By Nicole Breskin
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
CHELSEA — A decision to allow special-needs students to stay put in classrooms previously slated to be taken over by another local school have helped the city win over one group of parents, but now it faces a battle with another set over classroom space for their children.
The Department of Education decided last week to keep P.S. 138 — which caters to children with autism, cochlear implants and other disabilities — inside its home at P.S. 33 in Chelsea rather than sending its students to a different location to accommodate another incoming school.
Instead, the Clinton School for Writers and Artists — the middle school that had been slated to displace P.S. 138 — will move to the American Sign Language and English Secondary School location on East 23rd Street.
But the new East 23rd Street location already houses four schools, including a separate special-needs program, and parents fear that classrooms used for the developmentally disabled children there could be moved or given over to the Clinton School, a possibility alluded to in the DOE's Environmental Impact Statement.
“The city is moving these children like a set of musical chairs, which is totally not fair,” said Pat Jewett, head of the PTA for P.S. 138’s special-needs classrooms, which have locations citywide. “Children with special needs have a hard time adapting to change, and it’s not their fault.”
However, Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld, a DOE spokesperson, said that P.S. 138 will not lose space as a result of the move. Still, the impact statement leaves open the possibility for space planners to determine room allocation.
“I’m pleased overall to see the Department of Education is not moving P.S. 138 [at P.S. 33], but I’m concerned about plan in its place that space will be squeezed too tight,” said Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children, a group that pushes for education reform.
Susan Kramer, chairwoman of the Clinton School's relocation committee, said the move might ultimately hurt students from her school.
"There are no benefits for us to move," she said. "It's not a lateral move, but a move down for us. If we're going to be squished, we may as well stay put."
The school's current location, inside Chelsea’s P.S. 11 elementary school, has a brand-new science lab, a gym exclusively for its students and a pool. Clinton School parents are concerned that the proposed new facility sits too close to a methadone clinic and that two lanes of traffic near the main entrance on 23rd Street pose a risk.
The city's plan only allocates "a minimum of 8-9 full classrooms," but Kramer claimed there are already 10 classes that are cramped at the new school.
Clinton’s move is planned as only temporary four-year stay while the DOE and School Construction Authority negotiate a new facility that can accommodate its growing student body.
This latest plan awaits a vote from the Panel on Education Policy on April 20.
