Your article “Bayside residents oppose school in place of Keil Bros Garden Center” fails to mention the solution long recommended by the community board, and restated by its Education Committee at the meeting. That is the return of P.S. 130 to District 26 use for the children that currently live in its zone.
P.S. 130 (Francis Lewis Boulevard at 42nd Avenue) is a school in District 26, and a former District 26 school that is currently used by District 25 as a magnet school. Kids are bused to it from around District 25, while local kids who could walk to the school are bused out to P.S. 31, P.S. 159 and P.S. 162, helping to cause overcrowding at these schools. It is that overcrowding that is the rationale for a new school. In addition, the cost of all this busing is enormous and unnecessary, and is a blight on the neighborhood.
The use of P.S. 130 by District 25 derives from an old and temporary demographic condition, and should come to an end. Some years ago when CB11 looked into this we did a study that revealed two things. The schools to which the District 25 kids would otherwise go were less crowded than the schools to which the kids living near P.S. 130 were bused. Also, the cost of all this busing approached the entire budget of P.S. 130 itself, about $1 million at the time.
You have reported on what the Community Board opposes without reporting on what the Community Board proposes. You have therefore told only a part of the story.
Melvyn Meer
Community Board member and member of its Education Committee
Bayside
