On a dark and stormy night two weeks ago, local students, parents and teachers spoke out at PS 118’s rickety old auditorium, telling real-life overcrowding horror stories.
At the Leadership Institute, students try to learn in windowless gymnasium storage closets while kids yell and play just outside the door. At PS 8, teachers present lessons in locker rooms filled with moldy water-bug-infested shower stalls.
A handful of Department of Education (DOE) and School Construction Authority (SCA) representatives heard these stories and many more at the Tremont-area school, where the monthly Community District 10 Education Council meeting was held. The officials presented the city’s latest capital plan (for 2010-2014), which includes just one new school and only 399 new seats, for a district suffering under the weight of severe overcrowding issues (an additional 755 new seats were carried over from the last capital plan).
The DOE has acknowledged local overcrowding problems, but says budget cuts forced it to scale back the capital plan, which doesn’t include any new high schools for the Bronx.
After presenting the plan at district council meetings citywide, the DOE may still revise the plan before it goes to the City Council for final approval in April.
Dozens of speakers told the DOE reps that the new capital plan was shockingly inadequate.
Students from the Leadership Institute, a small high school founded partly by student activists from the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC), were particularly outspoken. (Since 2006, when the city eliminated 1,500 District 10 seats from its previous capital plan, the NWBCCC has held several rallies to demand more seats and more schools.)
During an early lull in the meeting, an NWBCCC organizer yelled a common refrain from the past two years: “What do we want?” The students responded: “More schools!”
Originally promised its own facility before opening four years ago, the Leadership Institute shares a cramped space with PS/MS 4 near Crotona Park. Students and teachers said the building and classrooms were built on a smaller scale for elementary-age kids, compounding overcrowding problems and embarrassing Institute students. There are no lockers, meaning students must carry around all of their books and materials throughout the school day, further clogging hallways and classrooms.
An Institute science teacher, Stephanie Wortel, said students were also limited by a lack of computers and other technology, preventing them from doing extensive research and forcing students to scale back projects.
Priscilla Sheeran, the principal of PS 56 in Norwood, said her school needed a new, bigger building because it’s running at 200 percent capacity, according to the DOE’s own calculations, despite busing more than 100 area kids to other public schools. At the very least, Sheeran said, she wanted the DOE to replace the school’s dilapidated mini-building with a permanent structure.
Teachers, parents and students from PS 8 in Bedford Park said they wanted their mini-building replaced as well. PS 8 parent Ivette Rivera, whose daughter Crystal is one of 33 kids in her class, said, “The situation is very bleak. It’s not fair and it’s not right.”