Joel Cairo/for New York Daily News
Vivian Escobar with her sons Roman Bonilla (l.) and Max Bonilla at PS 199 in Long Island City, Queens. Escobar said there isn’t enough space at PS 199 to accommodate an additional school.
The city is belatedly seeking community support to incubate a new elementary school at an existing one in Long Island City to alleviate severe overcrowding in western Queens.
Public School 110 already opened this fall with a kindergarten grade inside of a space shared with PS 199.
Department of Education officials told parents at Tuesday’s Community Education Council District 24 meeting that the city plans to move PS 110 into its own building, in Corona, once construction is completed in 2015.
The influential Panel for Educational Policy is scheduled to vote on the plan on Oct. 11. PS 110 is slated to grow by a grade a year.
Dmytro Fedkowskyj, a Queens rep on the panel, said co-locations can be beneficial.
“If you weren’t incubating these schools, then the teachers would have to take more students in their classes,” he said.
“But they have to be done right and they can’t create hardships on schools that are being co-located,” Fedkowskyj said.
CEC 24 President Nick Comaianni said PS 110, which will eventually go up to the fifth grade, will be a boon for students.
“It’s going to alleviate overcrowding in Corona,” he said. “Our schools, especially in the Corona area, are at 120% capacity and more.”
But he suggested putting PS 110 instead into Intermediate School 125, in Woodside. This would create the space needed to move IS 125’s fifth grade into PS 199.
PS 199 has been a grades K-through-4 school since 1987, city officials said. Students there are divided into three buildings.
School officials at PS 110, PS 199 and IS 125 did not immediately return calls for comment on Thursday.
But Education Department officials said there simply isn’t enough room in IS 125 to incubate a new school.
Parent Vivian Escobar, 42, of Woodside, said there isn’t space at PS 199 either.
“This school is spread out all over the place,” said Escobar, who has two boys at PS 199. “There’s not enough room for our kids here now.”
Angela Santana, 33, of Long Island City, said she would prefer a fifth grade at her daughter’s school, PS 199, rather than sharing space with PS 110.
“I want a fifth grade here,” Santana said. “I don’t think a fifth grade should be in a junior high school.”
