After listening to the Department of Education’s underwhelming report on new school construction, Deria Senac called for an intervention of supernatural proportions to solve the northwest Bronx’s overcrowding crisis.

“They have all kinds of reality shows where they have interventions to solve problems. There are drug interventions, weight loss interventions,” said Senac, a parent leader with the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition. “We need a volcanic intervention to create more land for schools.”

A volcanic intervention may be the only way a local community beset with overcrowding problems will be getting new schools anytime soon. With the exception of a new 700-seat elementary school being planned for Webster Avenue and 205th Street in Norwood, no new schools are in the pipeline. 

Each year, the DOE amends its five-year capital plan for renovations and new school construction. This year, despite acknowledging the overcrowding problems in Norwood, Bedford Park and Kingsbridge, the DOE added no new plans for school construction.

This is especially vexing to parent activists like Senac who remember when the DOE took away 1,700 new seats planned for the northwest Bronx in a 2006 amendment. At the time, the DOE reasoned that demographic projections would lead to a decline in local enrollment.

Last year, however, the DOE changed its tune, saying the area was indeed overcrowded and in need of new schools. They added the new 700-seat Webster Avenue site and are planning for another 400 total seats in the Riverdale area.

At the meeting, held inside the auditorium of PS 9 on 183rd Street, Senac said DOE officials were full of excuses for why they couldn’t build new schools – no land, no money, bad economy – but no solutions.

“They’re going to cry broke,” said Marvin Shelton, the president of  the Community District 10 Education Council, which hosted the meeting at PS 9. 

The DOE says it’s doing all it can under budget constraints.
Meanwhile, Shelton said, “They’re using playground space to build new schools.” At PS 95 and PS 94, the DOE is constructing new buildings where kids used to play during recesses. “It’s counterintuitive,” Shelton said, citing the district’s other big problems: childhood obesity and diabetes.

But until there’s a volcanic intervention, Senac said, “They’re still not meeting the needs of the community.”