City Announces Plan to Diversify Lower Manhattan Schools

 

By Kate Taylor

Parents and advocates of integration in the East Village and Lower East Side have pushed for a plan to improve diversity in their district’s elementary schools for years.

On Thursday, the New York City Education Department announced that it was implementing a school choice system aimed at increasing the racial and socioeconomic diversity in their district, Community School District 1.

Parents in District 1 have been able to choose among any of the district’s elementary schools. Schools that are oversubscribed assign seats by lottery. Despite this freedom of choice, the district’s schools tend to be segregated by race and socioeconomics. In the 2016-17 school year, for example, the students at East Village Community School on East 12th Street were 58 percent white, but Public School 15, the Roberto Clemente School, on East Fourth Street, had only four white students out of 178.

Under the new plan, priority for 67 percent of the seats in kindergarten and prekindergarten at every elementary school will be given to students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, live in temporary housing or are learning English. Priority for the other 33 percent of seats will go to students who do not fall into any of those categories.

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Source: The New York Times (via The Empire Report)