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City Boots Construction Company Amid School Safety Concerns

 The construction project at The Neighborhood School and Star Academy was supposed to wrap up in the fall of last year.
The construction project at The Neighborhood School and Star Academy was supposed to wrap up in the fall of last year.
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DNAinfo/Serena Solomon

EAST VILLAGE — The city has ousted a construction company that has dragged its feet on the renovation of an East Village school after hundreds of parents complained of health and safety hazards they say have endangered their children for three years.

The city’s School Construction Authority on June 13 terminated its contract with Kafka Construction — the contractor that was supposed to wrap up work on the building shared by the Star Academy/P.S. 63 and the Neighborhood School in Sept. 2015 — after more than 600 parents spoke out against the dangers they say their kids endure as a result of the ongoing work.

A petition sent by parents to the authority details the drug paraphernalia and human waste regularly found under the building’s scaffolding, which the parents say invite homeless encampments, as well as the rat infestations they say have overrun the property.

School administrators have been forced to clean up syringes, vomit, urine, and feces from the school grounds on a regular basis, according to the petition. 

“As a result [of the construction], our children are exposed to health hazards daily…We, the undersigned, assert that this is unacceptable,” reads the petition, which included photographs of syringes, pools of urine, and piles of trash outside the school.

The project first began in the fall of 2013 to remove asbestos and repair the facade of the building at 121 E. Third St. 

The city shut down three-quarters of the schoolyard playground to allow for the construction, leaving parents and educators frustrated as children were deprived of outdoor playtime.

And though the project was supposed to wrap up within two years, the end-date has been continually postponed, most recently until July of this year — a deadline parents doubted would be met. 

Educators in May expressed frustration that the project had continued to burden the schools, speaking to the stresses placed on the community as a result.

While the authority had told the schools there should be between 19 and 25 workers on the construction site every day during work hours, parents and educators “rarely, if ever” witnessed so many workers on the job, the petition states.

A representative for the Department of Education confirmed Kafka had been removed from the project, and that the company would not be allowed to bid on any future projects with the SCA.

Department officials have met with the concerned parents and are working to address the complaints outlined in the petition, according to the rep.

Meanwhile, parents remain “cautiously optimistic” that the schools will see improvements since Kafka has been kicked off the job, said one mom at The Neighborhood School — but if the problems persist, she said, the parents will not stay silent. 

“We are happy that the community and elected officials share our concerns and hope they continue to support our school,” said Ali Smith, who is also a member of the school’s Health and Safety Committee. “But as parents, we will no longer be complacent.”

Principals at both schools did not return requests for comment.

A representative for Kafka Construction declined to comment and referred DNAinfo New York to the SCA.

A representative for the SCA also declined to comment, referring DNAinfo to the Department of Education.