The New York City education department on Tuesday revealed a plan that officials hope will spur more economic diversity in Lower East Side elementary schools.
It is the first effort under Mayor Bill de Blasio to tackle segregation on a district-wide basis, and follows years of lobbying by parent advocates in District 1, which also includes the East Village. The plan’s goal is for each school’s share of disadvantaged students to match the district’s, though that will depend to a large degree on recruitment efforts and families’ admissions decisions.
“This is a pretty significant step for the city,” said Matt Gonzales, who leads school integration efforts for the nonprofit New York Appleseed, adding that he expects the city to eventually do even more to promote integration in that district “and ultimately throughout the city.”
While District 1 includes a diverse mix of students, its schools are largely segregated. At some, virtually all students are low-income. In others, fewer than a quarter are.
Last year, 67 percent of students who applied to schools in the district were either eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, still learning English, or living in temporary housing. The city’s plan would create a new admissions system for the district with the goal that each school would enroll a similar share of students from those groups.
Based on application patterns from last year, the city projects that six out of 16 district elementary schools would come within 10 percentage points of the diversity target under the new plan — up from three schools currently. However, officials said they expect a new enrollment center opening this fall will help schools meet their enrollment goals by encouraging families to apply to a wider range of schools. Called a Family Resource Center, it will share information with families about the application process and the programs offered at each school.
“We’ll be able to help families see the wide variety of high quality options there are in District 1,” said Josh Wallack, a deputy chancellor who oversees diversity initatives. “That itself may have a profound impact on equity and diversity in the schools, just by broadening the choices parents are making.”
In order to reach the enrollment goals, two-thirds of admissions offers at each school would be reserved for students who meet the district’s definition of disadvantaged, with the rest available to less needy students. However, whether each school meets those targets will ultimately depend on where families choose to apply.
The new admissions system, which has not yet been formally adopted, would first apply to students entering pre-K and kindergarten in the fall 2018.
But parent advocates in the district who had spent years helping design a complex enrollment system to integrate local schools say the education department has watered down their vision.
They had asked for more factors to be considered to determine whether students are disadvantaged, such as whether they have a disability and the education level of their parents. They also called for a system that provides parents with information about the odds that their child would get into each school in order to help them decide where to apply.
Without that information, the system is less transparent and could make parents wary, said Naomi Peña, a parent on the local education council who has worked on integration efforts in the district.
“You rank your schools but you don’t know what you’re going to get,” she said of the department’s proposal. “It’s hard to get parents to buy-in, and this is exactly why.”
The education department has faced rising pressure to address the widespread segregation in city schools, and this summer released a plan laying out steps to do so. It included a pledge to work with advocates and the superintendent in District 1, who had already used a $1.25 million state grant to come up with their own diversity proposal.
District 1 is a logical place for the education department to pilot a district-wide integration strategy. It is small and diverse, and parents have been supportive of integration efforts — though many have become disenchanted with the education department’s slow-moving approach. In addition, all of the district’s elementary schools are unzoned, meaning families can apply to any school regardless of where they live in the district.
Advocates say their plans for the district stalled because city officials worried that fewer families would be matched with schools where they applied. On Tuesday, officials released projections showing that the number of families accepted into a school of their choice wouldn’t change significantly under the new proposal.
The education department now plans to host information sessions at every school to gather feedback from parents. Officials hope to finalize the plan by October, when parents start applying to schools for the next academic year.