http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/nyregion/new-york-schools-segregation.html 2016-10-19 05:05:38 Parent Group Seeks More Integration in New York’s Schools The organization challenged the New York City Education Department to take further steps to rezone schools on the Upper West Side. === In the long-running battle over rezoning schools on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the parent group that must ultimately approve a plan went on the offensive on Tuesday. The It called on the department to zone an additional building from a development called Lincoln Towers to Public School 191, whose students are mostly poor, black and Hispanic, and which well-off parents have historically avoided. And it urged the department to move another school, P.S. 452, which is mostly white, 16 blocks south, so that it can draw from a more racially and economically diverse zone. Proposals to enlarge P.S. 191’s zone and to move P.S. 452 But in its letter, the parent group said that to ensure a sufficient zone size, not only those two buildings, but also a third, should be assigned to P.S. 191. Joe Fiordaliso, the president of the parent group, known as a community education council, said it made a tactical decision to make its position public “to lay down the marker, so to speak.” The council cannot present its own rezoning plan; the department must submit a plan for a council vote. Mr. Fiordaliso would not say whether the organization would reject any proposal that did not match its letter, but he said the group would stand firm in any negotiation. “Our position is that this is the plan, and they can either stand with us or not,” Mr. Fiordaliso said. The plan included elements the department had already presented to District 3, where the schools are, he said. “This is not a process that should require a lot of deep thought and consideration by City Hall,” he said. The original goal of the rezoning was to alleviate crowding at P.S. 199 by moving some students into the P.S. 191 zone. But because the demographics of P.S. 199 are starkly different from those of P.S. 191, which struggles academically, the debate has shined a spotlight on the problem of segregation in the city’s schools and the difficulty of addressing it. The department This year, the department proposed moving P.S. 191 to a new building in the hope of giving the school a fresh start next year. That would leave the school’s current building, on West 61st Street, empty. One proposal The department did not comment on the council’s letter, saying only that it would continue to hold meetings and solicit feedback as it worked toward a final proposal. The department had been expected to indicate which proposal it had settled on at the council’s meeting on Wednesday, but that will not happen. State Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, a Democrat who represents the area and has opposed shifting residents of the Lincoln Towers buildings into the 191 zone, said the department told her last week that it would not be ready.