NYC charter school parents rap teachers’ union for blocking space deal
Parents from a Queens charter school are urging a judge to hear them out in a lawsuit from a teachers’ union that would block their kids from sharing space in a public school building in Far Rockaway.
In its suit, the United Federation of Teachers cited a class-size law to invalidate the co-location of two Success Academy charters at public school buildings — one in Far Rockaway and the other in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.
The teachers’ suit was filed against the city Department of Education and Schools Chancellor David Banks along with the Panel for Educational Policy, which approved the co-locations.
Manhattan state Supreme Court Judge Lyle Frank rejected Success Academy and its parents from intervening in the UFT case to support the city’s action.
Frank ruled the city could adequately represent Success Academy, since it approved the charter network’s co-location — and that Success Academy’s involvement would be “repetitive” and delay a resolution.
Success Academy is appealing; the UFT filed papers opposing the appeal.
“It’s outrageous, ridiculous. The UFT is working against the parents and the students. The teachers’ union is trying to push us out of Far Rockaway,” claimed Chanee Mitchell, whose daughter, Monay Bradley, is a fifth grader at the Success Academy Far Rockaway Middle School.
That middle school now shares space with its elementary school, and the Brian Piccolo Middle School and Village Academy, both traditional public schools.
Last fall, the Panel for Education approved co-locating the Success Academy middle school in Far Rockaway at the Waterside School For Leadership facility at 190 Beach 110th Street.
The site houses both Waterside, a zoned district middle school for kids in grades 6-8, and Waterside Children’s Studio, a traditional elementary that won’t be in the building by fall, freeing up space for Success Academy’s Far Rockaway middle school.
SA Far Rockaway Middle School serves grades 5-7 and is expanding to grade 8 next year. But the current location won’t be big enough to accommodate an additional grade, Success Academy said.
“This is heartbreaking. We have a right to be heard. We are parents,” Mitchell said. “Where are our students going to go? There is nowhere else to go in Far Rockaway. They’ll have to travel far away to go to school.”
“I was very surprised by the UFT lawsuit. It’s an obstacle. I thought we were in the clear. We had a big celebration when the co-location was approved. We should all be fighting for our kids and not against each other,” Mitchell added.
The UFT was joined in the lawsuit by the Advocates for Justice Legal Foundation and four parents with children in traditional public schools in the building that would share space with SA Far Rockaway middle school.
In court papers, UFT lawyer Dina Kolke said Success Academy, which has a “plethora of locations around the city, is more than capable of finding another temporary (or permanent) location” and that the DOE can also help them find alternate space.
Success Academy lawyer Jay Lefkowitz, in his appeal, said the charter school network has the right to defend its interests, noting Mayor Eric Adams has been “ambivalent” about expanding charter schools or finding them space.
The UFT has been accused of hypocrisy in the space wars involving charter schools.
The union didn’t balk when University Prep Middle School — a charter co-founded by Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers and former head of its local affiliate UFT — was granted more space in a city building last month.
The city’s Panel For Educational Policy voted 22–0 to allow the Weingarten charter to expand in a South Bronx building it shares with the Rapport School for Career Development HS serving special needs students, and the Academy Leadership Charter School.
The UFT represents the staff at University Prep.
By comparison, staff at Success Academy’s 49 charter schools are not members of the union.
