Kids
New preschool opens
in Long Island City
BY ANGELA MATUA
AMATUA@QNS.COM
A new 180-seat preschool in Long
Island City will open in time for the 2017-
2018 school year.
Q972, which was announced last
November, is located on the first two
floors of a building at 27-35 Jackson
Ave. Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer and
Deputy Mayor Richard Buery toured the
new facility, which used to house a U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services
center, on Aug. 30.
Though several elementary schools
are slated to be constructed in the area,
parents expressed concerns last year
about the lack of pre-K seats in Long
Island City.
The Gantry Parent Association, a
group that advocates for more school
seats in the area, started a petition when
they took an informal survey on their
Facebook page to ask who had been
waitlisted for P.S./I.S. 78 or the Pre-K
Center.
The group received a flood of responses,
with many parents saying they
were placed in other schools such as P.S.
76 in Astoria or P.S. 111, which parents
say are too far away, or schools not on
their list. School seats have long been
a concern in the area, especially with
many new residential developments
in the works.
More than 11,000 residential units
have been constructed in the past 10
years, making the construction of new
schools necessary to accommodate the
new families moving in.
“I am thrilled to see this beautiful
new Pre-K Center in Long Island City
completed in time for the start of the
school year,” Van Bramer said. “With
incredible parks, museums and a real
sense of community, parents from all
over New York City are discovering that
Long Island City is a great place to raise
a family. Last year, I joined with parents
to call for more seats to accommodate
this increase in families and expecting
parents moving to Long Island City to
raise their children. And now, that dream
has been realized with the competition
of this Pre-K Center, on time and ready
for students come September. ”
Photo courtesy of Office of Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer
24 SEPTEMBER 2017 I LIC COURIER I www.qns.com
