Brooklyn Elementary School Rezoning Approved By Education Council

BROOKLYN, NY — A plan to redraw zones for seven Brooklyn elementary schools to improve diversity in the district has gotten the green light from local education officials, cementing the city's plan to put it in place in the 2022-23 school year.

The latest proposal — unanimously approved by the District 15 Community Education Council on Tuesday — — will turn one school to a middle school and redraw zones for six others in what is known as "Sub Zone 3," which extends over Red Hook, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill and Carroll Gardens.

The vote comes after multiple delays to the rezoning, originally meant for the 2020-21 school year, as officials worked on reaching disenfranchised families who at first felt excluded from plans for the remap.

The district ultimately convened a research team that spent years understanding what families wanted from the plan — a first in terms of outreach on school rezonings, according to Superintendent Anita Skop.

"Last night culminated almost two years worth of work around a rezoning process that is iconic for the city," Skop told community board members Wednesday. "...Because of the [Participatory Action Research] team and the fact that they had families from the diff schools work together, they have started to see themselves as a community more and they’re very excited about that. I cannot tell you what this meant to the community."

The latest rezoning proposal will expand the boundaries for three schools — P.S. 15, 38 and 32 — while shrinking the zones for P.S. 58 and 29 and keeping P.S. 261's zone the same.

P.S. 676, which has struggled with declining enrollment for decades, will convert into a middle school and move to a new facility already being built a few blocks away. The switch will include a years-long gradual transition, starting next year when 676 will stop admitting new kindergartners, Skop said.

"They didn’t want to lose the principal, the number of the school, the heritage of the school — but, they thought it would be a great idea to transition the school into a middle school," Skop said. "...Any child in the school will go through the school, no child is being forced out, it’s a very smooth, gradual transition."

The plan also includes a condition that the current P.S. 676 building be used by the Department of Education as an early childhood education site or an overflow space for nearby P.S. 15.

Finally, under the rezoning proposal, 30 percent of seats at each of the schools will be prioritized for historically marginalized students, including multi-language learners, students with disabilities, those who qualify for free and reduced-price lunch or those who live in New York City Housing Authority developments and temporary housing.

"We are hopeful that this rezoning will not only bring together the schools in a different way, but also it will bring together this idea that this is a community," Skop said."There is an excitement to the fact that we are bringing people together."

Find out more about the rezoning plan here.