The panel that sets policy for city schools will take on a contentious issue Wednesday night as they decide how to parcel out precious room in school buildings. NY1's Lindsey Christ filed the following report.

It's a classic city problem -- a space squeeze. Schools the Department of Education says have room to spare say those "extra" classrooms are used for art, music and science. But on Wednesday night, the Panel for Educational Policy will vote on 16 proposals requiring schools to share space with new schools, 13 of which are charters.

Much like January's PEP meeting -- where they voted to close 19 schools -- the DOE expects hundreds to sign-up to speak Wednesday night. But unlike the last meeting, when almost all speakers opposed closing the schools, communities are divided over this issue.

At a hearing leading up to the vote on Monday, parents and students from the Harlem Success Charter network yelled at parents and students from the local public school, and vice versa.

"It was Brown versus the Board of Education and right now, 56 years later, we have black and Hispanic versus black and Hispanic," said Harlem resident Carlton Berkley.

On Tuesday morning, some charter and public school parents came together to ask for an independent review of buildings asked to share space.

The DOE says it has no choice since the Bloomberg administration has closed dozens of large schools and opened 300 small schools, including almost 100 charter schools. That means buildings built to fit a single school with more than a thousand students now have to accommodate several smaller schools. And at other schools, enrollment has gone down, perhaps because of the number of charter schools in the neighborhood.

"We have to allocate space on a fair and equitable basis, and we should separate that out from the issues that have become highly politicized, which is the issue about charters versus traditional public schools," said Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

Like the decision to close schools last month, it’s a new process this year to allow public comment and then a panel vote on whether schools should share building space. It's all part of the new version of mayoral control passed last summer in Albany. But the mayor still controls the panel, and they still have always voted the way he wants them to.