Regarding the ongoing tension between the people at the elite NEST+m public school and the Ross Global Academy charter school that is slated to share space next year inside NEST+m on Manhattan's Lower East Side:

-- I need some help understanding this one, because there is surely a chunk of meat that I'm missing. I have been getting bombarded with claims that the Ross school is not properly disclosing important details about its plans, school operations, etc., as required of all public charter schools. The supposed proof of all this secrecy is the 2,007 page charter school application. "This is most illuminating," one NEST parent wrote. What am I missing? That many pages of plans, and this is considered a secret, non-transparent plot? For those writing in, please explain in more detail what the problem is.

-- There appears to be lots of disagreement on the part of the NESTies (some of my best friends are NESTies, seriously) about whether the Lower East Side is "trendy" or not. The people who complained when I called NEST a "privileged" school made it sound like the 'hood is one step away from being declared a third-world area. But now people are complaining that the Ross people secretly got together with its New York University partner and selected the NEST building because it is "trendy" and "fashionable."

-- I'm starting to get worried about the number of NESTies who believe that CNN is secretly in on this whole thing by imposing a news blackout on the controversy because "Ross" comes from "Steven Ross," the former head of Time Warner. Not even sure what to say about this one.

-- Per the suggestion advanced here that NEST itself consider becoming a charter school, several parents wrote in to say that this was considered at some point, but that the idea of not being able to select from the best students was a non-starter for the public school. "We did discuss that early on, but charter schools cannot be gifted and talented (as NEST+m is,)" one parent wrote. "Students test into gifted and talented schools. This is an unfortunate glitch in the charter school legislation and severely limits the scope of charter school education."

-- Just a strange observation: I'm working on a project right now involving a school system in another state and its decision to give underutilized school space to private schools rather than charter schools. The theory is that the district can charge higher rent to private schools than to public charter schools, and that by making it harder for charter schools to survive financially, the district is killing two birds with one stone here (make more money, kill public charter threats.) Defenders of the policy claim that the school system has a public responsibility to make the best use of its existing space, and that giving it to private schools is good public policy. The whole mess is complicated by the fact that voters in this particular state approved a ballot measure several years ago requiring that extra space be given to public charter schools first.

Here in NYC, school officials are trying to do exactly that. They turned office space into classrooms a couple of years ago, and now they are trying to make some good use of space in existing buildings to incubate as many new public programs as possible. NEST+m has had a circle around it for several years, as everyone has long understood there is additional space inside the building. So while The Chalkboard has praised the organizing efforts of NEST parents to fight for their kids (an important job for parents) we also have to remember that school officials also are trying to do their jobs here, promoting the best possible use of public space. If DOE caves entirely, every underutilized school in the city will go batty and little will ever change. Yuppies at schools like NEST will always walk away happy, while schools with less savvy parents will continue to get screwed like they do now in NYC.

-- Some NEST parents have emailed to suggest that charter school supporters shouldn't be pleased with the way the schools bureaucracy handles this stuff. The Chalkboard does not disagree.