As towers rise in Long Island City and more families move into the neighborhood, the Department of Education (DOE) is struggling to accommodate the influx of students.
Now, parents at P.S./I.S. 78 in Long Island City are frustrated by the DOE’s plans to accommodate the kindergarten students who are waiting for a new elementary school, P.S. 375, to be built in the area.
The school fought off a possible truncation when the DOE in 2016 proposed removing all middle school seats to make room for additional elementary school and kindergarten seats. The new elementary school is not slated to be completed until the 2021-2022 school year and the agency said the school cannot afford to bring in more students before then.
At a meeting with school officials and DOE representatives on Jan. 30, parents held up signs with phrases like “WTF NYC DOE” and “LIC United.”
Parents called the DOE proposals “unacceptable” and demanded that all new pre-K and kindergarten classes be within walking distance. They also told the DOE that any consideration to truncate of P.S./I.S. 78 should be off the table and that construction of the new school should be completed by 2020.
DOE told parents in 2016 that they would come up with a solution to alleviate the overcrowding but the crowd expressed frustration at the agency’s progress in three years.
“So here we are again facing the same problem,” said Kadie Black, a founder of the Gantry Parent Association. “The difference is we face you now united, as one community advocating on behalf of all of Long Island City, who deserve high quality public education.”
The three options proposed by the DOE include going ahead with the truncation of the school, or busing incoming kindergartners to St. Teresa’s School in Woodside or another location in Astoria.
P.S./I.S. 78 opened during the 2009-2010 and included two sections of each grade from kindergarten through fifth grade but expanded to include a middle school, according to Principal Louis Pavone. Currently, the school accommodates seven kindergarten sections and other elementary and middle school sections as well. The school’s zone size has also increased by 124 percent and Pavone added that he is against any plans to truncate the school.
The school also includes two temporary classroom units (TCU), which according to Superintendent Dr. Philip A. Composto, will be removed at the end of the current school year. The DOE has made it a priority to remove TCUs from schools, many of which have been in use for years and take up space meant for outdoor playgrounds.
But parents and Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer say removing these TCUs is not appropriate and will leave Long Island City with a net loss of pre-K seats, a priority for the mayor’s administration.
“We only remove those temporary classrooms when they’re not needed anymore,” Van Bramer said. “Removing any classroom seats from this community at this time when there is such a crush for seats makes absolutely no sense.”
The pre-K students would be assigned to the pre-K center at 27-35 Jackson Ave.
“At the end of the day none of these plans are done, none of these plans are set in stone,” Van Bramer said. “We can fight all of them.”
After the two hour meeting, parents quickly began using social media to plan additional meetings and brainstorm new proposals, including asking St. Mary’s at 10-08 49th Ave. as a potential temporary site or asking major developers and property owners like Plaxall, TF Cornerstone an Rockrose to allow DOE to rent property for additional TCUs so that students don’t have to be bused to other neighborhoods.
“The School Construction Authority (SCA) leadership (Lorraine Grillo) has been in contact with the community this morning and has also committed to continuing working with us,” Black said in the Gantry Parent Association Facebook group. “We now need to band together and advocate clearly and effectively. We need to continue to put pressure on the DOE where needed.”
