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A NEW MIDDLE SCHOOL FOR THE UES

Victory: A New Middle School To Open in September 2014

In recent years, the Upper East Side has been faced with an overcrowding crisis in our public schools. After creating three new elementary schools, parents and elected officials were demanding a new middle school and identified the PS 158 Annex as the perfect location.

Last year, along with parents, I led a campaign to “Stop the Middle School Madness” to draw the Department of Education’s attention to this issue. We delivered over 2,000 petition signatures asking Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott to provide our community with a new middle school to alleviate overcrowding.

These joint efforts have won us the middle school that the Upper East Side needs so badly. Together we have convinced the DOE to open a new public middle school and not a charter school in the PS 158 Annex starting September 2014. The space in PS 158’s Annex will provide well over 300 middle school seats. While there are still many questions to address over the next 18 months, I would like to take this opportunity to celebrate this achievement of true community collaboration and grassroots advocacy. This is one of those great occasions when the community speaks and local government hears them loud and clear.

Thank you to all those who signed the “Stop the Middle School Madness” petitions and to all those who supported and rallied to open a much needed middle school in the neighborhood. Enormous thanks and credit for this significant achievement go to the coalition of East Side parent advocates and PTA representatives. In advocating for their school communities, they made it their personal mission to analyze DOE enrollment and projection data and presented a compelling case for a new neighborhood middle school.

Together we can achieve outstanding results like this. Over the years I have worked tirelessly to provide quality education for the children of our community. We have the best schools in the city and my goal is to continue doing everything I can to help keep it that way.

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