NYC Releases Lower East Side School Diversity Plan

LOWER EAST SIDE, NY — City education officials unveiled on Tuesday a preliminary plan to tackle segregation in Lower East Side schools.

The proposed plan, which is still subject to change, is the first to be released by Mayor Bill de Blasio's education department after it promised a host of a new initiatives to tackle persistent segregation in city schools. In June, de Blasio released a long-awaited report that was meant to outline how the city would integrate its schools. The plan was met with disappointment by advocates for school integration, who said it lacked specifics and a forceful condemnation of segregation.

The plan released on Tuesday is one of the first steps in the broader initiative launched in June, and outlines a pilot program for the city's school district 1, which spans the East Village and the Lower East Side. District 1 is whats known known as a "choice district" in the city, meaning that the 16 elementary schools don't correspond to a specific neighborhood of geographic area. Parents can rank which schools they'd like their children to attend. This system still, however, amounts to de facto segregation.

A main tenant of the proposed plan would transition this school choice system to a method known as "controlled choice": Parents can still rank their preferences, but schools will also work to keep demographics evenly distributed throughout schools. For 67 percent of offers a school releases, priority will be given to low-income students and students learning English for their top choices. Students who don't meet those criteria will have priority for the remaining 33 percent of offers at a given school. (For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

Education officials say that this system should prevent students who are English Language Learners, the majority of whom are non-white, and low-income students from being segregated into schools with a single demographic. For example, 100 percent of students at the Roberto Clemente elementary school in the East Village were low-income students, according to city data from the last year. A 10-minute walk away, at the East Village Community School, about 22 percent of students were low-income, according to last year's data.

The program also includes a new resource center for families and students, which will help guide parents through the complex school admissions system.

Some advocates have called the plan an important step forward for the city.

"This proposal is a testament to the organizing and advocacy of the District 1 community and SIPP working group, and it is a significant step for District 1 and the City," said Matt Gonzales, of New York Appleseed’s School Diversity Project. "I’m looking forward to supporting this work as it moves forward."

Some parents, however, worried that students would remain segregated because families would continue choosing the same schools for their children to attend.

"How is that going to fulfill the diversity issue in our neighborhood?" parent Lilah Mejia told DNAinfo. "Black and brown students are not applying to progressive schools... You giving us higher statistics, saying 'We’re definitely going to accept these students,' really doesn't affect diversity."

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