Milestone for our New Middle School at 75 Morton Street

On March 24, New York State officially transferred the building it owned at 75 Morton Street to the New York City School Construction Authority (SCA), which will now transform the site into a middle school that is expected to hold at least 800 students. This milestone is a tremendous achievement for local schoolchildren and their families, who have endured classroom overcrowding for far too long. I thank my colleagues in government, especially Assembly Member Deborah Glick, and Community Education Council 2, the 75 Morton Task Force and Community Alliance, and Community Board 2 for their hard work and persistence in making a new middle school at 75 Morton Street a top priority.

On April 23, along with Council Member Corey Johnson and parent advocates, I met with the DOE to discuss programming and community engagement for this site. The DOE committed to helping make this school a standard of excellence, as well as working closely with parents, teachers and community members to develop the structure of the school. We have more work ahead as we enter the construction phase, and I recently organized a tour of the facility with SCA, elected officials and community leaders in the fight to secure the school to get a better understanding of the challenges ahead. I’m looking forward to working with all the stakeholders to get this new middle school online as quickly as possible. To that end, please see below letters I joined Assembly Member Deborah Glick, Congressman Jerry Nadler, Borough President Gale Brewer and City Council Member Corey Johnson in sending to SCA President Lorraine Grillo and Department of Education Chancellor Carmen Fariña.