Scores of city schools are bursting at the seams - with some as much as 200% over capacity, according to Education Department enrollment figures.
Public School 56 in Norwood, the Bronx, is at 200% capacity. Nearby PS 8 was built for 800 students, but enrollment is currently 1,147.
[Photo Caption: PS 234 is operating at nearly 150 percent capacity. Mendez for News]
"There's like 34 people in my class," said Sadri Kasniai, a third-grader at PS 56. "It's too many. There were supposed to be 29."
Frankie Grady pulled his daughter out of the school after first grade because of the overcrowding. "She was in a trailer outside, and that wasn't acceptable," said Grady, 28. "It's terribly overcrowded and understaffed."
To deal with the overflow, PS 56 buses dozens of kindergartners to other schools. Teachers tutor students in the hallways.
And it's not just the Bronx. PS 290 on the upper East Side is supposed to have 433 students but has 647. Downtown, PS 234 is a 501-seat school that houses 748 students.
In response to the crisis, a coalition of parents, elected officials and the teachers union will launch a campaign Friday called A Better Capital Plan.
The groups will rally before a City Council hearing to urge leaders to build schools based on neighborhood need instead of the current district-wide evaluation.
They say keeping up with demand is as important in troubled economic times as it is when the city is prospering.
"We don't want to make the same mistake we made in the 1970s, when we stopped investing in the city's infrastructure," said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. "You do not want to lose the tax base because of a lack of school construction."
An Education Department spokesman said the agency would plan by neighborhood in the future. "It doesn't mean that every neighborhood will get a school," said William Havemann, "but it's a valid complaint. There are certainly pockets of overcrowding across the city."
He said the current $13.1 billion capital plan includes building another school near PS 56 in the Bronx, which will add 5,000 seats in District 2 by 2012.
An analysis by the parent group Class Size Matters, based on the most recent Education Department numbers from 2006-07, found that 38% of students were attending overcrowded schools.
The chairman of the overcrowding committee at PS 234 in Tribeca said the number of residential building permits issued jumped from 1,700 in 2006 to 4,500 this year.
Eric Greenleaf, whose twins, Anna and Leo, attend sixth grade at PS 234, said that because the planned apartments were already in process, he did not expect the economic downturn to significantly shrink school demand.
Greenleaf, 52, said, "You can have the best teacher in the world, but if you have too many kids, education quality is going to suffer."
