Nine things you need to know about last night's PEP meeting

Nine takeaways from last night’s raucous Panel for Educational Policy meeting, for those who don’t have time for 5,000-plus words and minute-to-minute updates:

1. The city’s agenda was unsurprisingly approved. But the bloc of borough presidents’ appointees has hardened into constant opposition. Last year, some borough presidents’ appointees voted to support at least a few of the proposed phaseouts. Even Patrick Sullivan, the appointee of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, cast a rare “yes” vote on the city’s proposal to close the high school grades of Frederick Douglass Academy III in the South Bronx.

That didn’t happen last night. Sullivan, Gbubemi Okotieuro of Brooklyn, Wilfredo Pagan of the Bronx, and Dmytryo Fedkowskj of Queens voted against every single closure proposal before them. Sullivan and Pagan even abstained on two votes for proposals to grow schools rather than shrink them. And in a surprising move, Diane Peruggia, the appointee of Staten Island’s conservative borough president, James Molinaro, cast a “no” vote — against the first-ever closure of a Staten Island school, P.S. 14.

Only one plan won unanimous support: the plan to expand Brooklyn’s P.S. 8 to include a middle school, something parents in Brooklyn Heights had been asking for for years.

2. Protesters were divided on strategy and the teachers union’s lost out. Three different groups planned protests and two of them faced off outside and inside Brooklyn Tech. Protesters affiliated with the Occupy movement, many with no connection to the city schools, sustained a “people’s mic” for hours, shouting over official speakers and panel members.They even tried to prevent others from testifying and as their numbers dwindled, their protest devolved into an expletive-laden series of personal attacks. Their goal — ultimately unsuccessful — was to shut the meeting down.

The UFT, on the other hand, had rented space at nearby P.S. 20 to hold an alternate meeting, the “People’s PEP.” The idea was to march from Brooklyn Tech to P.S. 20 instead of heading inside for the city’s meeting — a plan that caused a teacher activist to argue strategy with a union vice president outside the meeting, which can be seen in this video.

Citing police intervention, the union aborted its march almost immediately, and instead the union members were shepherded into the nosebleed section of the auditorium where seats were remaining.

The confusion cost at least some people a chance to speak on the official record:

There’s Donna Hamlet, president of the parent association at Far Rockaway’s P.S. 215, which could close, tells Jessica that she rode a UFT-sponsored bus from Far Rockaway to Fort Greene. When she received a laminated pass to speak at the “People’s PEP,” the alternate meeting the union had planned, she thought she had signed up to speak in the regular meeting. By the time the march was cancelled, the PEP’s official sign-in list was closed.

3. The protest was largely one-sided. In the past, charter school advocates had staged their own rallies in favor of charter schools during the meetings, making for some tense confrontations and, occasionally, striking reconciliations. But last night, without charter school co-locations on the agenda and with massive protests planned, most defenders of the mayor’s agenda stayed home.

A notable exception was a group of about 30 parents, most with children in charter schools, who stood silently in the back and held up signs that said “Better Schools Now!” Many of them testified as well, defending the city’s decision to close low-performing schools while in most cases carefully avoiding “pro-charter” language. They repeatedly said that they were speaking out because they believed quality schools should be available to every student, and that closing struggling schools was the way to do it.

4. Activists aren’t the only ones with volume in their arsenal. The Department of Education piped the official proceedings through a robust amplification system that made speakers’ voices audible over the shouting. Panel members were also supplied with headphones that channeled official testimony right into their ears. Most of them wore the headphones during the peak of protest, and Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky barely took his off all night.

5. More resistance doesn’t mean more time debating the issues. Last night’s meeting was the shortest panel vote on closures since the state started requiring the panel to sign off on closures in 2010. That year, the vote on 22 school closures took place close to 4 a.m. In 2011, the city divided the 25 closure votes over two meetings in the same week: One lasted until nearly 3 a.m. and the other stretched past 1 a.m. By midnight last night, the votes were complete and the auditorium had been cleared. The public comment period, which in the past has made up the bulk of the meeting, attracted only 125 speaker sign-ups and lasted only until a little after 9 p.m.

One reason for the shorter public comment period is that protesters affiliated with the Occupy movement actively dissuaded people from using the city’s official speaker system. Another reason is that many people affiliated with the UFT did not get a chance to sign up. Panel member Patrick Sullivan offered a third suggestion: “I think they’ve kind of given up on public comment because they know everything is decided,” he said as the panel began its discussion.

6. Chancellor Dennis Walcott was on good behavior, but it didn’t win him any friends. Last night was Walcott’s first panel vote on closures since becoming chancellor last April. His predecessor, Cathie Black, sometimes needled parents during public hearings (though not at last year’s closure votes, where she barely opened her mouth). Her predecessor, longtime chancellor Joel Klein, spent much of panel meetings typing on his BlackBerry, to attendees’ frequent chagrin.

Walcott, who has championed civility in education debates, gazed intently at the speakers and appeared to be listening, if dispassionately.

“I understand the emotions involved,” Walcott told reporters after the meeting’s conclusion. “But sometimes we have to make tough choices that people find unpopular.’”

7. A large police presence provided a chilling effect and, at times, confusion. Half a dozen police vans were parked outside Brooklyn Tech well before any protesters arrived, and the school’s lobby was filled with officers all night. At one point, shortly after 8 p.m., a large number of protesters left the auditorium and entered the lobby — where the officers tried to bar them from reentering the meeting, in violation of city policy and the state’s open meetings law.

Jessica reported at around 8:15 p.m.:

After school safety agents try to stop the group from reentering the auditorium, the chant turns to, “Let us in!” The protest in the lobby grows rowdier. Jessica reports that the floor is even shaking.

Afterwards, the police presence ramped up inside the auditorium, too. From 8:40 p.m.:

After leaving for about 20 minutes to occupy the lobby, protesters have returned to the auditorium with an invigorated energy. The police presence is stepping up its intervention, too: Geoff reports that about two dozen armed officers have formed a barricade between the media pit and the front-row seats, where the protesters begin.

8. For some people, the debate was anything but ideological. Much of the protest took aim at the format of the meeting and the way the Bloomberg administration formats and executes school policies. But for some attendees — families caught in the closure crosshairs — the bottom line came down to where their children would attend school in September.

Here’s just one example:

After her son was bullied at KAPPA VII last fall, Eleanor Pettway testified, the city offered him a transfer to the Academy of Business and Community Development, where he is in the sixth grade. The city removed KAPPA VII from the closure list on Wednesday (along with Wadleigh Secondary School for Performing and Visual Arts) but ABCD could be closed tonight. Unlike the other schools on the chopping block, ABCD would not phase out but instead would close at the end of the year. “I asked the DOE to transfer my son for safety and he was transferred to ABCD. Now it’s being closed,” Pettway said. “It’s not fair. He doesn’t deserve that.” Pettway said her son is “the happiest he’s been since he left elementary school” and hasn’t had any problems with bullying at ABCD.

9. The following phase-outs and co-locations were approved:

These schools will be phased out: Samuel Gompers Career and Technical Education High School, Bronx Gateway School for Environmental Research and Technology, Bronx Jane Addams High School for Academic Careers, Bronx Grace Dodge Career and Technical Education High School, Bronx Aspire Preparatory Middle School, Bronx Satellite Three Middle School, Brooklyn P.S. 019 Roberto Clemente, Brooklyn P.S. 022, Brooklyn International Arts Business School, Brooklyn Middle School for the Arts, Brooklyn General D. Chappie James Elementary School of Science, Brooklyn The Anna Gonzalez Community School, Brooklyn Legacy School for International Studies, Manhattan Washington Irving High School, Manhattan Manhattan Theatre Lab High School, Manhattan P.S. 215 Lucretia Mott, Queens P.S. 14 Cornelius Vanderbilt, Staten Island This school will close in June: Academy of Business and Community Development, Brooklyn These secondary schools will have their middle grades phase out: Academy of Scholarship and Entrepreneurship, Bronx Frederick Douglass Academy IV Secondary School, Brooklyn P.S. 298 Dr. Betty Shabazz, Brooklyn Brooklyn Collegiate: A College Board School, Brooklyn These co-locations will move forward:  New high school 08X561 on the Adlai Stevenson Campus, Bronx New high school 10X565 at Grace Dodge High School, Bronx New middle school 11X556 in Aspire Prep’s building, Bronx P.S. 8’s middle school on the George Westinghouse Campus, Brooklyn New middle school 13K351 in Satellite III’s building, Brooklyn New school P.S. 414 in P.S. 19’s building, Brooklyn New middle school 16K681 in Frederick Douglass Academy IV’s building, Brooklyn New high school 17K745 on the Wingate Campus, Brooklyn New middle school 17K722 in Middle School of the Arts’s building, Brooklyn New middle school 23K423 in P.S. 298’s building, Brooklyn New school P.S. 446 in the Chappie schools building, Brooklyn New middle school 32K562 in the Anna Gonzalez Community School’s building, Brooklyn New high school 02M534 in Legacy School for Integrated Studies’ building, Manhattan The Academy for Software Engineering in the Washington Irving campus, Manhattan New high school 02M533 in the Washington Irving campus, Manhattan Special Music School’s middle school on the Martin Luther King Campus, Manhattan New school 27Q362 in P.S. 215’s building, Queens New school 31R078 in P.S. 14’s building, Staten Island