Fight over relocating Upper West Side school to make space for migrant kids heats up

Dozens of families rallied Tuesday against plans to move an Upper West Side school — where a free autism program has offered a lifeline for mostly Black and Latino families — in order to make space for dual-language classes helping migrant children adapt to life in New York.

For more than a decade, the two schools — West Prep Academy and P.S. 145 The Bloomingdale School — have shared a building. While West Prep, a middle school, has grown smaller with enrollment changes during the pandemic, P.S. 145 is adding families seeking asylum to its Spanish and Russian programs.

If the proposal is approved next month, West Prep would move into a century-old shuttered Catholic school a few blocks away that parents worry will not meet the needs of their children.

“The issue for me is the building in itself,” said Denise Johnson, whose child is in seventh grade. “It looks like a jail and I don’t think that’s something that our Black and brown kids should be provided by based off of someone else’s decision. The parents didn’t vote.”

The Daily News first reported on the plans this winter, which have touched off a painful debate in the building with allegations of racism and anti-immigrant sentiment. An online petition that accused P.S. 145’s Russian program of “encroaching” had gathered close to 2,200 signatures as of Tuesday, while West Prep families suggested the school would not have been pushed out if not for its demographics.

The principal and PTA at P.S. 145 report space constraints that have cost students access to a music room, TV studio and science and technology lab. Physical and speech therapists work with students in the library, which families want to go back to its original purpose, and counselors have struggled to find private space to help newcomer students.

Since 2022, the school has enrolled 108 students seeking asylum from Central and South American countries, plus another 37 students from Ukraine and Russia, according to an open letter by the PTA.

“P.S. 145 staff and teachers have made the school a home for these vulnerable children and their families, providing them with a sense of security and so much more,” it stated. “The growth in our student population, however, has had serious consequences.”

But families at West Prep question the fairness of the move, which comes as they are not asking for more space.

“They’re enrolling too much,” said Bianca Loch, parent of a sixth grader. “If you know the space you have, why do you take more kids in?”

The new building, meanwhile, has no outdoor space and is not yet accessible for students with physical disabilities. Photos reviewed by The News show tight hallways, openings to fire escapes that pose potential safety concerns and the loss of separate spaces for a gym and auditorium. The subterranean cafeteria is dark and outdated.

Education officials committed to costly space upgrades and provided renderings, including of the cafeteria and so-called “gymatorium,” to West Prep families. They could also study the feasibility of outdoor rooftop space and special education facility enhancements, parents said.

“Any time you’re talking about making any kinds of changes, it’s always fraught with emotion,” Schools Chancellor David Banks told reporters last month.

“One of the schools has to move. And it’s just a whole hue and cry around, you know, which one has to move. But at the end of the day,” he said, “we’ve got to make a decision on how to do that.”

To try to stop the move, West Prep families teamed up with the National Parents Union, a pro-charter foil to teachers unions, which helped organize and promote Tuesday’s rally. The group has previously advocated for school choice and literacy investments in New York.

A final vote on the proposal, scheduled to go before the Panel for Educational Policy last month, was pushed back until May 22. If approved, it would be the second time in 13 years that West Prep is relocated.

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