The following is an extended version of the story published in our latest print edition.

Following concerns by some Kingsbridge residents over plans by the International Leadership Charter High School (ILCHS) to open a new, 7-story, middle school at 306 West 232nd Street in Kingsbridge, one block away from its existing school site at 3060 Riverdale Avenue, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (A.D. 81), District 11 City Councilman Eric Dinowitz, and State Sen. Robert Jackson (S.D. 31) joined a group of local residents and members of the Construction and General Building Laborers union on Saturday, April 15, for a rally to oppose the opening on the grounds the area was ill-equipped to handle the new school.

“Building a 7-story building where a single-family home once stood in order to accommodate 250-300 middle school students is appalling and outrageous,” said the assemblyman. “While the main school on West 231st street is seeking to reduce the number of students it is chartered for due to a significant drop in enrollment, it’s inexplicable that they want to expand to a second site -on a narrow and quiet residential street in the worst possible location.” He added, “Why are they doing this to the neighborhood? How much rent will they be paying for this inappropriate site?”

According to its financial statements as of June 30, 2022 and 2021, Build NYC Resource Corporation is a component unit of The City of New York and “a local development corporation that was organized under the not-for-profit corporation law of The State of New York to assist entities eligible under the federal tax laws in obtaining tax-exempt and taxable bond financing.” Its net position at year-end had increased by $810,422 (11 percent) over the previous year.

The protest comes as opposition to the expansion of charter schools in New York State grows. AQE is New York State’s leading community-based organization in the fight for adequate funding and educational justice. The organization tweeted on March 29, “@GovKathyHochul is pushing for a massive expansion of charter schools in New York City right now through the state budget. Email Gov. Hochul and your State Legislators now and tell them: Don’t raise the cap! → http://bit.ly/NYchartercap”

Meanwhile, as reported, education has always been one of Jackson’s central policy issues. He is well known for having walked 150 miles from New York City to Albany (twice) all in efforts to highlight educational inequality. The senator tweeted on April 12, “I stood [with] parents, students, advocates & @AQE_NY to oppose [the] gov’s proposal to lift [the] regional cap on charters & reauthorize zombie charters. I didn’t walk 150 miles to Albany, so our neighborhood public schools can get shortchanged yet again!”

He later said of the Kingsbridge Charter School issue, “We must ensure that the voices of the community are heard when decisions are made that will affect our neighborhoods – by coming together to oppose the opening of the charter school, we are taking an important step towards creating an accountable and transparent process.”

The councilman went on to say that both he and his father, the assemblyman, had grown up in the local area and what made the neighborhood special was that people were good to each other and respected each other. Referring to his time teaching at the nearby John F. Kennedy public high school, he said, “We tried to be good neighbors. We tried to engage with the community and communicate but that has not been the case with this charter school.” He referred to issues with the “construction, water, and parking spaces,” and added that elected officials only found out about the construction of the new school when shovels were already in the ground.

The assemblyman, had previously said that he understood ILCHS already owned the Riverdale Avenue school campus, which serves grades 9-12 and has a maximum occupancy capacity per NYC Department of Buildings (DOB) of 738 people. Dinowitz said ILCHS was, however, planning to rent the site for the new middle school at 306 West 232nd Street from the developer. He said ILCHS also reportedly requested a reduction in student population at its existing school site to 430 students for grades 6 & 9-12 in the 2024-2025 school year.

The assemblyman said ILCHS officials said it expected 250-300 middle school students to attend the new campus, and that he and his colleagues had therefore asked in their correspondence what were the parameters of the Build NYC Resource Corporation bonds, what would be the fiscal impact to DOE to rent additional space at the proposed new middle school site at 306 West 232nd Street, and were there any other examples of charter schools in New York City where a school both owned and rented property.

 

Norwood News reached out by phone for comment to the International Leadership Charter High School. A person initially replied by phone, saying, “No comment.” Later, a lengthy written statement from Dr. Elaine Ruiz Lopez, CEO of the school, was provided, touting the school’s various successes and in which she said it was unfortunate that the expansion of the middle school, “though fully supported by community parents and families, was sparking such vehement attacks from a small group of detractors.”

 

“With this record of success, we felt that the natural progression was to expand our instructional model to 6th to 8th grades,” Ruiz Lopez said. “More than two thirds of the students that we serve are residents of the Kingsbridge/Riverdale neighborhoods. We have had enthusiastic support of our Parents Advisory Council and the approval of the SUNY Charter Schools Institute.”

 

The statement continued, “It is unfortunate that Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz has resorted to what appears to be political theatre by taking sides with the anti-charter school group of individuals who have launched a ‘Stop the Charter School Build Campaign’.” He has turned his back on his own constituents – hundreds of students and families of color who vote!”

 

Ruiz Lopez said the school had addressed each of the “concerns and false narratives” one by one. “Our construction site has been vandalized simultaneous to strategy meetings to intentionally derail our timeline for construction led by the NY Teachers Coop at Tibbets Towers on West 232nd Street,” she said. “This NIMBY group is opposing the right to an education for students of color, while a few of these detractors have taken it upon themselves to cut security wires, glue locks and prevent our crews from completing their work.”

 

The CEO added, “We are providing a high-quality education to disenfranchised communities of color to help them thrive and become contributors to a greater society. Our families are low-income or working-class from LatinX, African American, African, and Caribbean communities looking for opportunities for their children. We cannot afford to allow “nimbyism” to deny an education to middle school students who live in the Kingsbridge community and deserve this opportunity to receive a quality education.”

 

The statement was accompanied by a copy of an explanatory letter (attached above) about the project dated March 17 addressed to community members and neighbors.

 

Norwood News also asked both DOB and DOE for comment on the assemblyman’s earlier points, including the responsible use of public funding. The latter referred us to NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC), saying, “This is a charter school operating in private space as they are allowed to do by state law. I believe the first question involved the EDC, not us.”

Another entity with the same name, Build NYC, otherwise known as “Businesses United in Investing, Lending & Development” is a California-based nonprofit organization which, according to its June 30, 2022 financial statements, “uses entrepreneurship to excite and propel disengaged, low-income students through high school to college and life success,” and operates 7 schools, serving over 700 students in “under-resourced communities in The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island,” as well as other schools across the country.

At the end of its financial year, Businesses United in Investing, Lending & Development had net assets of $9.6 million and management and general expenses totaled $1.8 million. Norwood News has contacted Build NYC to ask if it is or has been involved with either the existing charter school campus at 3060 Riverdale Avenue or the new, proposed campus at 306 West 232nd Street and will update this story upon receipt of any feedback we receive.

We spoke with Ruiz-Lopez after this article was published and she confirmed the California-based entity is not involved in the project, and that no funding linked to the NYC EDC-related Build NYC entity is invested in the new school under construction.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.