Two days before signing a lease on a new apartment in Brooklyn, I heard that the administration of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was blocking the opening of Success Academy Lafayette Middle School. I had been planning to move from my home in Harlem to Brooklyn to teach English at this school.

The Success Academy charter school network says the city is routinely discriminating against its students in the South Bronx, delaying and denying special education services to children that need them.

The New York City education department is accused of routinely delaying and denying special education services to Success Academy students in the Bronx, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court by parents whose children attend the charter network.

Last week should have been a joyful celebration for our family as we watched our son Walker graduate to the fifth grade after an exceptional final year of elementary school. But we were completely blindsided when Mayor de Blasio announced that he is evicting Success Academy middle schoolers from a public school building in Brooklyn where Success has been located for the last two years.

City parents’ demand for charter-school seats just hit a new high, with nearly 80.000 lottery applicants. Unfortunately, the effort to choke charters’ growth means they’re competing for just 26.900 available seats. In the latest outrage, Carranza refuses to declare an emergency to end-run technical issues that stand in the way of giving the Success Academy its promised classrooms in a Bed-Stuy school building that has 900 empty seats.

The demand for city charter schools has hit a record high with 79.000 applications for the upcoming school year. That’s up from 73.000 last year and 54.000 in 2011, according to the New York City Charter School Center.