Parents, DOE Divided Over Charter School Plan
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Parents gathered in Brooklyn Monday night to voice their outrage over a charter school that may come to their neighborhood.
The Department of Education plans to move the Achievement First East New York school into the building that houses PS 65 in Cypress Hills.
Parents say they don't want the charter school in there. Instead, they're recommending the DOE do something about the issue of overcrowding in PS 65 and nearby PS 108.
"If we bring the charter school in here, we still have PS 108 bursting at the seams. The whole idea, the thing Chafe campaigned for was to relieve overcrowding in Cypress Hills. Putting the charter school here does not do that," said one parent.
"We have no more room to grow. We have an additional grade coming in next year. And these are District 19 children, are they going to be forced to go to another district," said another parent.
The DOE says it's moving PS 65 into a new and bigger building and offered the old space to PS 108. They later declined because it would have had to split its students and staff between two buildings.
The education department also says enrollment in the neighborhood is declining anyway, so overcrowding may ease on its own in the next few years.