City sits on funding for new schools

It’s no secret that the Riverdale area’s elementary schools are overcrowded. The Robert J. Christen School (P.S. 81) is nearly 30 percent over-capacity and the Spuyten Duyvil School (P.S. 24) will have to accommodate an extra 140 students starting next fall, when it loses an off-site annex that housed classrooms for years.

The construction wing of the Department of Education is well aware of the overcrowding. Since 2008, the DOE has promised the Riverdale/Fieldston/Spuyten Duyvil area 456 new seats for elementary school students. Those seats could go toward a new school or an addition to an existing school.

The School Construction Authority (SCA) has the funds for the project and the design phase is set to begin in 2017. But so far, a site has not been identified.

“One of the biggest issues up here in the Bronx is just trying to find a space big enough to accommodate a school of significant size,” Nicole Holloway, a community relations manager for the SCA, said at a District 10 Community Education Council meeting last month.

During the Feb. 25 meeting, Ms. Holloway and other SCA representatives presented the most recent version of the Five-Year Capital Plan, which charts all the major construction projects in the city’s public schools. Or, in the case of the Riverdale project, as well two others in the Kingsbridge/Bedford Park area, planned construction projects with no clear way forward.

Parents grilled the SCA officials about their inability to lock down sites for projects within District 10.
“There’s been a lot of locations… in District 10 that have been gobbled up by commercial interests. So that to me indicates that SCA is not pursuing it too aggressively,” said one parent.

“What’s the process of finding a site?” asked another parent.

“It’s a couple of things you have to think about,” Ms. Holloway answered. “One is, is the site good to build a school on, what is the traffic like, the area like? How much would it cost us to get the location, on top of building the actual school?”

“A lot of times, parents feel like, there was a space right here; how come so-and-so got it and the SCA wasn’t on it?” said a parent.

Ms. Holloway said that because the SCA is a government agency, buying a property can take a lot of time and often a seller will prefer to go with a buyer who can go through the process more quickly.

Several parents voiced concerns about the lack of outside space and gym space in schools that are in leased buildings. For example, P.S. 207, which is in a building leased from the Catholic church, has no gym.

“Again, we’re working, we’re trying. You have to remember, space is the biggest thing,” said Ms. Holloway.

In Riverdale, local Parents’ Associations have been working together to lobby for a solution to finding a site. P.S. 24 PA co-president Bob Heisler said possible ideas include building additions to his school and P.S. 81, instead of finding a completely new site.

But Mr. Heisler said one of the parents’ main concerns is that even if the Riverdale project finds a site, 456 new seats will not be enough to fill the area’s demand. By his calculation, P.S. 24 and P.S. 81 are overcrowded by more than 600 students.

“We’re not going to let this sit as it has been sitting for several years,” he said of the problem of finding a site, adding that the parents plan to meet with SCA officials and local politicians. “The issue has always been in Riverdale the lack of space. It’s a challenge, but not an insurmountable challenge.”