Why PS 24 can’t do what a charter just did

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A new school building opened last month in the northwest Bronx — but it will not alleviate the overcrowding in elementary schools across the district.

The International Leadership Charter High School (ILCHS) moved from its old location on Exterior Street to 3030 Riverdale Ave. on Jan. 27 — so while the building is new, the school is not. The fact that a charter school had the initiative to procure a lot while the city has failed to find space for overflow students has caused some grumbling at local Parents’ Association meetings over the past several months. 

The opening puts into stark contrast the differences in how charter schools and traditional district schools can locate and build new space. In the case of ILCHS, CEO and founder Elaine Ruiz-López was able to go out on her own to secure funding and the property.

“She basically used all her clout,” said Marvin Shelton, president of District 10’s Community Education Council. “She did all the legwork.”

The Spuyten Duyvil School (P.S. 24), by comparison, has had a series of well-publicized space problems. School Construction Authority (SCA) officials failed to renew a lease on the school’s fifth-grade annex at the Whitehall and will lose the space starting next school year. With an enrollment of more than 1,000 students, P.S. 24 currently has more than double the number of students the building was designed for, according to a Riverdale Press article announcing its construction in 1950.

Both charter and district schools receive funds from the Department of Education (DOE), but charters have extra options to finance new buildings. ILCHS’s new school was made possible mostly through a $17.5 million tax-exempt bond from NYC Build, a corporation that helps non-profits secure funding — not with help from DOE. Even if the administration at P.S. 24 wanted to strike out on its own to find or build a new space like Ms. Ruiz-López did, Mr. Shelton said it would not be able to.

“A principal doesn’t have the authority to go out and be negotiating to purchase space. That’s the School Construction Authority’s responsibility,” he explained.

Isabel Angell, International Leadership Charter High School, P.S. 24, School Construction Authority
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