It's no new news that many public schools are overcrowded but now a report from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer says that 43% of Manhattan's elementary and middle schools are overcrowded. He warned, "This is a real escalation of a crisis we identified two years ago. If we can't figure this out, we're going to have a lot of people fleeing this city the way they did in the '70s because they don't think their children can get a good education."
The Daily News reports that the Upper West Side's PS 199, with 11 new residential buildings in the neighborhood, "has three fifth-grade classes - but eight kindergarten classes." Also on the UWS, PS 163's "kindergarten classes are held behind the school in two trailers. It was meant as a temporary fix, but the trailers have been there 10 years." And then PS 149 in Harlem "shares space with two schools and is no longer allowed to use the regular gym because a new charter school needs it for a lunchroom. A music room is also missing."
Here's a list of the worst overcrowded schools in Manhattan. Last week, Stringer suggested to the Charter Revision Commission that it "explore whether an independent authority other than the Department of Education - such as the City Planning Department and the Comptroller - would help us avoid the terrible school overcrowding crisis that is threatening to tear neighborhoods apart all around the city"; previously, he has recommended that the city increase the number of community schools.
