Lawsuit To Stop October 2013 Co-locations:

Lawsuit To Stop October 2013 Co-locations

admin December 29, 2013 Uncategorized

New York City Parents and Elected Officials File Suit Seeking Injunction

To Stop Bloomberg’s 42 Recently Approved School Co-locations

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New York City public school parents joined by Public Advocate-elect Letitia James and City Council members Melissa Mark-Viverito, Jumaane Williams, Margaret Chin and Ruben Wills filed a lawsuit on Friday, December 27, seeking to enjoin the New York City Department of Education (“DoE”) from co-locating 42 public and charter schools as approved by the Panel for Educational Policy in October 2013.

The co-locations, slated to begin in September 2014, are the “last hurrah” from lame duck Mayor Michael Bloomberg — a final push to impose his will on New York City public school parents and communities during the new Mayoral administration of Bill de Blasio.

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters said: “This lawsuit is especially valuable as it is the first to point out how inadequate the educational impact statements developed by the DoE have been in completely omitting the likely impact on class size of these numerous co-locations and ignoring how the resulting overcrowding of schools will in many cases lead to building code violations. I would like to thank Advocates for Justice for their work in protecting the rights of NYC students not to have their education severely damaged by these irresponsible and politically motivated co-locations, devised by a lame duck Mayor in his last months in office.”

Arthur Z. Schwartz, President of Advocates for Justice, the public interest law firm representing the Petitioners,expressed a “hope that the new Mayor will use these lawsuits as a