Fate of Daycare Centers, Charter School Still Unknown

Update, 6:11 p.m. The centers were granted an extension through June 30, the last day of city budget negotiations.

The clock is ticking.

Come Monday morning, the students at Boerum Hill's Strong Place and Bethel Baptist daycare centers may not have a classroom to go to.

And the fate of Brooklyn Prospect Charter School is equally uncertain: It will open a new permanent facility in Boerum Hill in 2012, but where it will send its students next year is unclear.

Over the past two weeks, administrators, parents, locals and elected officials have . Each Friday, their efforts have been rewarded with a one-week extension from the city.

But, an extension for next week has not yet been announced.

"Needless to say, morale is down at the centers," said Ellen Meyers, an advocate for the daycare centers, longtime Boerum Hill resident, and mother of Hope Reichbach, the 22-year-old woman who before she in April.

"What a crummy situation," she added.

But while much of the anger has been concentrated on Brooklyn Prospect Charter School, which has signed the lease on the building in which the centers are housed, Executive Director Daniel Rubenstein says it's all a "giant misunderstanding."

"The notion that we can force anyone out of a space is crazy," he said. "We're not a landlord."

Indeed, the buildings have been for rent for over a year, said Rubenstein, and Brooklyn Prospect is without a home while they wait for a brand new school building to be erected on Third Avenue.

"[The buildings] were aggressively marketed to many people," he said.

But while the daycare centers city funding is on the chopping block, Brooklyn Prospect not only has the funds to rent the building, but also to renovate it at a cost Rubenstein estimates would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Brooklyn Prospect does not want to displace any students, said Rubenstein, adding that a clause was put into their lease with the owner of 242 Hoyt Street that said if city funding for the daycare centers was restored, the charter school wouldn't take the lease.

But Brooklyn Prospect doesn't seem to have many options. The school is being pushed out of Sunset Park High School, where it has been co-located for the past two years. And in March, , an idea DOE quickly squashed after fast and furious protests from the school community. 

And so, where the students of the charter school will return to school in the fall is in limbo. Alternate spaces are being looked at for Bethel Baptist and Strong Place daycare centers, according to an article in the Daily News, but nothing has been finalized. If the centers find a new home, Brooklyn Prospect can move to Hoyt Street, and Sunset Park High School will no longer be overcrowded.

Still, Rubenstein admits the situation regarding the daycare centers is unfortunate.

"If I could have done the whole Hoyt Street thing differently, I would have," he said. "We didn't anticipate the reaction we got."