Brooklyn Elementary School Rezoning Delayed A Year, Officials Say

BROOKLYN, NY — A plan to redraw the zones for seven Brooklyn elementary schools won't happen next year as originally planned, answering the call of less affluent schools who said they were being left out of the rezoning process, officials announced Tuesday.

District 15, which stretches from Carroll Gardens down to Sunset Park, announced Tuesday that they would be put off voting on a plan to redraw the elementary school zones until they could hear from more people in the community.

The rezoning, which would change the way incoming kindergartners are assigned to schools, will now happen in the 2021-2022 school year instead of 2020-2021 school year as originally planned, Superintendent Anita Skop said.

The announcement comes after outcry from those in Red Hook and Gowanus who said their schools had been left out of the discussion. The rezoning would affect seven schools in Red Hook, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill and Carroll Gardens.

"What we really heard was that there were people who didn't know what was going on and we want to try very hard to get out and reach them," Skop said at Tuesday's District 15 Community Education Council meeting. "The original plan was that there would be a vote in November, but there was a concern raised that we heard over and over again that there needed to be more time."

The November vote was originally going to ask the Community Education Council to either support or reject a plan put forward by the Office of District Planning, who have been looking into how to change up the school zones since the spring to help with overcrowding and increase diversity.

The office had most recently proposed two options that would either redraw certain lines or eliminate the zones altogether and let parents choose their child's school.

But now, instead of asking the council to vote on one of those plans in November, the DOE will spend another six months or so gathering feedback before deciding on a specific proposal. The council will vote in the springtime instead, Skop said.

The rezoning itself was in part prompted by 436 new elementary seats that are being added to P.S 32 in Carroll Gardens.

Skop said that school will still work to fill those seats next year even though the zoning lines will stay the same.

"The school will use the new facilities and the new addition and aim to increase their enrollment accordingly mostly through out of zone admissions, which we know will be [many] for this gorgeous new building," she said.

Tuesday's announcement was met with mixed reactions from both council members and parents or teachers who were at the meeting.

Some argued that delaying the process would mean "starting from scratch" in terms of letting parents of incoming kindergarteners know what was going on now that the change would impact a new age group.

A representative for the Office of District Planning contended, though, that this would not be too much of an obstacle given that officials have been reaching out to parents of 2, 3, 4 and 5 year olds already.

Part of the problem, officials said, has been that many parents or residents don't understand the complicated school zoning process and need help learning what is going on before they can offer opinions.

Skop, some council members and representatives from Red Hook's P.S. 676 said that they were hopeful the extra time would help bring these people in to the plans.

"I feel very hopeful about this process," one council member said. "We're not just going to check a box. We're going to do this right."