A Harlem Charter School Lights Outside the Book

When the elementary school students at the Harlem Success Academy on 118th Street sit in their classroom, their orange uniforms shine bright, like fresh basketballs. On the walk through the hallway to get to the cafeteria, however, the shirts turn a different shade — as if the basketball has taken a roll through the mud.The difference, according to the school’s CEO, Eva Moskowitz, is light bulbs. After realizing that city-approved bulbs in her public school building were flooding classrooms with a dim, yellowish hue, Ms. Moskowitz decided to research new fixtures.“You’re never going to believe this,” a staff member told her, she said, marveling at the change after he installed new fixtures.Keith Speed, a lighting specialist at a national consulting company, Lighting Cost Reduction Services, said the new bulbs’ higher color rating, 88 out of 100 compared with the old bulbs’ score of 60, likely make the largest difference.“Sixty is a poor color to be honest with you,” he said. “Anything above 80 is great.”The new bulbs cost $2.20 more each. But Ms. Moskowitz said the change is actually saving her money. The old bulbs, she said, would go out frequently. “Literally every day,” she said. “Every day, a bulb.”The new ones, listed at 30,000 life hours compared with the old bulbs’ 20,000, have never had to be replaced, she said.Ms. Moskowitz, a former chairwoman of the City Council’s education committee who is also a former teacher, said she has never been to a city school where lighting is not a problem. But she said improvement at her school was only possible because, as a charter school, Harlem Success’s budget is not regulated by Department of Education restrictions.Traditional public schools must abide by a contract that prevents custodians from spending their supply allocations on bulbs outside two specific catalogs.The bulbs Ms. Moskowitz purchased, from a company called Litetronics, are not listed in the catalog.All the bulbs in the catalog are made by General Electric.“This is yet another example of adults before kids,” Ms. Moskowitz said. “If we want to put children first, as Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein have so accurately said, the contract must change.”

A Harlem Charter School Lights Outside the Book

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