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Harlem School Has Broken Clocks and Public Address System for Second Year

By Gustavo Solis | September 4, 2014 2:04pm
 The system that runs the announcements and clocks at P.S. 242 is broken and has been for a year. 
PS 242 Has No Working Clocks and Broken PA System
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HARLEM — For the second year in a row, students at P.S. 242 will have an excuse for being late to class.

School clocks and the public address system, which have both been broken in some classrooms since last September, still weren't fixed by the first day of school on Thursday, according to parents and the Department of Education.

“They had the whole summer to get it fixed,” said Darryl Adams, 42, as he dropped his son off at the school at 134 W. 122nd St. “They shouldn’t have waited until the last minute. It’s lazy.”

In June, when DNAinfo New York first reported about the broken clocks and PA system, DOE spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said issue would be fixed over the summer.

When contacted about the issue this week, Feinberg said in an email that work on the clocks is “being completed expeditiously” and PA repairs were still in the works.

Feinberg did not say when the repairs would be completed. 

Some parents said the school has had problems with the clocks in the past.

“I’ve never seen the clocks work at school,” said Meme Sherrod, 35, who went to P.S. 242 in the 1980s and now has a second-grader at the school. “They were always a little off.”

Others have not noticed the issue during school visits.

“They always work in the rooms I’ve been in,” said Andrea Wood, 39, who has a first and fourth-grader. “I never noticed, I guess it’s hit or miss.”

She lauded the school's curriculum, saying her children get to work on hands-on projects that help them remember what they learn in class.

P.S. 242 received a B on its 2012-2013 progress report, which is up from a D the year before, according to DOE data.

Adams' older son graduated from P.S. 242 in the mid-2000s and is now a freshman at St. Johns University. The clocks worked when he was at the Harlem elementary school, Adams said.

“He knows how to tell time,” the father said.

P.S 242 did not respond to requests for comment.