New York City Department of Education

The recession has made it hard for many people to give gifts this holiday season – and even harder to donate to charities, including ones that serve children in need.

While NBC’s “Today” show reaped a record $30 million through its 16th annual toy drive, donations to the Toys for Tots are down. Meanwhile, one local education official is struggling to find toys to brighten the lives of 600 children residing in Brooklyn homeless shelters.

A student-designed playground debuted on Sept. 16, bringing an outdoor classroom to Public School/Middle School 394 and a neighborhood haven to Crown Heights.

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A proposed 18-story condominium project would bring two big changes to DUMBO: a new middle school and a controversial new view of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The first two floors of the building, planned for Dock Street, would give the growing neighborhood its first public middle school by 2012 – for free, under the proposal by the developer, Two Trees Management.

“They offered to build us a shell, up to our standards, for nothing,” said Will Havemann, a spokesman for the city Department of Education. “It’s in an area that needs a middle school.  Why wouldn’t we make that deal?”

Differing Views

But opponents contend the 416-seat middle school amounts to a civic bribe that will allow Two Trees to erect what they call a eyesore that would rise as high as the Brooklyn Bridge’s roadway, obstructing views of the landmark.

“To build an 18-story tower beside that bridge would be an absolute desecration,” historian David McCullough, author of “The Great Bridge,” told reporters at news conference where preservationists decried the construction plans.

The project has been approved by the City Planning Commission, but likely is headed for a bitter fight before the City Council, which will have the final say.

On one side are the Department of Education, whose ambitious building agenda has slammed up against the city’s fiscal problems, and Jed Walentas, the chairman of Two Trees, which has transformed the neighborhood from near-forgotten to the city’s most fashionable acronym.  Allied against the project are preservationists and Councilman David Yassky (D-Brooklyn), a candidate for City Comptroller.

No Middle Ground

There is little argument that DUMBO needs a middle school.  As the area has become more residential, the need for increased services has naturally followed.  The closest middle school is Satellite West, in nearby Vinegar Hill, which serves 285 children.

Yassky has been advocating for more educational services in the area for years, but it wasn’t until the Two Trees proposal that the Department of Education prioritized a middle school for the neighborhood, documents show.

The councilmember suggested two other sites to the Department of Education and both were rejected.  Expanding Public School 8 would not provide enough space for a full middle school, and renovating the old police precinct at 72 Poplar Street would be too expensive, officials said.  Yassky proposed three new alternatives , but was rebuffed.

At a recent meeting of the City Council’s Education Committee, Yassky waved papers and demanded to know why the School Construction Authority was committed to Two Trees’ project to the exclusion of other possibilities.

“Why not say, ‘Who can give us a middle school in this area for the cheapest price?’” Yassky asked SCA president Sharon Greenberger.

“When you cast a wide net, it’s tough to know what offers are real and what’s not,” Greenberger responded.  “On a comparative stand, this site is the most cost-effective.”

Telling Memos

In e-mail memoranda on December 16, 2008 to education officials, Walentas demanded that the SCA go on record that the Dock Street Project, as Two Trees refers to the proposal, was the only viable option for a school in DUMBO, and that rejection of the project would be rejection of the school.

The agency refused to be so adamant, though officials did say that the only approved plans for a middle school are within the proposed development.

Earlier interdepartmental e-mails suggest officials aren’t considering any alternatives to the Walentas proposal.  “I know that if we don’t do the Walentas project that we don’t really want to do anything else over there but I think we have to follow up on this just so we can say that the Walentas project is such a good deal,” reads an e-mail from Lorraine Grillo, the senior director of real estate services for the School Construction Authority, dated December 9, 2008.

The Dock Street building would go up within 100 feet of the Brooklyn Bridge, and includes plans for a tower that would rise above the height of the roadway.  This, preservationists contend, would block views of the bridge from the neighborhood and obstruct views from the bridge’s popular elevated pedestrian path.

Borough President Marty Markowitz expressed concern about the view, and suggested the planned building be shorter. “The Brooklyn Bridge is the borough’s gift to the world as an engineering marvel from the late 19th century,” he wrote in a report after Community Board 2 approved the project. “The ‘tower’ would loom over the bridge and significantly obscure views from the pedestrian walkway.”

Still, the borough president’s report recommended that the City Planning Board allow re-zoning so the project could continue.

A Divided Neighborhood

Local residents are split on the proposal. Susie Harley, a health counselor, moved to DUMBO with her husband just before their son, Sebastian, was born.  She said that she wasn’t opposed to the development, even if it obstructed ground-level views of the bridge.

“We get a view when we come to the park,” Harley said.  “We don’t have one from our apartment.”

Michael Maurillo, 33, has two children, neither of whom will be middle school age when the project is scheduled for completion.  Max, the older of his two sons, is two-and-a-half and spent the time at Brooklyn Bridge Park throwing various-sized rocks into the East River.

“You look around here and, I don’t know exactly, but it’s gotta be close to 90 percent of the kids are under six,” Maurillo said.  “I’m not opposed to a school, I just don’t see the need for a middle school.”

From his perch on the playground bench, Zion Richards watched his two sons run and stop — and then run through the ship-shaped play structure.  He’s lived in DUMBO for eight years and plans on staying through his kids’ middle school years and beyond.  He doesn’t like the development plan.

“What is this, really?” he said.  “You build high rises and make money, and that’s economic value, but what about the sentimental value? These are landmarks, the reasons people come to New York.”

Brooklyn’s first publicly funded Hebrew-English dual-language school is set to open in August, with 150 kindergarten and first grade students — and one principal who doesn’t speak Hebrew.

Founders of the recently approved Hebrew Language Academy Charter School have hired Maureen Gonzalez-Campbell to head the school, which is still searching for a space in Community School District 22.

Some suspect the selection of Gonzalez-Campbell, who isn’t Jewish, was intended to blunt criticism of the planned school, which opponents fear will promote Judaism and blur the separation of church and state.

‘Makes no Sense’

“It makes no sense to have someone who does not speak Hebrew as principal of a Hebrew language school,” Diane Ravitch, a noted education professor at New York University.  “This appears to be a political decision to minimize controversy.”

But Gonzalez-Campbell doesn’t believe her religion was a factor in her hiring.

“I am the most competent person able to do this job,” she said. “They were looking for a principal for their school and that’s what I am.”

Gonzalez-Campbell – a former teacher, principal, director of bilingual education and deputy superintendent of the Mount Vernon Public Schools – defended her qualifications and cited her experience with foreign languages.  She learned Spanish as a second language, she said, as well as enough American Sign Language to communicate with her daughter, who is deaf.

“I will be an adult learner alongside my students,” she said. “I would like to be able to communicate with my children in the hallway and look at their student work and be able to translate what it means.”

An ‘Extensive Background’

Melody Meyer, a Department of Education spokeswoman, noted there are more than 70 dual-language programs in city public and charter schools. She added that Gonzalez-Campbell has an “extensive background” in such programs.

But Henry M. Levin, a professor of economics and education at Columbia University and director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, said hiring Gonzalez-Campbell “defies an educational explanation.”

“The new approach to principals is that they need to be experts on the knowledge and best instructional approaches to the main educational themes of the school,“ he said.

Levin also worries about what he called the increasingly thin line between religious and cultural education, and doubts that appointing a non-Jewish principal will prevent religion from creeping into instruction at the Hebrew school.

“It makes it appear that the religion will not intervene,” he said, “but what happens two or three years from now when she leaves and someone else comes in?”

Past Controversies

The school will open two years after the controversial Ben Gamla Charter School, the nation’s first Hebrew-English charter, began classes in Hollywood, Fla.  That school drew intense criticism because it offers koshers meals and was initially headed by an Orthodox rabbi.

In Brooklyn, another dual-language school, The Khalil Gibran International Academy, sparked controversy when it opened its doors in 2007.  Despite efforts to convince the public that its Arabic-English dual-language program was secular, a group of vocal critics suggested the school would teach Islam and breed terrorists.  The founding principal, Debbie Almontaser, resigned under pressure before the public school opened and was replaced by an educator who did not speak Arabic.

Resistance to the Brooklyn Hebrew school inspired newspaper opinion pieces and blog entries, but hasn’t produced the level of controversy that engulfed the Ben Gamla and Khalil Gibran schools.

Saul B. Cohen, the only member of the state Board of Regents to vote against the plan – one other person abstained from voting – noted the Hebrew school would not well serve the largely black, Hispanic and Asian area. He said he doubted there is a need for an entire school devoted to learning Hebrew.

“If there’s an interest in having Hebrew instruction, then the public schools can offer it,” he said.

‘Alive and Kicking’

Sara Berman, co-lead applicant on the Hebrew school proposal, is the daughter of Michael Steinhardt, a philanthropist known for promoting Jewish identity, who has pledged $500,000 in annual funding for the school.  Berman said learning Hebrew benefits children, regardless of their culture.

“The founders of our country studied Hebrew, the great Enlightenment thinkers studied Hebrew,” she said.  “There is a spoken living Hebrew that is alive and kicking.”