Here's the text of an e-mail I received earlier today from City Councilmember Jessica Lappin :
I thought you might be interested in a couple of the education issues I have been working on this month.
All the best,
Jessica Lappin
Lappin rallies to fight school overcrowding
I have been warning the DOE for years that this day would come and, unfortunately, now it's here. We don't have enough schools on the East Side to accommodate all of our students.
On March 6th, I co-hosted a rally with over 200 parents on the steps of City Hall to protest the rampant school overcrowding in our neighborhood and across the city. Waiting lists at several local public schools are causing major problems. New buildings have sprouted up all over the place. New schools haven't.
Now, the DOE's failure to plan for District 2 has created an educational crisis. Over 150 children are on East Side waitlists for their locally zoned elementary schools.
Attending your local elementary school shouldn't be a special privilege extended only to those lucky enough to win a lottery. Our system is based on the premise that parents have a right to expect that their child will have a seat in their own neighborhood school.
That's not what they're getting. Parents are being told to wait, cross their fingers, and hope for the best. That is not acceptable. Overcrowding in our schools is already a major problem and it's getting worse. With 150 kids on waitlists, we have an extra school's worth of kindergarteners on the
The rally was a great step in making sure that attention is focused on this vital issue. At hearings and on daily conference calls, I will continue to fight for real long-term solutions to the overcrowding crisis in Manhattan.
We should expand opportunities for children to attend gifted and talented (G & T) programs in
Opening this program will be a win-win. For the first time, Roosevelt Island parents won't have to take their kids off the