Sunday, January 6, 2013

Where to put the kids?


From DNA Info:

The city will build an annex to relieve overcrowding at a Queens school that's housed hundreds of students in classroom trailers for more than a decade, officials announced Friday.

The new addition will be constructed at P.S. 11, at 54-25 Skillman Avenue in Woodside, where staff and local elected officials have fought for years to get permanent space to replace the cramped and outdated temporary classroom units hulking in the schoolyard for the last 12 years.

About 220 kindergarten and first grade students at P.S. 11 currently use the school's portables, where they shuffle back and forth to the main building throughout the day, even in bad weather, according to principal Anna Efkarpides.

The school is so cramped that teachers have had to send students to study in hallways, and art and music supplies are shuttled from room to room in a cart, Efkarpides said. Preliminary plans for the new annex include the possibility of a designated music classroom, a science lab and an exercise space, she added.

The new addition will likely be built in the footprint of the trailer classrooms in the schoolyard, and will hold approximately 350 students, according to School Construction Authority President Lorraine Grillo. She said the agency has selected OMNI Architects to design the building, a process that will take about a year, with construction to start some time after that.

The city has yet to determine where the students currently taught in the trailers will go once construction starts.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

A year to design the annex?? This is a joke, right? My guess is that a architectural student from Pratt or Cooper Union could take care of this in a week. And how much is this year long project of designing the annex going to cost?

Jerry Rotondi said...

Great--now we have quonset huts for education!

Maybe WE SHOULDN'T be developing at the rate we are, before we have adequate school, hospital, etc. space to keep pace with it.

Borough hall's philosophy appears to be,
"Build first, then deal with the headaches afterward".

Look at it this way.
If development feeds political campaign coffers--then overdevelopment stuffs them!

Meanwhile we get force fed like a Strasbourg goose!

BURP! Hand me a "Tums", please.

Anonymous said...

Hey they don't have any problems in Jimmy Van Bramer's district where the hipsters are moving in to those waterlogged er waterfront towers - whose kids are getting schools that are jumping the line.

Meanwhile Archie and Edith's grandkids get crap.

Anonymous said...


Day care in a trailer camp

Without real quality education, these kids will grow up to be tomorrow's welfare recipients.

So the cycle continues.

Jerry Rotondi said...

P.S.
Here is the evidence of Mayor Mike's commitment to education.

It's just more Bloomberg ballyhoo!

Anonymous said...

No such problems exist at PS 32, in the well-off neighborhood of Auburndale.

This is a tale of two different districts...between the "haves" and "have-nots".

Anonymous said...

stop paying illegal immigrants to have more children. they pop out babies every ten months to keep their welfare, food stamps & medicaid. cut off the government gravy train to illegal aliens who come to NYC to give birth. If the children of illegal aliens could not become citizens automatically they wouldn't be living at the taxpayers expense. Put a halt to that and we would not have overcrowding in schools nor would we have our hospitals closing due to illegals abusing the medical system. don't educate them, deport them. don't medicate them, deport them.

Anonymous said...

We've had portable classrooms for schools for a long time ((whether or not we should is a different matter). When I was in public school in the late 50s and early 60s, the school I was in was overcrowded, and the Board of Education installed them.

Anonymous said...

Some readers might wonder if there hasn't been any significant new housing built in the PS 11/Woodside area in 30 years, where are all these kids coming from?

Did all the 18-38 year old women lose their birth control? No, what happened was apartments once occupied by 4 are now occupied by 8 or 12. Basements which once held washing machines and dryers and old couches, now contain four apartments. Free food, education, and health care are a powerful magnet for anyone in the world who wants all this free stuff. And who doesn't want free stuff? One can only hope, that some of these PS 11 pupils go on to have private sector jobs in 10 years and pay taxes.

The world has come to Woodside. Open your wallet to feed, school, and provide health care for them.

Anonymous said...

The public school that I attended (Whitestone) during the late 50s-early 60s DID NOT have portable classrooms. This was a "HAVE" neighborhood.

Where you attended class might have been a
"HAVE-NOT" nabe (Corona, etc.).

Anonymous said...

where to put the kids?

How about back home in the DR, China, PR, India, Mexico, Korea, and Albania???

Anonymous said...

the public school buildings were either 100% HI-JACKED or "SHARED" by the Special Education Industry, that spends nearly $90,000. per/year/pupil.

THAT IS YOUR TAXES BE WASTED ON BABY SITTING ,AND LITTLE ACTUAL READING AND WRITING AND ARITHMETIC.

see the D.O.E. stats, if one can navigate the confusing and edited website.

2012=13 D.O.E. budget is $21,000,000,000. and rising rapidly.

what's in your wallet ?

Anonymous said...

#6...the communty teens must play full-court Basketball ,at P.S.32 Auburndale, on a sloped court. one side (left) is lower than the other side (right). ??????

Anonymous said...

Anonymous #9 hit the nail on the head. Too many 1-2 family houses are now 4 or 5 family houses rented out by greedy landlords from LI who have no respect for the neighborhood.

It is the DOB's fault for lax enforcement of illegal apartments and conversions. If you are a long-time Woodside resident you probably have made complaints about these issues for years to no avail.

I don't care what race or nationality you are, I have no respect for people who stuff themselves into a illegally divided firetrap house like sardines. I say if people want to live like that, give THEM the trailers. Leave the houses to those who appreciate them and respect their neighbors.

I grew up in the neighborhood and it's sad that the students have suffered because of greed and overcrowding.

Anonymous said...

Maybe some "ghetto sows" ned to have their tubes tied.

Anonymous said...

WTF do sloped basketball courts
at PS 32 in Auburndale have to do with the subject ?

Please check your compass reading and stay on course.

Anonymous said...

# 6...have you checked the LEVEL B/B FULL COURTS ( flood lighted till 3AM) in the so-called "HAVE NOT AREAS" " ?

the SO-CALLED HAVE NOT citizens in areas of Queens earn more $$$$ than the "HAVES" do?

the stats were exposed on Q.C. a few months ago.

try your class warfare and race cards elsewhere.