The story of a Bronx public school that for 20 years exposed its students to hazardous toxins suddenly has a real estate connection.

City Limits reported that a loophole in the Department of Education’s leasing policy left students, teachers, parents and school officials at P.S. 51, located at 3200 Jerome Avenue in Bedford Park, in the dark about the presence of trichloroethylene (TCE), a metal degreaser recently declared to be a carcinogen to humans, 10 times above safe exposure levels. In the soil vapor just below the first-floor cafeteria, TCE levels are nearly 10,000 times above safe levels. [more]

State Senator Daniel Squadron and Tweed Courthouse at 52 Chambers Street

One State Senator has an idea as to how the city can combat overcrowded schools in Lower Manhattan: convert the Department of Education’s own office space.

In response to the DOE’s recently released re-zoning plan for schools downtown, State Senator Daniel Squadron has suggested that the city open new schools in space it already owns or leases, such as the Tweed Courthouse, at 52 Chambers Street, instead of shuffling kids from school to school. He made the remarks in a strongly worded letter to Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, DNAinfo reported today. The historic building currently holds DOE offices and some classrooms. [more]

The Department of Education’s decision to eliminate about 150 seats in a forthcoming Union Square school was made to push forward construction for the contested school and avoid delays posed by angry residents of a neighboring co-op, according to DNAinfo.
The DOE has been working to build a middle school and high school with 868 seats at 10 East 15th Street, but residents of the neighboring Victoria co-op, at 7 East 14th Street, complained about the noise and crowds the school would bring to their block. Rather than face litigation from the residents, the DOE and School Construction Authority chose to compromise in order to move quickly on the school, which it said is necessary to alleviate crowding in the district’s other schools. [more]

The United Federation of Teachers is leasing space in its Lower
Manhattan headquarters at 52 Broadway to serve as a special school for
about 70 students who have been suspended, Schoolbook, a new joint education news site of the New York Times and WNYC, reported. According to the teacher’s union, the city will be paying roughly market rate for the 10,000
square feet on the building’s fifth floor. The total cost is $450,000, including heat,
air-conditioning and cleaning. The UFT has several non-profit tenants
in its conjoined buildings at 50 and 52 Broadway, including the
Y.W.C.A., the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the National Association of Social
Workers. [more]

A Bronx elementary school is looking for a new home after a routine test for toxic chemicals during its lease renewal revealed 10 times the limit of TCE, or trichloroethylene, which could cause serious nerve, liver and kidney problems, CBS Channel 2 reported. The Bronx New School had been located in the red brick industrial building at 3200 Jerome Avenue in Norwood. As a result, the Department of Education decided students would not be returning there this fall and is looking for a new building. It is not clear how long the toxic chemicals have been there. [more]

A New York Supreme Court Justice handed down a decision last night allowing the Department of Education to move forward with the closings and co-locations of 22 failing city schools and 15 public charter schools, the DOE announced.

Justice Paul Feinman denied a request from NAACP and the United Federation of Teachers for a preliminary injunction preventing the closures, saying that there was “no clear and convincing evidence that these low-performing schools could be so easily turned around.”

NAACP and UFT filed the suit in early June, seeking interim and long term relief. — Katherine Clarke [more]

The city has reached an agreement with the United States Postal Service to buy the site of the Peck Slip Post Office and turn it into an elementary school, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced yesterday. “The contract has not been signed, but we’re far enough along to announce it today,” Walcott said of the highly-anticipated project. According to DNAinfo, the city plans to begin the public review process for the new school site next week; the design process should get underway in December, though the Department of Education hasn’t yet decided whether it will renovate the current 70,800-square-foot structure or knock it down and start over. [more]

The Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District has donated $10,000 to help renovate the cafeteria at 100 West 77th Street shared by IS44, Anderson School, West Prep Academy and the Computer School, also known as MS M245. The funds, which were raised through the BID’s annual “New Taste of the Upper West Side” benefit, will be used to purchase eco-friendly paints, coordinated furnishings and displays for students’ work. Labor for the project is being provided by the Department of Education. TRD [more]

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has approved a $708 million plan to replace potentially harmful fluorescent light fixtures in all city public schools. The aging lighting fixtures at 772 public school buildings will be replaced, due to concerns about leaking polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and the project will be paid for by the city, a Department of Education official told NY1. The plan comes after a months-long standoff over the lights with the Environmental Protection Agency, which says PCBs could cause long-term health threats to children and staff. Today, parents and teachers were planning to rally against the city’s inaction regarding the PCBs. [more]

City officials proposing to build a school on Caton Avenue near East 7th Street in Kensington were taken by surprise at a public hearing yesterday when the owner of half the site said that he wants to finish his own stalled residential project on the same land, the Brooklyn Paper reported. “This is the first we have been aware of it,” Tami Rachelson of the School Construction Authority told Community Board 7. If developer Robert Cherry gets the approval to restart his controversial project, the city would have to pay more to acquire the property. No residents spoke in support of Cherry’s 17-unit apartment building, and the board’s land use committee voted unanimously to advise the city to reject the zoning variance. [more]