CITYWIDE

FIVE MORE CHARTER SCHOOLS TO BE APPROVED

The Board of Regents today is expected to formally approve five new charter schools in New York City. The approval comes a day after a committee of the Board of Regents voted yesterday to recommend approval of the new schools. Two of the schools will replicate the successful Amistad Academy at New Haven, Conn., two will use the Knowledge is Power Program model, and one will be called the Future Leaders Institute Charter School. Before the meeting, another KIPP school, the KIPP Pinnacle College Preparatory Charter School, was withdrawn from consideration by the city, which had recommended the school. KIPP’s superintendent, David Levin, said he planned to resubmit the proposal in April. “We’re really excited to expand our number of schools and help as many kids as we have the opportunity to help,” he said. In a statement, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said he was pleased with the regents’ decision. “We are delighted that the state Education Department has endorsed our applications for five new charter schools to serve the children of New York City next fall,” he said. “This is a sure sign that our effort to recruit and develop more outstanding charter schools is moving forward and that New York City is the most charter-friendly district in the country.” Mr. Klein said the Department of Education would be working with the state over the coming months to get approval for several other charter schools.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

STATEN ISLAND

UFT SEEKS HELP FROM BOROUGH PRESIDENT MOLINARO

The president of the United Federation of Teachers is stepping up attacks on Department of Education policies today with an appearance at a rally at Staten Island Borough Hall to protest rigid city mandates limiting educational flexibility in public schools. “This is not Democrat or Republican,” the union president, Randi Weingarten, said. “They’re asking the borough president, who has said he has a great relationship with Mayor Bloomberg, to intervene, to stop this lockstep pedagogy that strips kids and teachers of all ability to contour lessons to the needs of kids.” She said more than 7,500 teachers, principals, parents, and politicians have signed a petition that will ask the borough president, James Molinaro, to talk to Mr. Bloomberg on behalf of the schools. Ms. Weingarten said grassroots actions are popping up all over the city. “We’re starting to have a problem because so many districts want to do so many different things,” Ms. Weingarten said, adding that elementary school teachers will be leafleting on open school nights this evening and Wednesday, and Manhattan high school teachers are leafleting on Friday. The education department defended its record despite the loud outcry from educators. “We will continue reforming and improving the education we provide our children and we will not be distracted by the UFT’s political agenda and tactics,” the chancellor’s press secretary, Jerry Russo, said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MANHATTAN

PRESIDENT CLINTON LEAVES HOSPITAL FOUR DAYS AFTER SURGERY

President Clinton left the hospital yesterday, four days after undergoing surgery to remove scar tissue and fluid around his left lung. “I’m glad to be home and look forward to getting back to work within the next month or so,” Mr. Clinton said in a statement issued by his spokesman, James Kennedy. Senator Clinton accompanied her husband from the hospital to their home, where the 42nd president was to continue his recovery. A motorcade of five or six SUVs was seen leaving New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center shortly after 5 p.m. Mr. Clinton’s recovery was proceeding normally, and he has begun walking each day, Mr. Kennedy said. He is expected to remain at home for the next four to six weeks. The former president said he and his wife were “very grateful to the medical team that cared for me at the hospital, and we deeply appreciate all the prayers and good wishes we’ve received in recent days.” Doctors described last week’s operation as a low-risk procedure to relieve a problem that crops up in only a fraction of 1% of bypass cases. They said the combination of fluid and scar tissue had reduced Mr. Clinton’s left lung capacity by 25%. Surgeons removed a rind of scar tissue nearly a third of an inch thick in some places. The doctors had said Mr. Clinton would be hospitalized for three to 10 days.

– Associated Press

COOPER VILLAGE RESIDENTS ORGANIZE RENT STRIKE

Several thousand residents living in Peter Cooper Village on the East Side are organizing a massive rent strike for the month of April after their landlord, Metropolitan Life Insurance, announced they would install a keycard access system in all buildings. At issue, tenants say, is MetLife’s insistence that all tenants obtain photographic identification in addition to the new keycards by March 30 or face a lockout. “We don’t understand how a photograph on the keycard adds anything to our security,” said Al Doyle president of the tenants association. Tenants of the 6,000-resident housing complex worry that the new keycards will store personal information or track the residents’ whereabouts. Some Cooper Village occupants have alleged that MetLife will use the keycards to single out residents and restrict their access to buildings within the complex. “MetLife has indicated that they will stop and ask tenants to produce identity cards like it is East Berlin,” said Steve Kaufman, a spokesman for Assemblyman Steven Sanders, who has backed the tenants association in their protest. But housing officials say the keycards will only enhance security measures and are not meant to limit building access for residents. “No one will be locked out,” Richard Shea, a spokeman for Cooper Village, said. “The goal here is to provide the best security we can,” said Mr. Shea. “And we are confident the keycards will help us do so.” Other than providing a photo, tenants will not be asked to register their name, address, or any other personal information with the building owners, nor will any of this information be stored in the keycards, said Mr. Shea.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

THE BRONX

TOW TRUCK OPERATORS SUSPENDED, FINED

Two Bronx towing companies that routinely towed legally parked cars and overcharged customers were ordered by judges to pay thousands in restitution and fines yesterday, said Gretchen Dykstra, commissioner of the Department of Consumer Affairs. Complaints from irate drivers trickled in to the DCA about New York’s Finest Towing and its owner Scott Jennison even after a March 2004 citation, sparking the investigation that led to the revocation of the company’s licenses and more than $35,000 in fines yesterday. In at least eight cases, investigators said, New York’s Finest towed parked cars as the driver’s shopped, used another towing company’s license number, and refused payment by credit card, among other charges. Yankee Mike’s Towing was also found guilty of similar business practices and has been ordered to pay approximately $11,000 in fines, according to the DCA. “A license is a privilege, not a right – it’s what helps drivers know that a company and its drivers have been vetted with a criminal background check, will bring your car to a safe place, and charge you rates allowed by law,” Ms. Dkystra said.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

BODY PARTS FOUND IN DUMPSTER

The decaying remains of a dismembered and unclothed woman were found buried in a Dumpster full of construction materials in the Bronx, police said yesterday. At about 10 a.m., a construction worker doing repairs on the brick facade of a six-story building at 1410 Morris Ave. unsealed a blue tarp covering a Dumpster at the work site and discovered a pair of black garbage bags. Inside one bag was a woman’s head and torso, which was severed at the shoulders, police said. Inside another bag was the woman’s lower abdomen, cut at the knees. The women’s upper torso was unclothed, police said. Both the arms and feet of the woman were missing, police said, and it appeared from the condition of the body parts that the woman had been dead for at least five days. The city medical examiner’s office will perform an autopsy today. Police said the victim was between the ages of 35 and 50 years old. They also said they dismissed a theory that the woman’s body could be connected to a case involving the body parts of a 19-year-old man discovered in trash bags stashed in different locations around Brooklyn last month. A tenant of the Morris Avenue building, Carlos Lopez, 25, said yesterday that he was not surprised to discover that body parts had been found in the Dumpster on his block. “This is New York,” he said. “Bad stuff happens.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun