(Photo: William Alatriste)

July 23: Do you own a small business? Read David's Energy Saving Tips for Your Small Business!

July 15: David calls on MTA to sell its $100 million abandoned headquarters

July 10: David calls for year-round Ferry Service on the East River

July 11: David joins the opening ceremony for TKTS Brooklyn 

July 3:  The New York Sun commends David for his efforts to extend the film industry tax credits that have created thousands of jobs in New York

July 1:  David pushes his proposal for bicycle parking in and around commercial buildings

June 23: David and Comptroller Thompson mobilize against expansion of the Brooklyn House of Detention 

June 17:  David stands with Speaker Quinn to modernize the Environmental Control Board

June 16: The New York Sun commends David's call for an online budget database

June 14: David commends New York's first LEED Certified school

May 23: David demands action on the G Train

May 20: David blasts DOE for failing to address overcrowding in City schools

May 16: Watch VIDEO of David on Good Day New York! promoting National Bike to Work Day! 

April 29: Read David's op-ed on budget reform in the New York Post

April 27: NYC cab drivers praise David's hybrid taxi initiative

April 11: Speaker Quinn embraces David's budget transparency reforms

April 6: The Daily News praises David as a "budget hawk"

March 31: David levels with New Yorkers on the budget

March 31: David votes for critical congestion pricing initiative

February 7: David pushes historic restructuring of the budget proces

Rooftop Films 2008 Summer Series

         Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from May 31st - Sept. 27th

         Free music at 8pm, free movies at 9pm

         Automotive High School, 50 Bedford Avenue (at North 15th Street)

Movies with a View 

         Thursdays July 19th - August 28th

         6 - 11 pm

         Brooklyn Bridge Park

Summer Screen

         Tuesdays, July 1st - August 26th

         Free music at 7PM, Free movies at 8PM

         McCarren Park Pool

 Festivals:

 Park Slope Chamber of Commerce Festival

         June 15th

         11AM

         7th Ave between Flatbush Ave and 16th St

South Brooklyn Local Development Corporation Festival

         June 22nd

         11AM

         Smith St between Bergen St and Union St

International African Arts Festival

         Thurday July 3rd-Sunday July 6th

         Commodore Barry Park (Navy Street btw Park & Flushing Aves)

Atlantic Antic Fair

         September 28th

         Atlantic Ave from 4th Ave to Hicks St

Cranberry Street Fair

         September 29th

         11AM-3PM

         Cranberry St between Hicks and Columbia Heights
 

Arts and Performances:

 2008 Brooklyn Academy of Music Rhythm & Blues Festival at MetroTech

         Thursdays, June 5th—August 7th

         12PM

         MetroTech Center at the corner of Flatbush and Myrtle Avenues

Celebrate Brooklyn! Concert Series 

         June 12- August 9, various times

         Prospect Park Bandshell

Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition Sculpture Show

         Sunday July 20th-Sunday Sept. 7th

         Brooklyn Bridge Park

Metropolitian Opera in the Park

         June 20th

         8PM

         Long Meadow Ball Fields, Prospect Park West

Music under the Bridge

         Wednesdays, July 9th - August 6th

         6:30-9:30PM

         Brooklyn Bridge Park
 

New York Philharmonic in the Park

         July 14th

         8PM

         Longmeadow Ballfields, Prospect Park West 

Activities:

Canoe the Lullwater!

         June 21 

         11:00 a.m. (Sign up begins at 10:30AM)

         Audubon Center, Prospect Park
 

November 26, 2007

Chancellor Joel Klein

New York City Department of Education

52 Chambers Street

New York, NY 10007

Dear Chancellor Klein:

We are writing to enlist your help in continuing the success of our local elementary school PS 8 (The Robert Fulton School) in District 13, serving Brooklyn Heights, Concord Village, Dumbo, Farragut Houses, Fulton Ferry Landing, Vinegar Hill – communities that lie adjacent to a rapidly growing Downtown Brooklyn.

As you certainly know, just five short years ago PS 8 was on the verge of being closed. Student enrollment had declined to a low of 150, zoned and out-of-zone parents were not choosing to send their children to the school, and the staff was demoralized.

In 2003, thanks to Mayor Bloomberg and yourself, Carmen Farina brought new leadership to PS8. Principal Seth Phillips and curriculum development specialist Olivia Ellis rolled up their sleeves and turned the school around. Enrollment and parent satisfaction soared. A magnet grant brought in many more families. In only four years, PS 8’s enrollment has almost tripled.

PS 8 became a role model for the City --- the place to pilot new programs and showcase the new direction from Tweed. In a true partnership with the community, PS 8 provided an example of what any elementary school in the City could do. So much so that the school is now the ‘victim of its own success’.

Today, the second and third grades are overcrowded with 30 children to a class. The Science Room has been dismantled to add an additional fifth grade. Next year, our two pre-K classes will be eliminated to accommodate increased enrollment in the upper grades.  If we had the space, we could fill no fewer than four pre-K classrooms with zoned children.  Expected 2008 enrollment for grades K-5 exceeds our current building’s capacity.  Last year there were 26 graduating fifth graders. In 2010 there will be 92.

We should be applauding, and we are.  But that’s not all. 

PS8 fifth graders face inadequate and limited choices as they search for middle schools in District 13.  Even though we are told of underutilized schools in the District, most of these schools are deemed unacceptable for both academic and safety reasons. In short, while our elementary school success has us bursting out of our 37 Hicks Street building, with inadequate space to handle demand for elementary grades, it is all happening before any of the new buildings in the PS 8 zone are built. Like it or not, there simply are not enough good middle schools of choice to serve current and prospective families in Brooklyn’s District 13.

Although we are aware that the Board of Education has predicted declining enrollments for District 13 middle schools, we respectfully question these assumptions on two grounds.

First, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership reports that 14,000 residential units (housing approximately 35,000 people) are slated to be built in downtown Brooklyn over the next five years. This does not include housing at 360 Furman Street (aka 1 Brooklyn Bridge Park), which will open at the end of this year, nor the other residential buildings due to be built on the edge of Brooklyn Bridge Park. It also does not include the newly converted condos in the former telephone company building on Willoughby Street zoned for PS 8.  Most of this new development is occurring in District 13 and in an area that doesn’t currently contain any middle schools. (See enclosed map.) Outdated census data of the area shows a population in the mere hundreds.

Second, successful schools attract students and will always increase overall enrollment. There is no question that parents vote with their feet. Witness this at PS8 where parents who might have moved out of the City resolved to stay and help to build a diverse and awesomely energetic PTA.

Chancellor Klein, you of all people know that PS 8 became the poster school for Mayor Bloomberg’s improvements at the Department of Education. Thanks to excellent leadership, the larger community around PS 8 has embraced the school.  However,  for PS 8 to remain successful, the Department of Education must address current overcrowding in the elementary grades. We appeal to you not only to allow Pre-K to remain, but also to provide good middle school options for graduating fifth graders. If not, PS 8 and District 13 will be losing hard working, tax paying families to the suburbs. 

We are currently searching for a facility to solve both these problems. We have identified a site that is only steps away from PS 8 at 72 Poplar Street. Formerly, the city-owned Police Department’s Internal Affairs Building, which comes with a two-story garage, 72 Poplar was sold at auction to a developer who has informed us that he cannot develop it profitably as a residential building. It is available for long term leasing by a community facility. The owner has informed the Brooklyn Heights Association that his preference would be a net lease with the Department of Education, and that the property has been certified as asbestos free. The Brooklyn Heights Association’s President who is an architect has drafted a floor plan indicating that the space can work for additional lower grades as well as an upper school. 

We are asking for your support in these efforts by taking two steps: Specifically, 1) We would like the School Construction Authority to evaluate 72 Poplar Street for it’s potential to meet PS 8’s capacity needs as we have outlined them in this letter.  2) We would like to show our draft plans to someone at the SCA as soon as possible before someone else signs a lease for these empty buildings. If, after an on-site inspection, the SCA finds the property to be unsuitable, we ask you to support us in identifying another site.

Please take notice of the signatories to this letter. They represent the trust and collaboration between school staff, families, neighborhood associations, community-based organizations, politicians and your administration. We hope you will build on this success at PS 8 by allowing our school to grow.  

To contact us, please call Councilmember David Yassky at 718-875-5200 Ext. 0, or 212-788-7348 and/or the Brooklyn Heights Association at 718-858-9193 and speak to Judy Stanton, Executive Director for information regarding 72 Poplar Street.

Respectfully,

Lisa Edstrom and Joanne Singleton                          Rabbi Serge Lippe

Co-Presidents, PS 8 PTA                                           Brooklyn Heights Interfaith Clergy Assoc.

Tom van den Bout, President                                      State Assemblymember Joan Millman

Brooklyn Heights Association

Claudia Corwin, President                                           Councilmember David Yassky

Concord Village Owners Inc

Karen Baty, President                                                   Councilmember Letitia James

DUMBO Neighborhood Association

Aldona Vaiciunas, President                                             Mary Andrews, President

Vinegar Hill Association                                                   Farragut Tenants Association

Joan Zimmerman, President

Fulton Ferry Landing Association

The Issue: 

Population rates have been soaring in Downtown Brooklyn for years, but the growing area still lacks a public middle school. With much of the new population consisting of young families, the need for a school is now becoming desperate. David has been meeting with various members of the Department of Education and the Bloomberg administration for quite some time, but so far, the City has refused to act. 

Last September David formed a special task force of PS 8 parents and civic leaders to help build community support for a middle school and to explore possible locations. Since then, the task force has produced its own report, confirming what David, Comptroller William C. Thompson and many others have also publicly acknowledged: the City has failed to plan appropriately for growth in Downtown Brooklyn, and today it is refusing to accommodate schoolchildren in the area.

The DOE is slow to act, but we won't give up. Together, we will win the fight for our children and succeed in bringing a middle school to Downtown Brooklyn!

Information: 

Read our letter to Joel Klein 

Read Comptroller William C. Thompson's report on school overcrowding

Get Involved: 

Live in Downtown Brooklyn? Tell us where your child currently goes to middle school and help us gather the facts

Sign our petition to let Chancellor Klein and the DOE know we mean business 

In the News:

Read what Rachel Monahan of the Daily News had to say about Brooklyn overcrowding

See what Elissa Gootman of the New York Times wrote about overcrowding in City schools