Anger Boils Over at Community Roots Proposed Co-Location Meeting

Tempers flared at a meeting Wednesday night over the proposed co-location of Community Roots Charter School with .

With the backing of the city Department of Education, parents and teachers at Community Roots made a forceful, and at times, highly emotional pitch to share P.S. 287's facilities and allow the charter school to expand into the middle school grades.

"They love their friends, they love their community," said Cynthia Campbell, who has children enrolled in the second and fourth grades at Community Roots. "We need to be given a chance to grow. Just give us a chance."

P.S. 287 parent Patricia Lee Rippey, waiting with friends and family members for the meeting in the Navy Street school's auditorium to start, saw things very differently.

"They are new people, coming into our home, pushing their way around like they already own the place," Rippey said. "Why should they come into our community and take our space?"

Housed at P.S. 67 on St. Edwards Street, Community Roots currently offers a K-5 curriculum. A proposal to expand through K-8 at the P.S. 67 building .

However, with the co-located leaving P.S. 287 for a high school in Boerum Hill, even those opposed to last year's P.S. 67 proposal threw their support behind Community Roots' newest bid to expand. 

"No one cannot stand up and say there is not room in this building for another school," said Councilwoman Letitia James, D-Brooklyn. "So why not a neighboring school? Why not Community Roots?"

James said the public charter school was "busting at the seams" and had a long waiting list for prospective students.

Under the proposal, 45 to 58 Community Roots middle school students would attend classes at P.S. 287, with the K-5 program staying put at P.S. 67. As children progress through the middle school grades, that enrollment is expected to grow to a projected 135 to 174 students, according to DOE figures.

P.S. 287's enrollment for the current school year is pegged at 217—78 of whom are KGIA students. According to DOE, P.S. 287 was built to house as many as 571 students.

Addressing evidence of excess capacity in their building, many P.S. 287 parents and alumni accused DOE of favoritism in approving Community Roots' K-8 proposal while twice denying this zoned public school their own chance to expand.

Edgardo Rivera, president of P.S. 287's parent teacher association, accused DOE of a concerted campaign to keep down enrollment by encouraging students zoned for the school to go elsewhere.

A DOE spokesman at the meeting denied that there was any attempt to limit the number of students enrolled at P.S. 287.

"It may not be DOE policy, but its being done anyway," Rivera said, claiming that P.S. 287 zoned parents had been prompted by the Office of Enrollment to attend other schools.

In an attempt to cool tempers on both sides of the co-location debate, James pledged to be an advocate for the expansion of both Community Roots and P.S. 287.

"Some people in this auditorium feel that this school belongs to them, and feel that they have been treated unfairly and feel that their school has not been given an opportunity to grow and expand as well," she said, adding later, "There is capacity in this building for both of you to grow."

The co-location proposal will be voted on at a public meeting by the city Panel for Education Policy to be held at on Jan. 18.