GREAT KILLS — A high school dedicated to special needs kids is as bad as a "prison complex" with conditions so bad they should shock the city, a councilman charges.
Great Kills High School, an annex of P.S. 37 at 110 Shafter Ave. on Staten Island which teaches students with developmental delays, has a building with six tight classrooms — some that are split in half — and a cafeteria that has to double as a workspace.
Students are also taught inside tiny classrooms in two trailers which had to be cleaned after a mold infestation last year.
"It’s a dilapidated building, the trailers remind me of a prison complex," said Councilman Joe Borelli. "We shouldn’t be essentially warehousing our most vulnerable student population."
Teachers at the school focus on getting the students, some of whom are diagnosed with autism and have limited speech or are non-verbal, to be as independent as possible by giving them vocational lessons.
For the past several years they've run a program where students build cardboard adaptive furniture — like iPad stands, chairs and foot rests — and deliver the pieces to other schools.
But without any proper space to do the work, staffers are forced to convert the cafeteria into a work area for the program.
The high school has about 70 students from ages 14 to 21, but barely enough space to house them inside the annex, said P.S. 37 Principal Florence Gorsky.
"It's disrespectful to our students," Gorsky said.
Parents complained that students barely have enough room to move inside the trailers and many of them lash out because they're uncomfortable.
"They build these beautiful schools for general education," said Maria Palazzolo, whose 13-year-old son Michael Palazzolo will move to the annex next year.
"It feels like your child is being left behind."
Linda Lasheen's son James Lasheen, 19, has been at the annex for four years. She said she's pleaded with the city for help for years, but got little to no response until recently.
"The children have very little space to breathe," said Lasheen, who is also president of the PTA.
"It's just not fair to them. They have enough problems and enough issues."
Last week, Councilman Borelli toured the school with the Schools Construction Authority and Borough President James Oddo and has started a push for better facilities.
On Facebook, he wrote that the school "flies in the face of all the progress that has been done on Staten Island since the closing of the Willowbrook State School," a filthy, vastly overcrowded institution which kept mentally disabled people in inhumane conditions.
Willowbrook was shuttered in 1987.
"It's not an ideal situation, it hasn't been for some time," Borelli said. "I’m glad that the SCA and the DOE are taking steps to look into replacing it."
Borelli wants to see the school knocked down and replaced, or merged with the P.S. 37 building at 15 Farfield Ave.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Education said it was working with Borelli and the community to find proposals to address the issues in the school.
At a recent tour of the school, teachers were seen to have barely enough space to get supplies in and out of storage areas once the students were inside.
Some teachers said they have to keep long cardboard sheets and other supplies in their offices because there's no other spot in the building to store them.
Despite the tight quarters, Borelli and parents commended staff at the school for their hard work and making the best of the space they have.
"I love our school and they're magnificent, but the conditions are ridiculous," Lasheen said.
