE officials say that principals control the use of the space they are allotted and can convert libraries to classrooms, or rework art, science and music "cluster" rooms into conventional academic classrooms, to meet the rising demands of growing schools in shared buildings.
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Some charters share buildings for predetermined amounts of time; the public school buildings function as "incubators " for a year or two, until the charter gains its footing and can move to a permanent location. But sometimes those incubation plans change midstream, as they have at the PAVE Academy Charter school in Red Hook, Brooklyn, co-sited with PS 15, the Patrick F. Daly neighborhood elementary school.
Enrollment at PS 15 is growing, according to the DOE, with a rising proportion of special-education students. Yet the school, which reluctantly accepted a two-year incubation agreement when the PAVE charter opened, may be forced to continue sharing its small building with the growing charter: The DOE has pressed to extend PAVE's residency, which was supposed to end this year, to 2013.
The Mayor-controlled Panel for Education Policy voted in favor of the extension, but a lawsuit advanced by the UFT and the NAACP overturned the vote. (The DOE has appealed the decision.)
PS 15 parents say that the school's therapy resources are being compromised by the charter's presence, while PAVE and DOE officials maintain that the school building has ample space for both schools.
The chancellor decides
The state's new charter law also mandates that schools that share buildings empanel building committees—that include parents as well as school staff—to sort out the use of public space, like school cafeterias, auditoriums and gyms and important academic resources, like science labs. The new law does not address the potential mutual need for therapy spaces in shared school buildings. Building committees in co-located schools already exist, although they are limited to building principals. The new law's mandate does not confer actual decision-making power to the building committees, raising concerns that their impact may be more cosmetic than substantive.
When there's a conflict, the network leader who manages the traditional public school and DOE's Khan, on behalf of the charter, mediate to reach agreement—or call in the cavalry: the Senior Supervisor in the Division of School support.
Advocates hope that the beefed-up committees' higher public profile may influence DOE siting and co-location decisions. But the final right and responsibility rests with the chancellor, according to DOE spokesperson Zarin-Rosenfeld.
"The law stipulates who has to be on the building council. Ultimately, the chancellor retains the authority to make co-location decisions," Zarin-Rosenfeld says. "The actual effect of the law on co-location decisions remains to be seen."
