By Kate Pastor

Teachers at seven local schools are among those who filed annual classsize grievances with the city Department of Education last week, because they say they are teaching more students than their contracts allow.

Preliminary information provided by the United Federation of Teachers, showed that PS 81, PS 24, the David A. Stein Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy, MS/HS 141, the Bronx School of Law and Finance, the Bronx High School of Science, John F. Kennedy High School and the IN-Tech Academy, MS/HS 368, all filed class-size grievances with the DOE, though some of them may be resolved before the cases come to arbitration.

Some of the schools on the list come as no surprise since they have been vocal about being overcapacity since the start of the school year. The UFT grievance process is just one more tool — this time at the disposal of teachers — for them to speak out.

UFT chapter leader at PS 81, Dorothy Piontek, said the school has filed grievances for four classes in the third grade and four in the second grade, which are each operating with 30 students in the class despite the 28-pupil limit set by the UFT.

Second and third grades at the school were among those that were recently capped — meaning they would not receive any new students — by the DOE. However, Ms. Piontek said, “We send in the capping forms and we still get children in.”

Grievances were also filed for third-grade classes at PS 24 this year. Right now each class has about 30 students, two more than allowed, according to its principal, Philip Scharper. He said he is also still waiting for the DOE to cap that grade. To make up for the overload, he said the school has deployed a part-time substitute teacher and also a recently graduated new teacher to work in the classrooms, as well as an academic intervention service teacher and parent volunteers.

At MS/HS 141, Ms. O’Mara said four out of the seven classes in the seventh grade exceed the 32-student limit, by one student each. She, too, has asked that her classes be capped and is still waiting for a decision to be handed down by the DOE.