Testimony of UFT President Michael Mulgrew before the New York City Council Committee on Education

Good afternoon Chairman Jackson and members of this distinguished committee. My name is Michael Mulgrew and I am the President of the United Federation of Teachers. Thank you for this opportunity to testify at this oversight hearing.

The issue of co-locations is one of the most contentious issues facing our schools today, and with good reason. The Bloomberg administration has pursued a scorched-earth strategy on co-locations. Across the city, it has crammed new schools into the buildings of established schools without regard to the effect on students or educators in the existing school community.

As practiced by the Department of Education under Bloomberg, co-locations have created inequities and sowed conflict within our school buildings. They have hurt students and undermined schools. Forget the out-of-touch rhetoric that you hear from the administration, and consider the realities that our teachers, students and families face on the ground:

In the hurricane-ravaged neighborhood of Midland Beach on Staten Island, local families are still facing uncertainty over whether they will be able to rebuild their homes, and the school community at IS 2 is still struggling to make needed repairs, replace lost materials and cope with a broken boiler system due to Sandy. The Department of Education has inexplicably ignored the plight of this school and community, disrupting what little semblance of normalcy they have achieved since the storm, by its insistence on squeezing another school into the IS 2 building. To add insult to injury, while IS 2 waits for additional funding to pay for repairs and restore lost programs, the DOE has set aside nearly $200,000 in assistance for the new school.

Over in Brooklyn, overcrowding and a lack of usable space at PS 302 have relegated generations of students to classrooms in trailers out in the school yard. These so-called temporary trailers are now more than two decades old, years past their expiration, and are riddled with physical and environmental hazards including water damage and mold. Yet, when the DOE miraculously determined that the main school building contained underutilized space, it decided to dole out that space to a charter school rather than to remove the moldy trailers and move those students back into the main building.

In another story that is all too familiar across this city, students at Washington Irving High School in Manhattan this fall lost almost an entire floor of their building, including their music room, computer room, English and language classrooms and their college guidance office. The DOE took that space to put a new charter school in the building.

And, over in Queens, the overcrowded and under-supported Flushing High School is just beginning to stabilize after major budget cuts and a revolving door of school leadership. The DOE showed no concern about how co-locating two other schools in the building would affect Flushing. Teachers and administrators at the three schools are admirably trying to make the co-location work, but they face huge logistical obstacles. Right now, with the school building in operation for 11 periods a day, lunch starts in second period, at 8:51 a.m.

The bottom-line is that the co-locations that have multiplied across our city over the past 12 years have been disruptive and destabilizing, often to schools that were already struggling with overcrowding and strained budgets. It is a failed strategy that has hurt our students most.

Co-location cheats students out of access to the space and resources necessary for a quality education, such as libraries, gyms, cafeterias and other shared areas, as it spurs competition and clashes over use of these resources. Art and music rooms, science labs and other programs are often entirely lost to co-location. And, students with special needs frequently find themselves displaced from their rooms, forced to receive services in hallways and converted closets. 

At the same time that students and teachers lose space and programs, they have to watch helplessly as their well-funded new neighbors enjoy extensive renovations, new equipment and sometimes even gourmet meals trucked in from outside vendors. Some charter schools have both actually and figuratively erected walls between themselves and the district schools in their buildings, reinforcing divisions that are the antithesis of the spirit of collaboration and community we seek to build among our students.

It is for all these reasons that that the UFT and its partners have called for a moratorium on co-locations until the DOE has a decision process that takes into account the needs of the existing school and its school community.

The UFT has brought lawsuits against the DOE on this issue, the latest of which aims to block the Bloomberg administration and its rubber-stamp Panel for Education Policy from approving co-locations that would not begin until years after the mayor leaves office. No one can know years in advance what space or programs a school will need. In addition, for the city to approve a new co-location of a charter school before the state has approved the charter school’s plan makes a mockery of the whole process.

The UFT also strongly supports legislation in Albany that would ensure that schools cannot be co-located, re-sited or reconfigured without the approval of the local Community Education Council. Likewise, we support the proposed Council Resolution 1263, which echoes the state bill, as well as the proposed Council Resolution 1395-A, which calls for a moratorium on school closings and “forced” co-locations. With Res. 1395, I want to note that we believe it should be amended to clarify what school closings and “forced” co-locations would mean without CEC approval.

I also urge the Council to take the proposed Resolution 1263 a step further and call for requiring charter schools and their management companies to disclose relevant and detailed information to the CECs so that the panels can make informed and proper decisions. Relevant information would include financial records such as all outside sources of income for the school, gifts, donations, executive compensation, legal fees and lobbying expenses. Relevant information would also include student enrollment data by race and gender; demographics such as percentages of students with special needs, English-language learners and students eligible for free lunch; academic results; student enrollment and disciplinary policies; retention and suspension rates; as well as teacher retention and turnover rates.

Only by an open and honest disclosure of information and a deeper understanding of the proposals being made can a CEC make informed decisions that work for all affected school communities. Not taking these steps risks creating even more chaotic situations that harm the very students these proposals are supposed to be helping.

Bottom-line: Co-location decisions should not be made in a vacuum or by bureaucrats behind computers. Our communities demand and deserve an open and transparent process in which fair and meaningful criteria guide decision-making. The criteria should include the requirement that a co-location will go forward only if all schools involved will be able to keep class sizes under agreed-upon limits, and all the educational, social and programming needs of students will be met. A co-location should not proceed if it would force a school to downsize or eliminate existing programs.

Co-locations also should go forward only if every school in the shared building will benefit equally from capital improvements. There’s nothing worse for children than seeing stark inequities right outside their classroom door. This issue was addressed in an important addition to the state law in 2009, and it must be enforced.

Only after a Community Education Council certifies that all of these criteria have been met should a co-location proposal go forward to the Panel for Education Policy for approval.

Co-locations strike at the heart of concerns about equity and fairness in New York City’s public schools. They have probably been the single most divisive and destructive school practice under Mayor Bloomberg. The UFT will keep fighting until there is a complete transformation in how co-location decisions are made.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify today, and thank you all for your support on this important issue.