Children’s School “Expansion” Update

Dear Families,

The DOE had informed Mr. Artie that our application to expand was put on hold for reasons which were never officially announced by the NYC Department of Education (DOE). This was very surprising because a space for our expansion had been identified in a meeting in October 2012.

As many of you are aware, our Principal, Mr. Artie, made an official announcement withdrawing our application for expansion only because DOE still has not made an official announcement along with a proper explanation, and because parents and the community needed to know that we would not be on the New Schools Middle Application for the 2013-2014 school year, as previously told to us by the DOE.  He did not want our parents relying on and hoping for something that is not going to happen and also felt that the uncertainty of the situation compromised the process of planning for a Fall 2013 inaugural school year.

This committee will finally be meeting with DOE on Wednesday March 13th. We are hopeful that this meeting will provide us with answers. This meeting is the culmination of a long quest to make contact with the DOE and obtain information about our expansion.

In January 2013 after repeated attempts to make contact with the DOE through typical channels beginning in October 2012 not long after the meeting during which space was proposed, this committee sent a letter, along with supporting evidence, to the DOE requesting answers as to why the expansion was suddenly halted without official explanation and why the DOE was not responding to parent inquiries in a timely fashion. Here is the link to that letter and supporting materials (exhibits). We did not receive a response to this letter for approximately 3 weeks and that response (which we demanded) was merely a confirmation of receipt of the letter. Now, 2 months after we sent our letter, we have been granted the meeting which will be taking place on March 13th.

We will announce any and all information that we receive in our meeting as soon as possible. Thanks for your patience and continued support. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact us at parents@ps372expansion.org

Sincerely,

The Parents Committee for the Expansion of The Children’s School