An OTBKB reader had this to say about potential changes to the PS 321 catchment due to overcrowding.
Since when exactly should the views of parents looking to make a quick buck on their home because of the school catchment area in which they live (or those just happy that their investment has gone up) even VAGUELY be a consideration in the formulation of school policy??
You said it yourself: schools are suffering from overcrowding, and authorities have to act if they are to preserve the quality of education that you and your friends have been true beneficiaries of. Would you rather that class sizes went up and standards went down, as long as house prices remained buoyant in the area? Kids in the catchment area of the future have every right to the same quality of education that your child/children had. And that comes before ANY bourgeois worries about house prices, or the concerns of unfortunate parents who moved to beat the system rather than fighting from within to develop other schools.
Of course the real issue is that there needs to be greater investment in education in the borough. But that doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be change in the meantime.
i agree that was well said. Is that true about district 17 and where is that?
I went to a park slope civic council forum entitled “gentrification: where goes the neighborhood” a year ago.
A gentleman who used to be a city planner in NYC said that city PLANNING (an actual agency/position) typically would have allotted for all this development and figured out what other pieces of infrastructure (a la schools) were needed. But that is not being done.
Why? Because it might slow down the development perhaps? Mayor Bloomberg would not like that I suppose.
Well said! Especially if it’s so, as I’ve been told, that schools in nearby District 17 are undersubscribed, why shouldn’t the lines be redrawn?