Amid criticism, Moskowitz will introduce new Brooklyn charter

Success Charter Network head Eva Moskowitz is making her first public appearance in Brownstone Brooklyn—and as usual, she will be joined by protesters.

Moskowitz is holding an informational session tomorrow to detail her plans for a new charter school that is likely to open in the affluent Cobble Hill neighborhood next year. Most of tomorrow’s protesters are parents from the neighborhood, who say they are planning to attend the meeting to tell Moskowitz that the Success Charter Network is not wanted there.

Opposition is also starting to rise from another group: School leaders in the Baltic Street building where the city has proposed to house the new school. The principals say they are nervous that the charter school’s presence could derail their attempts to improve their schools.

“We have had monumental success this year, and I’m concerned about how we can sustain that with another school added to the building, with the division of space,” Joseph O’Brien, principal of the School for Global Studies, one of the three schools currently housed in the building, told GothamSchools last week, before the co-location plan was announced. 

His school, which is in its second-year of “transformation,” a federally-funded school improvement program, moved from an F to a B on the annual high school progress reports this year. “I wonder, for a school that’s moved so far, how could they lay that at my feet?”

Another principal inside the building, Fred Walsh of the School for International Studies, said he is also worried the co-location will put a strain on the shared space, which the DOE identified as under-enrolled this year.

“To have four schools in the building, to put 190 more students in here, means huge class sizes, which would really, really impact our programming,” he said. “It would be really, really upsetting to both schools.”

Walsh’s and O’Brien’s schools enroll mostly African-American students, many of whom hail from public housing, in an neighborhood that is predominantly white. Nearby, P.S. 29 is known for its white, middle-class student body, while two other elementary schools, P.S. 261 and P.S. 58 in the neighboring Boerum Hill and Carroll Gardens communities, also serve largely middle-class populations.

Success Network officials defended the plans to colocate in other schools, citing the Independent Budget Office’s findings that district schools co-located with charter school are less likely to suffer from overcrowding issues.

“We’ve made the decision, so the goal of meeting is to introduce parents to our school model,” said Jenny Sedlis, Success Academy’s director of external affairs. She said the school will replicate the Success Charter Network schools in Manhattan, the Bronx, and the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.

The parents organizing tomorrow’s protest were originally concerned that the charter would be located in their school, M.S. 447, a selective middle school with many middle-class families and a special program for autistic students. Parents there say they are relieved that their school is off the hook. But they said they would keep protesting Success Charter Network’s move into Brownstone Brooklyn.

“We know that things can always change. We are continuing to mobilize to keep the parents and community involved, until its really done and final decisions are made,” said Valerie Price Ervin, whose son attends M.S. 447.

Protesters from that school, other area schools, and several community organizations are planning to rally outside the Carroll Gardens Library tomorrow during Moskowitz’s presentation.

“If they’re not going to put it in our school, then we are still in opposition—not in 447, not in any public schools,” said Isemene Speliotis, a parent-teacher association member at M.S. 447 who is organizing the protest.

The purpose of Moskowitz’s meeting will be to demystify the charter school network’s academic philosophy for parents who are not familiar with charter schools, Sedlis said.

Though attendees will have an opportunity to provide feedback after hearing from Moskowitz, she said Success Academy leaders have already decided to move forward with their plans.