The Panel for Educational Policy handed a significant victory to a network of charter schools run by Eva S. Moskowitz, the former city councilwoman, in her quest to expand its reach to affluent parts of the city.
The new school, in Cobble Hill, will be Ms. Moskowitz’s 12th in the city, but only the second in a well-to-do enclave. The other opened last summer on the Upper West Side amid protests similar to what the Cobble Hill school faced on Wednesday as it gained its final approval, during a meeting that lasted hours.
The teachers’ union brought opponents by the busload, and they flocked to the microphone to offer their views during the meeting, at Newtown High School in Corona, Queens.
The opponents hurled insults and accusations at the panel’s members; the schools chancellor, Dennis M. Walcott; and several of his deputies.
Though the meeting happened far outside the communities affected by the plans voted on by the panel, the crowd was boisterous. One opponent held a sign reading, “How dare you?” — and there were jeers to drown out testimony from those who spoke in support of charter schools.
The panel also approved locating two other charter schools, one of them also part of Ms. Moskowitz’s network, in buildings occupied by district schools in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, one of the city’s poorest.
Most of the opposition was staged against the Cobble Hill school, though. The building it will occupy, on Baltic Street, has a school for students with disabilities and two schools serving grades 6 through 12: the School for Global Studies and the School for International Studies. But, according to the city’s Department of Education, the building still has 700 available seats.
Jeff Tripp, a math and special education teacher at International Studies, disputed the department’s analysis, saying the building’s gym was so overused that high school students had a hard time meeting graduation requirements in physical education. Lunch in its sole cafeteria starts at 10:30 a.m., he said.
“Our students spend hours in the building and for many of them it’s home,” Mr. Tripp said. “What you’re proposing is a home invasion.”
Cobble Hill shares many similarities with the Upper West Side: It has desirable elementary schools at or near capacity, as well as million-dollar homes blocks from public housing developments. In an earlier interview, Ms. Moskowitz said her network, Success Academy Charter Schools, meant to serve both.
The school is to open in August for about 190 students in kindergarten and first grade. It will eventually expand through eighth grade.
“While there are a lot of charter operators that may serve exclusively the most disadvantaged kids, I think there’s a value in having an integrated school, both racially and economically,” Ms. Moskowitz said. “Choice shouldn’t be just for poor families.”