By Jeremy Walsh
The city is wasting no time replacing a former Catholic school in Jackson Heights with a new public school, rolling out the new 600-seat facility in September.
Lenia Matias, director of the new PS 280 at the site of the former Blessed Sacrament School at 34-20 94th St., told members of Community Education Council 30 that the school’s identity would solidify after the first students arrive.
“We didn’t know what community we’d be working with, we didn’t know what specific budget, but we had a vision,” she said. “And obviously as we are given a specific community to work with in Jackson Heights and once we meet the students we actually will be teaching, some of those ideas will remain and some of those ideas won’t.”
The vision includes forming partnerships with various community groups and organizations and establishing a family center where parents can meet with teachers, mingle with one another and participate in workshops. Matias also hopes to create a teacher center for the same type of collaboration to take place among the faculty.
Applications for the new school are due April 25. Priority will be given to students from PS 69, PS 92, PS 148, PS 149, PS 212 and PS 228. For more information, call 718-935-4463.
“Our preference would be the children from those schools,” School District 30 Superintendent Philip Composto said. “Parents of children from other schools can also apply [but] we’re not anticipating a problem to fill those seats.”
PS 280 will be a zoned school, but which region of the neighborhood will fall under its coverage area will not be determined until CEC 30 re-zones the district in September.
The school got an early note of support from Ed Westley, president of the Jackson Heights Beautification Group, who said his board unanimously approved of a partnership with the new school.
“We welcome you to Jackson Heights and we hope to work closely with you in the future,” he said.
CEC 30 member Marius Titus hoped the school would look to a figure from New York City’s history when it finally chooses a name.
“Maybe name it after Sully, the pilot who landed in the Hudson River,” he said.
Blessed Sacrament, whose student population had dwindled along with numerous other Catholic schools in the borough, was one of five closed by the Brooklyn-Queens Diocese at the end of the 2008-09 school year.
The site had been requested by the Renaissance Charter School last year as it sought to add a high school in the area. But the city School Construction Authority had already entered into negotiations to buy the property from the diocese.
Reach reporter Jeremy Walsh by e-mail at jewalsh@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4564.
