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UWS Parents Fear Student Squeeze in DOE Plan to Add Kindergarten Classes

By Emily Frost | April 3, 2015 4:41pm | Updated on April 6, 2015 9:02am
 The new classes are meant to accomodate children placed on the schools' waitlists. 
DOE to Add New Kindergarten Classes at P.S. 87 and P.S. 9
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UPPER WEST SIDE — Parents are upset at the Department of Education's plan to add more kindergarten classes at a pair of popular elementary schools, saying it will only exacerbate overcrowding issues there.

Superintendent Ilene Altschul said this week that one class each will be added at P.S. 87 and P.S. 9 to accommodate the dozens of wait-listed students at both schools.

Members of Community Education Council 3, along with City Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal, questioned the logic of creating new classes at the elementary schools, especially P.S. 87, which has a legacy of overcrowding and limited physical space.

"We have contacted the DOE because P.S. 87 does not want an additional kindergarten class... it causes major issues," CEC 3 member Noah Gotbaum, who serves as a liaison to P.S. 87, told his colleagues at a recent meeting.

Another elementary school, P.S. 452, opened several years ago to solve overcrowding at P.S. 87, Rosenthal added, noting that the solution to the uptick in applicants should not be to squeeze students in again.

Preliminary data shows that P.S. 87 has a waitlist of around 50 students and P.S. 9 has a waitlist of about 40, said CEC 3 president Joe Fiordaliso. It's not clear how long the waitlist is at P.S. 199. 

The DOE noted that the waitlists have not been finalized. 

While parents have said they don't want the school's enrollments to get any larger, Altschul countered that the principals at both P.S. 87 and P.S. 9 were on board with creating the new classes. 

"The principals agreed that it is a school’s responsibility to accommodate all the zoned children," she said. 

The DOE added a kindergarten class for wait-listed students last year at P.S. 199, a decision that will have lasting negative consequences, with "classes of 32 students and lunch starting at 10:30 a.m." to accommodate the influx, Fiordaliso explained.

"It's beyond the pale that DOE is now considering the same 'solution' for P.S. 87 and P.S. 9," he added. 

In fact, the new class added last year at P.S. 199 is being taken away next school year, reducing the number of classes there from seven to six, despite the school also having a waitlist, Altschul said.

Leftover students on the P.S. 199 waitlist will have to go to the neighboring P.S. 191., she noted. 

Last year, DOE officials, education leaders and elected officials tried to persuade wait-listed P.S. 199 parents to send their children to P.S. 191, which had space and sits just blocks away.

But the vast majority of parents on the P.S. 199 waitlist rejected the P.S. 191 option, citing the fact that the academic results at P.S. 199 are much stronger than they've historically been at P.S. 191. 

The wait-listed parents formed an advocacy group and successfully lobbied for the creation of a new kindergarten class at P.S. 199. 

At the time, parents with students already at the school worried the new class would result in overcrowding — a concern that has now spread to parents at P.S. 87 and P.S. 9.

Kindergarten decisions go out the week of April 13, at which point the waitlists will be finalized, according to the DOE.