Cynthia Nixon Talks School Overcrowding

• It is regrettable that Cynthia Nixon's status has enabled her to so widely spread distortions about the 199 community. The issue at hand is that 199 is in a space crisis. Somehow, Nixon turned this into a race issue. This blog and other news outlets are passing it on as unchallenged truth.

• I agree with M. Hughes' intelligent comments. The news blog needed to look a bit more deeply into the issue before making any conclusions. A few other key points: *The diversity issue is a very late arrival to this discussion and was only brought up when Center School was unable to come up with a good reason for not moving, intact, to a larger space slightly further uptown. *Center School has long had very murky and questionable admission policies; it's known for admitting the children of PTA leaders, the educationally and politically connected and the wealthy and powerful and...well, you get the picture. *Center School is the least diverse district middle school in District 3. *Ms. Nixon lobbied to get her younger child into PS 199, though she does not live in the catchment and had no valid reason to seek a varience--it was for the convenience of dropoff and pickup. *That child currently attends another increasingly less diverse school on the Upper West Side.

• I am a PS 199 parent. The Village Voice is correct to question whether Ms. Nixon is right on this issue. And in fact Ms. Nixon has it wrong and should make it clear that she is advocating in her own self interest here, as she has a child at the Center School, a middle school, whom she does not want to be moved. This issue is about overcrowding in PS 199, a local elementary school which is required to accept kids who live in the zone for the school. Recently, due to rampant uncontrolled construction which is not PS 199's fault, its population grew from about 580 students last year, to 660 this year, and it is looking at a similar increase next year. Our school now has over 30 kids in fifth grade, while Center School has much smaller class sizes. The CEC, the community education council whose duty is to rule on rezoning, looked for feedback from all affected schools and acted within its powers in recommending the relocation of the Center School and rezoning part of the Trump/Extell buildings out of PS 199, while leaving in affordable housing units in the zone to maintain balance and diversity. The value articulated by the CEC as having high priority was sending our elementary children to their neighborhood schools. On Ms. Nixon's reference to a PS 199 PAC, PS 199 has had on again off again Political Action Committee for years. The PS 199 PTA reactivated the committee last year due to the foresight of some parents who saw overcrowding becoming a real issue. The committee of parents was formed to reach out to local officials. They are no different from many other parents in the city who are seeking to improve overcrowding. Other schools working in overcrowding in other districts, such as District 2, have similar committees. Contrary to some claims that have been made, none of the parents are lobbyists. whereas Center School has at least one if not two lobbyist type parents working on the issue and even now has a celebrity. Let's keep focused on the real issue here, as the CEC has, which is preventing overcrowding.

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