Queens schools may become a little less overcrowded this fall — but critics say there still aren’t enough new seats to meet the rising demand.
Four new schools and a building addition are slated to open in the borough in September. When the schools reach capacity, they will offer an additional 3,000 seats, city officials said.
The Department of Education also plans to open an additional four schools and two building extensions in 2013.
“Over the next two years we plan to add an additional 6,000 seats in Queens, recognizing the growing needs of students and families in the borough,” said Education Department spokesman Matt Mittenthal.
The Community Education Council in District 30, in western Queens, is set to meet Thursday.
City officials are to discuss Intermediate School/High School 404, which is slated to open in 2013 in Long Island City.
“More seats, that’s what we need right now,” said CEC 30 Co-President Isaac Carmignani.
But he pointed out that the area is seeing a spike in growth — especially in the Hunters Point swath of Long Island City.
“Whenever you throw up a new building and you have a couple of high-rises going up, let’s put a school in there,” Carmignani said. “This could help prevent this problem of overcrowding.”
Nick Comaianni, president of Community Education Council District 24, which covers mid-western Queens, said the problem is there are very few vacant sites on which to build new schools.
That conundrum has led to schools transforming art rooms and computer labs into much-needed classroom space.
“In some schools, if the closets are big enough, they’re using them as classrooms,” Comaianni said.
Leonie Haimson, executive director of the education advocacy group Class Size Matters, said overcrowding is only getting worse in Queens.
“Kids don’t get the attention they need from their teachers,” she said. “They often have to eat lunch at 10 a.m. in the morning and go hungry the rest of the day.”
“It sets kids back educationally in ways that it will be difficult for them to ever recover from,” Haimson added.
The new school buildings slated to open this fall are Public School/Intermediate School 277, in Jamaica, Middle College High School, in Long Island City, Maspeth High School and the Eagle Academy, in Jamaica.
