Aims To Ease Student Transition, Overcrowding
Later this month, the Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) will vote on a Department of Education (DOE) plan to eliminate a grade at a Woodside elementary school.
P.S. 152 (the Gwendoline N. Alleyne School), located at 33-52 62nd St., currently serves 1,392 students from kindergarten through sixth grade. Looking to ease overcrowding on campus and ease student transition to middle school, the DOE aims to eliminate the sixth-grade class starting with the September 2015 school year.
The proposal would also include rezoning P.S. 152’s boundaries so fewer kindergarten students enroll there in the years to come.
“The DOE believes that P.S. 152 families would benefit if all students move on to middle school after completing the fifth grade,” according to an announcement the DOE released last Tuesday, Nov. 25. “By entering middle school in sixth grade rather than seventh grade, students at P.S. 152 will be able to take advantage of [the] enriching, high-school preparatory experiences one year earlier.”
If approved, current fifthgraders at P.S. 152 would be promoted in June to attend sixth grade at one of three middle schools serving the zone: I.S. 125 at 46-02 47th Ave. in Woodside; I.S. 10 at 45-11 31st Ave. in Astoria; and I.S. 230 at 73-10 34th Ave. in Jackson Heights.
Current sixth-graders at P.S. 152 who fail to meet promotion requirements would repeat the grade next year at either of the three middle schools.
Combined with rezoning P.S. 152’s zone, the grade truncation will drop enrollment by 45 to 60 students next September, and future kindergarten classes will also be reduced in size. By the 2020-21 school year, the DOE projects P.S. 152’s capacity at between 1,092 and 1,152 students, with a building utilization rate of between 104 and 109 percent.
The PEP will consider the plan at its next meeting at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 18, at Long Island City High School, located at 14- 30 Broadway in Astoria.
Parents may submit comments in advance of the meeting to Dean Guzman of the DOE’s Office of District Planning by calling 1-212-374-7621 or emailing D30Proposals @schools.nyc.gov. Written comments may be sent by standard mail to Dean Guzman, Office of District Planning, 52 Chambers St., New York, NY 10007.
