Manhattan schools not exclusive

To the editor:

Bronx families and all concerned Bronx residents should be aware of the dire impact that a current proposal being considered by school Chancellor David Banks and the Adams administration will have on Bronx students.

Manhattan is home to many excellent public high schools. Before 2021, they were mostly “zoned-preference,” which means that only local families really had a chance of getting in. Manhattan is, as we all know, the borough that is easiest for us to access by public transportation, and the only borough accessible within reasonable commuting distance of the Bronx.

Chancellor Banks has announced a plan to reinstate zoned preference for Manhattan that would essentially cut off access for Bronx kids to these high schools.

The Manhattan folks who are lobbying for this change argue that other boroughs all have zoned preference high schools. However, this is a terrible argument.

First, the entire transit system is designed to get people in and out of Manhattan, so it’s the one place in the city that is most accessible for high schoolers to commute to — especially Bronx students, who would therefore be disproportionately affected.

Second, the sheer number of quality schools in Manhattan is not comparable to that in the other boroughs — there are no Manhattan parents clamoring to get their kids into our borough-zoned schools like Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy, or lamenting that there’s a Bronx preference and they can’t get in.

To reinforce the fact that reinstating Manhattan borough preference would disproportionately and unfairly impact Bronx families, a recent story in Chalkbeat reports that nearly a quarter of students in Manhattan public high schools hail from the Bronx, accounting for about half of the students who commute from the four other boroughs to Manhattan for high school.

Reinstating the high school zoned preference in Manhattan will be a disaster for Bronx families, and limit our students’ ability to access a quality public high school. Bronx students should have the same access to a choice of quality public high schools within reasonable commuting distance as Manhattan kids do.

I urge our elected officials to strongly advocate for Bronx families in opposition to this proposal, and urge all concerned Bronx residents to reach out to our elected officials and ask them to take action.

Jennifer Fox