Community News
School Woes
www.qns.com I LIC COURIER I FEBRUARY 2018 23
BY ANGELA MATUA
AMATUA@QNS.COM
As towers rise in Long
Island City and more
families move into the
neighborhood, the De-partment
of Education (DOE) is struggling
to accommodate the influx of students.
Now, parents at P.S./I.S. 78 in Long
Island City are frustrated by the DOE’s
plans to accommodate the kindergarten
students who are waiting for a new
elementary school, P.S. 375, to be built
in the area.
The school fought off a possible trun-cation
when the DOE in 2016 proposed
removing all middle school seats to
make room for additional elementary
school and kindergarten seats. The
new elementary school is not slated
to be completed until the 2021-2022
school year and the agency said the
school cannot afford to bring in more
students before then.
At a meeting with school officials and
DOE representatives on Jan. 30, parents
held up signs with phrases like “WTF
NYC DOE” and “LIC United.”
Parents called the DOE proposals
“unacceptable” and demanded that all
new pre-K and kindergarten classes
be within walking distance. They also
told the DOE that any consideration to
truncate of P.S./I.S. 78 should be off the
table and that construction of the new
school should be completed by 2020.
DOE told parents in 2016 that they
would come up with a solution to al-leviate
the overcrowding but the crowd
expressed frustration at the agency’s
progress in three years.
“So here we are again facing the
same problem,” said Kadie Black, a
founder of the Gantry Parent Associa-tion.
“The difference is we face you now
united, as one community advocating
on behalf of all of Long Island City, who
deserve high quality public education.”
The three options proposed by the
DOE include going ahead with the trun-cation
of the school, or busing incoming
kindergartners to St. Teresa’s School in
Woodside or another location in Astoria.
P.S./I.S. 78 opened during the 2009-
2010 and included two sections of each
grade from kindergarten through fifth
grade but expanded to include a middle
school, according to Principal Louis
Pavone. Currently, the school accom-modates
seven kindergarten sections
and other elementary and middle school
sections as well. The school’s zone size
has also increased by 124 percent and
Pavone added that he is against any
plans to truncate the school.
The school also includes two tem-porary
classroom units (TCU), which
according to Superintendent Dr. Philip
A. Composto, will be removed at the end
of the current school year. The DOE has
made it a priority to remove TCUs from
schools, many of which have been in use
for years and take up space meant for
outdoor playgrounds.
But parents and Councilman Jimmy
Van Bramer say removing these TCUs
is not appropriate and will leave Long
Island City with a net loss of pre-K seats,
a priority for the mayor’s administration.
“We only remove those temporary
classrooms when they’re not needed
anymore,” Van Bramer said. “Removing
any classroom seats from this com-munity
at this time when there is such
a crush for seats makes absolutely no
sense.”
The pre-K students would be as-signed
to the pre-K center at 27-35
Jackson Ave.
“At the end of the day none of these
plans are done, none of these plans are
set in stone,” Van Bramer said. “We can
fight all of them.”
After the two hour meeting, parents
quickly began using social media to plan
additional meetings and brainstorm new
proposals, including asking St. Mary’s
at 10-08 49th Ave. as a potential tem-porary
site or asking major developers
and property owners like Plaxall, TF
Cornerstone an Rockrose to allow DOE
to rent property for additional TCUs so
that students don’t have to be bused to
other neighborhoods.
“The School Construction Authority
(SCA) leadership (Lorraine Grillo) has
been in contact with the community
this morning and has also committed
to continuing working with us,” Black
said in the Gantry Parent Association
Facebook group. “We now need to
band together and advocate clearly
and effectively. We need to continue
to put pressure on the DOE where
needed.”
File photo
