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A Queens school district is bracing for another racially-charged rezoning fight over classroom demographics.
The Department of Education has tapped a consulting firm to probe diversity in District 30 — which includes Long Island City and Astoria — and to eventually propose a new zoning format.
Critics have argued that District 30’s schools are not racially representative of the area and that an admissions revamp would address those concerns.
District observers said they are expecting a contentious process that will echo a bruising school diversity campaign in District 28 that eventually fizzled with the onset of the coronavirus.
That campaign, which also included the hiring of an outside consulting firm, was marked by frequent shouting matches at board meetings and accusations of opaque engagement with the public.
Community Education Council 30 member Kelly Craig said that parents whose kids go to schools in Long Island City’s more affluent areas have already been “villainized” by some.
One recent meeting attendee charged some parents with creating a “white wall” around in Long Island City’s PS 78, which is roughly 40 percent white, 25 percent Asian, 25 percent Hispanic, and 4 percent black.
But Craig said that families across the district are primarily concerned that new zoning will end with kids having to trek to distant schools rather than attend their local campus.
“I don’t know when being able to have your kid walk to school became such an outrageous notion,” Craig said, adding that parents across the socio-economic spectrum share that preference.
The firm tasked with conducting outreach to the local community, the Center for Public Research and Leadership, was awarded a four-month, $80,000 contract by the DOE to lead the process.
CEC member Deborah Alexander questioned why the firm had to be brought in and asserted that there was minimal public input before they were selected.
Alexander said that the CEC, a body of elected parents, was best suited to gather public opinion.
Along with Craig, Alexander co-wrote a letter to schools Chancellor David Banks to protest the expense.
“Historically, the CEC has worked successfully with the DOE to engage our community (for free) on numerous zoning plans,” the letter states. “We know our community and our schools better than an outside, for-profit ‘consultant’ and can think of many better ways $80,000 might be spent that would directly impact our students.”
But the rezoning project enjoys support among other district parents and several CEC members welcomed the firm during an introductory meeting Tuesday.
Jonathan Greenberg, the CEC’s president who backs the project, acknowledged at Tuesday’s meeting that the project would become “contentious.”
“If we just look back at history and our historically segregated school system, the history of the United States, if we take that in context and see what the opportunities and possibilities could be, maybe we have a chance to do good,” said Esther Verhalle, who backs CPRL’s involvement.
In pressing for transparency, Craig noted that it took a FOIL request for the DOE to reveal the name of the winning vendor.
“This should not be a cloak and dagger process,” she said. “This shouldn’t be shady. These are public schools.”
Other parents insisted that that CPRL — which plans to appoint a “working group” to lead the effort — hold all meetings publicly for the sake of parental confidence in the process.
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