QUEENS — A Forest Hills school is slated to get a trailer in the next school year to accommodate pre-K classes that were previously cut to make room for kindergarten seats, officials said.
The trailer will allow P.S. 144 to hold two pre-K classes offering a total of 36 seats, according the Department of Education.
“We listened to families in Forest Hills and restored the two free, full-day, high-quality pre-K sections at P.S. 144 that had been eliminated to allow as many students as possible to attend their zoned school for kindergarten," Jason Fink, a spokesman for the Department of Education said in a statement Monday.
On a Facebook page created by local parents, the school posted that it would begin enrolling students from its pre-K waitlist on Monday, June 29.
The Department of Education said that the solution is temporary and it was developed uniquely to address the situation in Forest Hills.
According to the note posted by P.S. 144 on Facebook, “the de Blasio Administration has already begun a feasibility study to determine a permanent solution” to overcrowding in the neighborhood.
In May, the agency cut three pre-K classes between two Forest Hills Schools — P.S. 144 and P.S. 196 — to add more kindergarten seats after dozens of students were wait-listed. Parents received letters earlier this year, notifying them that their kindergartners who're zoned for those schools, could be sent to other District 28 schools, sometimes outside of Forest Hills — in Rego Park, Kew Gardens and Briarwood.
DOE officials said at the time that they decided to cut pre-K classes because, unlike kindergarten, it's not a mandatory program, although the de Blasio administration has made pre-K expansion the centerpiece of its agenda.
While the move cleared kindergarten waitlists in Forest Hills, it also eliminated much needed pre-K seats at those schools, parents said. Dozens of families were waitlisted, including children whose siblings already attended the schools.
In May, several elected officials, including Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi and Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, sent a letter to Chancellor Carmen Fariña saying that scaling back on pre-K seats is "unacceptable."
Both elected officials continued pushing to restore pre-K classes and said that they would support using trailers at the schools for a short period of time if there was no other solution to address overcrowding.