FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM AUGUST 29, 2019 • KIDS & EDUCATION • THE QUEENS COURIER 31
kids & education
Queens’ newest public school will
open in Jackson Heights next week
BY BILL PARRY
bparry@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
With more than 1.1 million students
heading back to public schools on opening
day on Th ursday, Sept. 5, the most
excited pupils can be found along the
Jackson Heights/Woodside border —
where P.S. 398 opens its doors for the
fi rst time.
The $62 million state-of-the-art,
fi ve-story building features 476 seats for
pre-K through fi ft h grade in Community
School District 30, the second-most overcrowded
school district in Queens.
Councilman Daniel Dromm, a former
New York City public school teacher for
more than 20 years at P.S. 199 in Sunnyside,
became an advocate for class size reduction
aft er teaching in one of the most overcrowded
schools in the city, he said.
“Th ey had to make space in closets,
locker rooms, dressing rooms and elsewhere,”
Dromm said. “Class size reduction
will help teachers provide instructional
class lessons and the city has never
tried class size reduction. With 34 kids
in a classroom, they can’t spend as much
time with each child. Th e Department of
Education doesn’t take into account new
developments in the city and the infl ux
of immigrants to the community, such as
Jackson Heights, Elmhurst and Astoria.”
Th e school is located at 69-01 34th Ave.
along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway,
on what was once White Castle’s regional
headquarters. A developer once planned
to build an apartment complex at the
location, but Dromm was able to get the
School Construction Authority to step in
and by the land for $6.3 million in 2015
in order to build the 65,000-square-foot
school that includes a rooft op playground.
Elsewhere, P.S. 303 in Forest Hills will
cut the ribbon on its $66 million addition
that will allow the school, known as
the Academy for Excellence Th rough the
Arts, to add grades 4 and 5 to existing
grades pre-K through 3. Th e new facility
includes a two-story gym, science rooms,
a reading library and special education
rooms at 108-55 69th Ave.
Also in Forest Hills, there is a $52.4
million four-story addition set to open
at P.S. 144, the Colonel Jeromus Remsen
elementary school. Th e new construction
added 26 new classrooms with a new
entrance lobby and seats for 590 students.
P.S. 66, Th e Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
school in Richmond Hill, which fi rst
opened its doors in 1893 at 85-11 102nd
St., also opens its new addition with six
new classrooms for 124 news seats with
a cafeteria, exercise room and new offi ce
Worker puts some fi nishing touches on P.S. 398 in Jackson Heights, the borough’s newest school opening Monday, Sept. 5.
space for school administrators.
Th e School Construction Authority is
also opening four new 3K for All centers
across the borough including the District
27 Pre-K Center at 101-49 Woodhaven
Blvd. in Ozone Park, the District 27 Pre-K
Courtesy of School Construction Authority
Center at 100-02 Rockaway Blvd. in Ozone
Park, and the District 27 Pre-K Center at
160-06 Cross Bay Blvd. in Howard Beach.
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