By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER EAST SIDE — The inner squabbles of a parents group could delay the rezoning of Upper East Side public schools and extend waitlist and placement headaches into the 2011 school year.
Parents angry about overcrowding and children being placed at schools far from their homes during the 2010 school year had demanded that the Department of Education redraw the boundaries of the neighborhood's eight school zones so that the distribution of students at the area's schools would be more even.
But at a Community Board 8 Youth and Education committee meeting Monday, parents learned that the Community Education Council (CEC), a separate group made up of parents charged with choosing a school rezoning plan, remained deadlocked on internal procedural issues, which could delay choosing and implementing new zones.
"We can't believe this is going on and our kids are being moved around like chess pieces," said Jeffrey Ginsberg, 50, the father of a 4-year-old public school student on the Upper East Side.
In June, the CEC president, to the astonishment of area parents, had disbanded the group's rezoning subcommittee, which was gathering data on Upper East Side birth rates, nursery school enrollments and housing developments to help them determine a proper redistricting plan for the area.
The president cited some obscure group bylaws as the reasoning behind dissolving the group.
"This is why people throw their hands up and say, 'You know what, we're moving out of the city'," Ginsberg said.
The DOE is scheduled to give the group rezoning options in October, but if the deadlock continues and the CEC doesn't approve a plan by February, the current 2009 district lines would remain in place into the 2011 school year.
In response to the CEC's dysfunction, a group of nearly 30 parents sent a letter to the group urging them to reinstate the rezoning subcommittee with a mandate to "compile data, canvass public opinion and propose possible zoning solutions."
Without the work of the subcommittee, the CEC will have to vote on the Education Department's zoning proposals based on public comments alone, said Shino Tanikawa, another CEC member.
The next CEC meeting will take place Oct. 27 at 333 Seventh Avenue at 6:30 p.m.
