Update on our Skinny award dinner, class size, court hearings, privacy violations and more!
1. Save the date! On Wednesday June 19 we will hold our annual Skinny award dinner at Casa La Femme on 140 Charles St. The honorees will be Attorney General Tish James for her steadfast and courageous leadership in supporting public school students and parents over many years; and NYC Kids PAC, the only political action committee that rates candidates on their positions on public education. Please reserve your ticket now — for a delicious three course dinner with wine and great company besides!
2. Last week, the Education Council Consortium and CEC 2 both passed resolutions in support of our campaign to urge the City Council to allocate funding for class size reduction in this year’s budget. Please ask your CEC to do the same! We can provide you with district-specific data if you like.
3. This week two important court hearings will be held. Tomorrow, Wed. May 15 at 2:30 PM at the NY Supreme Court, 60 Centre St., Rm. 418, Judge Arthur Engeron will hear a lawsuit vs the city for redacting nearly the entire final City Hall decision memo that we FOILed about how the DOE’s formula for assessing school space would be revised, and why the Mayor rejected the Blue Book Working Group’s proposal to align school capacity with smaller classes.
4. This Thursday May 16 at 11 AM, Judge Katherine Levine will hear arguments on the DOE’s proposal to close PS 25, a small zoned school in Bed Stuy. The hearing will take place at the Kings Country Supreme Court in Brooklyn, at 360 Adams St. Last year PS 25 parents sued and got a temporary restraining order against closing the school. I wrote an open letter to Chancellor Carranza that was published in the Washington Post Answer Sheet, asking him to withdraw this proposal; obviously he did not.
5. Because of unconscionable delays on the part of the US Department of Education in responding to parents’ FERPA complaints, Eva Moskowitz and Success Academy have once again violated student privacy and federal law. An update on this long-running saga is here.
Talk to you soon, and please sign up for our Skinny dinner today!
thanks, Leonie
Update on our Skinny award dinner, class size, court hearings, privacy violations and more! | Class Size Matters