'SCHOOL SQUEEZE' PROTEST

New York Post

'SCHOOL SQUEEZE' PROTEST
By DAVID ANDREATTA

November 22, 2006 -- A city plan to squeeze a new elite magnet school into a Harlem building already housing an elementary school got a boisterous thumbs-down last night from parents and politicians, who claim they were blindsided by news of the project.

Dozens of parents of students at PS 36 demonstrated outside the building, at Morningside and Amsterdam avenues, against a school to be run in conjunction with Columbia University beginning next fall.

The school would eventually serve grades 6-12 and focus on math and science.
Parents at PS 36, which serves 550 students in pre-kindergarten through second grade, said they got no advance notice.

At a meeting with Department of Education officials following the protest, parents voiced concerns about safety, overcrowding and the agency's refusal to commit to its own projected timetable to move the Columbia school to a new location in two to three years.

"Raise your voices, call everyone you know, e-mail everyone you know to let them know we do not want a middle school in PS 36," said Hyacinth Myers, vice president of the PS 36 PTA, to resounding applause.

A defiant PTA president Kim Wynn promised to "petition, protest, do whatever we can to keep them out."

While the Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Education is designed to compete with the likes of Stuyvesant and Bronx Science high schools and draw students from across the city, DOE officials said it would primarily serve black and Latino students from upper Manhattan.

Elected officials, including Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, attended the protest.
david.andreatta@nypost.com