Parents: Class is in secession

Flee ‘race-split’ school

Some parents have pulled their kids out of Little Red School House programs or abandoned plans to apply to the tony West Village institution following revelations that it segregated middleschool students based on race and planned to expand its policy to the sixth grade.

One 40-year-old East Village father said he pulled his toddler-daughter from the school’s summer-camp program after The Post report last Sunday.

The father, who works in finance, went to the school to speak with Director Phil Kassen last week, expressing dissatisfaction with placement policies he believes would ultimately give minority kids an inferiority complex.

“I said, ‘ So you’re telling me that my daughter, who is Asian-American, born in New York City, you’re telling me that if she were in your class, she would have no choice — that she would have to be placed in the home room for kids of color?’ ” the father said. “And he said, ‘Yes.’ ”

The father told Kassen that was “ridiculous and absolutely backwards.

“Phil responded,, ‘We’re doing something and that’s better than nothing,’ which I thought was completely ludicrous. If you have a hun-gry kid and givee them spoiled milk, you’re doing something, but it’s still the wrong thing to do,” the father said.

Kassen refused to refund the father $985 for the second session of camp, which lasts two weeks. Only when the father e-mailed the board of trustees did Kassen acquiesce.

“It was one of the schools on our list of where we’d apply for kindergarten,” said the father. “I would absolutely not send my child there now.” He’s not alone. Amanda Uhry, president of Manhattan Private School Advisors, said that since last week’s story was published, she’s had seven clients knock Little Red School House off their list for fall applications.

“When parents saw the article, it soured a lot of people,” said Uhry.

“We have parents who are Indian, black . . . they were like, ‘What is this?’ ”

After parents expressed outrage over the plan to place minority middle-schoolers in the same class for 30 percent of the school day next fall, the school backed off. But multiple parents who have spoken to The Post complained that they are still unsure of where the school stands on the controversial matter. In June, Kassen sent an ambiguously worded e-mail in which he said race would remain “a critical, but not primary, determinant” in class placement.