DOE Details Incubation/Co-location
The Department of Education (DOE) is proposing to permanently co-locate students from two elementary schools inside the former home of St. Raphael’s School in Long Island City-and one of the schools will bus students from Corona and Elmhurst all the way across the borough.
As announced by DOE officials at a Tuesday, Oct. 2 hearing at the school, the agency is currently housing first-grade students from P.S. 199 (located at 39-20 48th Ave. in Sunnyside) in four rooms of the 355-seat building, as well as students from an as-yet-unnamed school currently designated “24Q110”.
The latter school is being “incubated” at St. Raphael’s School, located at 48-29 37th St., until a new building is built for them. According to District 24 Community Education Council (CEC 24) President Nick Comaianni, a new facility in Corona is scheduled to be finished by 2015.
The “co-location” was proposed due to overcrowding: 383 District 24 kindergarten children were waitlisted in June 2012 due to lack of seats, forcing the DOE to lease the former St. Raphael’s School space, which ceased operation in 2011, as an “overflow site.”
According to Comaianni, the school is being incubated at St. Raphael’s due to a lack of available space in the district.
At the hearing, Comaianni stated that CEC 24 “is on board” with the plan, but added that he would have preferred to incubate the new school at P.S. 125, located at 46-02 47th Ave. in Woodside. CEC 24 is negotiating with neighboring CEC 30 over District 30 students who currently attend the District 24 school.
Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott issued an emergency declaration on June 15 allowing the co-location of the P.S. 199 students and the students of the new school in the building; the public hearing is to allow the co-location until 2015.
If the Corona facility is delayed, the agency will have to return to CEC 24 for another hearing to extend the co-location.
