Schools

District 26 Schools Not Tapped to Get New Seats

Community Leaders Say Classrooms Overcrowded in Northeast Queens

Northeast Queens leaders said they were frustrated to read in a recently-released amendment to the city's five-year capital plan that there will are no new classrooms in the works for District 26 schools.

In a Nov. 12 letter, Deputy Schools Chancellor Kathleen Grimm recommended a 50,000-seat increase for city schools. To pay for it, she wants an increase in the $11. 7 billion funding level agreed to in February by $4.4 billion to address new capacity and technology needs.

But none of those new seats will be in District 26, which includes Douglaston's P.S. 98 Elementary School as well as schools in Little Neck and Bayside.

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"Queens is the second most populous borough," Councilman Dan Halloran, R-Whitestone, said. "We should get our fair share of resources."

Halloran said the district's elementary and junior high schools are currently short 2,400 seats, while its high schools need another 2,500 seats.

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At this time, Bayside High School is operating at 150 percent capacity, he said.

"The problem is when schools look to cut money, the first place they look is at staff," he said. "So, you can't expand a school's size without teachers. I'm worried that the [city's] School Construction Authority will scale back their five- and 10-year plans, which include expanding buildings, repairs or new libraries and cafeterias."

Robert Caloras, president of Community District Education Council 26, said he was also concerned that the district would not gain more seats.

"We do have a deficit," Caloras said. "We also have some schools that are busting at the seams and others that are not."

He said he wanted to reserve judgment on the five-year capital plan until he had a chance to review the 17-page amendment.

In the past five years, Caloras said that there have been only two capital projects resulting in the creation of additional seats at schools in District 26.

One of those projects involved the placement of classroom trailers at in Little Neck; the other, the construction of an annex at P.S. 188 in Oakland Gardens.

CDEC 26 will hold a meeting Dec. 15 to discuss the capital plan.  


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