NYC Public School vs B.P. Chassidim

NYTimes: With 772 students, Montauk Intermediate School in Brooklyn is nearly half empty. So when the Department of Education decided to place one of 36 new, small secondary schools it is opening next year inside the Montauk building, it seemed like a fine plan. But the Montauk school happens to be in Borough Park, Brooklyn, a Hasidic Jewish neighborhood where virtually all residents send their children to private yeshivas. And the plan for the new school has angered community leaders, who say that any one of the neighborhood's yeshivas would be thrilled to buy the building for a fair price. "The yeshivas are bursting — every time you turn around, there's more going up, and boy, would our community like to get those schools that are empty," said Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Brooklyn Democrat who represents the area. He said of the neighborhood: "It is basically Hasidic, and one of the things in good government is you adjust to the changes. It's such an obvious thing to recognize, that our community is what it is. It is a wonderful community, a taxpaying community, it is a community of one of the lowest rates of crimes." He added, "We'd like to keep it that way." The dispute is another wrinkle in Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's effort to create and find spots for hundreds of new small schools. It is also laced with the delicate ethnic mix of Brooklyn. While Borough Park is virtually exclusively Hasidic, the new school, the Kingsborough Early College School, would probably serve mostly black and Hispanic students. The mayor has already created 149 small middle and high schools, as his chief tactic for combating the city's graduation rate of about 54 percent. But the new schools have to have somewhere to go, and finding those spots has not been easy. In previous years, the mayor and Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein have drawn fire for the decision to place small schools in enormous school buildings that were in some cases already overcrowded. This time, education officials say they took great pains to place the new schools inside buildings with extra space. The latest plan drew praise from Randi Weingarten, the teachers union president, who called it "a good step." But opposition had been brewing in Brooklyn. Mr. Hikind said he first heard about the plan to place a new small school inside the Montauk building, at 4200 16th Avenue, about two months ago. He immediately balked at the plan and said he discussed his objections with Michelle Fratti, the regional superintendent in charge of Region 7, which includes Borough Park. Soon, he said, fliers were being distributed at synagogues and in the streets, urging residents to protest the plan at meetings of the local Community Education Council. "These students will be imported from out of Boro Park and will have to walk through our streets during many hours of the day," read one such flier. "Can't you shudder to think what will become of our peaceful neighborhood?"......