Parents from Sunset Park are giving the city an “F.”
Locals took to the streets on March 20 to protest the Department of Education’s five-year plan to create a meager 113 public school seats in the neighborhood that needs nearly 1,900.
The city has money set aside to build additional schools, but officials say they’re still looking for suitable land. One protestor said it’s time for the city to take decisive action — even if that means resorting to using eminent domain.
“The city has a right to take whatever land it needs to build schools,” said Yvette Aguirre, a former principal at both PS 169 and PS 24. “There has been no real push, no real commitment to making this happen. It’s not that there is nothing — it’s just that there is nothing that’s standing there waiting for you to buy it. That doesn’t exist anymore in New York.”
The city is proposing creating 113 new seats in the neighborhood, but the additional desks won’t make a dent in the 1,897 total seats that seven neighborhood elementary schools will need to bring their enrollment levels below 100 percent of building capacity.
Meanwhile, students turned away from their zoned schools are forced to travel further afield for their education. But even the schools Sunset Park kids can get into are overcrowded as well, one parent said.
“It’s very frustrating to have to leave Sunset Park to go to another school that’s overcrowded,” said Leah Ruggiero, whose daughters go to PS 10 two miles away in Park Slope — where 1,105 kids are crammed into a building meant for 768, according to Department of Education figures — because they didn’t get into their zoned school, PS 169. “It’s so much nicer to be in your own neighborhood. Isn’t that the point of a zoned school?”
The Department of Education is aware of the problem and aspires to fix it, a spokesman said.
“Reducing overcrowding is a critical part of our goal to ensure our students can thrive in the classroom, which is why we are opening nearly 33,000 new seats of the next five years — including three new school buildings and 1,100 new seats for Sunset Park alone,” said Department of Education spokesman Jason Fink.
The city has committed funding for the 1,100 desks but has yet to begin construction, design the buildings, or even identify where the new schools would be erected, he said. Only 113 seats are actually on track to be added to the overcrowded district.
Local parents said the wait for future seats is effecting their kids right now.
“It’s just not fair,” said Jovita Sosa, a parent of three public schoolers. “We can’t wait five years. We’ll lose a generation of children who could have been the doctors, lawyers, leaders, and professionals of tomorrow.”
