PS 24, RKA leaders meet about where to put students

Parents who are anxious about where Spuyten Duyvil School (P.S. 24) students will go once an off-site annex for fifth graders closes will have to wait for a solution to the dilemma.

The latest closed-door meeting between stakeholders, including the David A. Stein Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy (M.S./H.S. 141, RKA), which is being considered for housing extra P.S. 24 students, did not yield any breakthroughs last week.

Still, having both P.S. 24 and RKA leaders at the same table appeared to represent a step forward in the discussions. Local politicians including northwest Bronx Councilman Andrew Cohen and Department of Education (DOE) officials participated in the Jan. 8 talk, which followed a vote from P.S. 24 parents calling for RKA to devote two classrooms to elementary school students next fall. RKA parents responded with a petition of their own, asking the DOE to find another place for the elementary students; they said the middle and high school is likely to be overcrowded next year even if they do not host any P.S. 24 pupils.

“I think it’s vitally important,” Mr. Cohen said of including RKA Principal Lori O’Mara and Parents’ Association President Amy Carr at the recent meeting, which took place at P.S. 24. “If no, there’s no point. There has to be collaboration between 141 and 24 for it to work.”

If P.S. 24’s co-location proposal moves forward, DOE regulations call for public hearings in both schools that stand to be affected by the move. Over the fall, P.S. 24 parents were shocked to learn that the city had failed to renew a lease with the Whitehall co-op, which has housed about 140 fifth-grade students in an annex for years. Since the fall, officials have been scrambling to find accommodations for P.S. 24 students next school year. Fifth graders have remained at the Whitehall, located at 3333 Henry Hudson Parkway, while the city and the co-op work out the lease for the rest of the current school year.

Marvin Shelton, president of District 10’s Community Education Council, has attended most of the closed meetings on the matter.