A new Woodhaven elementary school set to open in September for the purpose of alleviating overcrowding is creating as many problems for parents as it is solving, a local education council heard Monday night.A number of worried and angry parents told members of the District 27 Community Education Council they are losing out on property investments as a result of the incoming New York City Academy for Discovery, P.S. 306, for which school zoning lines were redrawn.
One parent, who did not want his name used, said he spent months searching for a school that would serve his soon-to-be kindergartener well. He found P.S. 64 in Ozone Park and, to guarantee that his 4-year-old would be zoned for the school, bought a house with a backyard facing it.
Now, his daughter is zoned for P.S. 63. To make room for the new school, the CEC and District 27 Community Superintendent Michele Lloyd-Bey changed the zoning lines for six elementary schools in Woodhaven, Ozone Park and Richmond Hill.
They moved the borders that determine which neighborhoods are zoned for each school and the new school, which will be located at 89-15 Woodhaven Blvd.
Students already enrolled in one of the six schools — public schools 60, 63, 64, 65, 97 and 254 — will not be removed. The school will open with Pre-K and kindergarten, and eventually expand to the fifth grade, CEC President Andrew Baumann said. The zoning changes will only apply to young children just entering school.
Jennifer Flandro, P.S. 306’s new principal, said there is a possibility the new school will open with a first grade as well.
This was also a contentious subject for parents who worried that having a school open with only two grades would force them to separate their young children.
Sandra Rodriguez, who lives across the street from P.S. 64, has four children who could potentially attend three different schools. The eldest is in junior high school, while the two middle siblings attend the school across the street. The youngest child will enroll in kindergarten this fall at P.S. 63, about a mile away from her home.
Rodriguez asked CEC members to review their zoning changes. “It’s ridiculous that people who live across the street from a school are zoned for a school a mile away,” she told them. Angrily, Rodriguez suggested the CEC refrain from rezoning the four residential blocks surrounding each school.
Baumann attempted to explain to the displeased crowd that “the lines had to get drawn somewhere.” He noted the difficulty of rezoning the area surrounding P.S. 64 — the district’s highest ranking and most overcrowded school.
There were only so many streets the CEC could rezone, Baumann said. About seven blocks west of P.S. 64 is the border of Brooklyn and to the east is P.S. 63. Some concessions just had to be made, he insisted.
The CEC changed the plans at least 50 times, Baumann said. “We knew we couldn’t make everyone happy, but we did it for the betterment of the community.” It’s not often that an overcrowded school community has the opportunity to open a new school, CEC member David Hooks Jr. added.
Unrelenting, Rodriguez told the CEC to return to the drawing board — but first they should “go to the schools, look around. Look at the neighbors, not just a map.”
Baumann tried to calm parents, telling them this reoning is not permanent: school zones will be changed again next year because another school is scheduled to open in the area in 2009. Parents did not receive the news well and complained of instability.
Other parents voiced concerns about safety for students attending the new school. Hooks said all the precautions were taken, and problematic spots are being examined.
“The CEC went to great lengths to minimalize traffic concerns to ensure that kids don’t have to traverse through dangerous roads,” Hooks said. There will be more crossing guards and possibly more traffic warning signs.
The goal, Hooks added, was to avoid disrupting the students’ education. “We wanted to protect and insulate the kids in this district as best we could.”
Parents were invited to the CEC’s May meeting, where it will present a safety and security plan created with local precincts and the Department of Transportation.
