But the meeting turned…
By Kathianne Boniello
About 60 people packed a small meeting room for a School Board 26 hearing last week on whether to give parents the option of sending their kindergartners from overcrowded PS 94 in Little Neck to neighboring PS 98 in Douglaston.
But the meeting turned from friendly to tense when some PS 98 parents took exception to parents from PS 94 who said rezoning the area between the schools could be a long-term solution to PS 94’s shortage of seats.
According to figures compiled by District 26 in the fall of the 2000-2001 school year, PS 94 at 41-77 Little Neck Parkway was at 136 percent capacity while PS 98 at 40-20 235 St. was at 81 percent capacity.
The option discussed at last Thursday’s School Board 26 meeting at MS 74 would allow parents of incoming kindergartners at PS 94 to send their children to the less crowded PS 98. Only incoming kindergartners would be permitted to use the option and the students who followed through would attend PS 98 through the fifth grade. Dozens of parents attended the standing-room-only meeting.
Following the public hearing School Board 26 reworded the resolution on the PS 94/98 option, restricting it to the 2001-2002 school year. The option will be reviewed yearly beginning in the spring of 2002 and a decision to extend or reject it will be made at that time. PS 94 students other than incoming kindergartners would have to receive variances from the district before they could switch schools. SB 26 was to vote on the option at its public meeting Thursday.
Despite building thousands of new seats in the last year, the borough still is about 27,000 classroom short. According to School District 26 utilization figures for fall 2000, the district is operating at around 98 percent of capacity this year. But School Board 26 has released statistics in the last several months that show the district will be the second most crowded in the borough over the next 10 years.
School overcrowding has crippled education throughout the borough and forced thousands of Queens students to take their classes in hallways, closets, gyms and transportable trailers. School District 26 has been the highest performing school district in the city for years.
School District 26 covers Bayside, Little Neck, Douglaston, Oakland Gardens, Glen Oaks and parts of Auburndale, Flushing, Bellerose and Fresh Meadows.
When a PS 94 parent began presenting “zoning facts” about the two schools with a large map of the Little Neck-Douglaston area and poster-size lists about each community at last Thursday’s meeting, a PS 98 parent asked School Board 26 President Sharon Maurer to stop the hearing.
Janet Sherman, co-president of the PS 98 Parent Teacher Association, said she and others from PS 98 objected to the use of the word “zoning.”
“Quite honestly we feel sandbagged,” she said, pointing out that the meeting notice for the hearing did not use the word “zoning.”
Maurer said the option was a zoning issue because it gave parents throughout the PS 94 area the choice of sending their children to PS 98, even though the option did not change the physical zoning boundary between the schools.
Initially the SB 26 hearing was open and friendly with Sherman, PS 98 Principal Sheila Huggins and other PS 98 parents welcoming their PS 94 neighbors.
Huggins said that while population patterns shift over the years, PS 98 does have room for a third kindergarten class.
“I am confident that no distinction will be made between ‘ours’ and ‘theirs’ for they will all be mine,” Huggins said with a smile.
Janette Schwartz, the chapter leader for the United Federation of Teachers union at PS 98, said “our teachers are aware of and recognize conditions of overcrowding in nearby PS 94.”
Schwartz said the teachers were willing to accept PS 94 students with “open hearts.”
Sherman and Michele Rowe, her co-president for the PS 98 PTA, expressed support for the idea early in the meeting but also asked for certain considerations.
Both parents asked that Huggins be given control over how many extra students would be allowed into the school and that PS 98 “not experience any negative impacts.” Sherman and Rowe also said the school would like to continue taking in students from outside the district, including children from District 29 in southeast Queens.
In describing the crowded conditions of her school, PS 94 Principal JoAnn Barbeosch said “all of my closets are being used as classrooms. Our numbers keep growing and we need a long term solution. PS 98 must somehow be woven into the fabric of that solution.”
Judi Soehren, a PS 94 parent, said people at the school were “frustrated at this point. We don’t want to attack anybody.”
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 146.
