We urge the Public Charter School Board to provide 90 days’ expanded notice to ANCs of school opening, closing and siting decisions, hold this comment period open for another month and notify all ANCs of this proposed change.
A 30-day ANC notice is insufficient. A 90-day notice is a minimum.
ANCs (Advisory Neighborhood Commissions) are important civic entities, but voluntary. To inform their constituents, and other neighborhood civic groups ANCs need at least 90 days to effectively gather information, reach-out to their constituencies, engage in discussion and formulate resolutions. ANC’s generally function with a committee structure that includes regular monthly committee meetings as well as the Commission’s monthly meeting. If the PCSB’s proposed 30-day notice just misses the appropriate ANC committee meeting that month, or just misses the general ANC Commission meeting, there would not be enough time to effectively consider the issues before PCSB actions.
ANC notifications constitute the only required community-level public school planning. ANC deliberations are often the sole provision for school communities to weigh in on school opening, closing and siting decisions. While school location decisions may have been deliberated for months by individual charter schools and the Public Charter School Board, ANC notification may well be the first indication of change to the neighborhood. Community input requires reasonable notice.
Notifications should go to the single member district commissioner for the blocks around where the school is or may be located and to the chairperson of the entire commission. School locations affect much wider areas than just the few city blocks covered by a single commissioner. This should include notification to several ANC chairpersons if the school is near the boundary of several commissions.
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