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Brooklyn Heights Parents Enraged By Kindergarten Space Shortage
By
Lauren Evans
Published Apr 16, 2015
Modified Apr 16, 2015
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By
Lauren Evans
Published Apr 16, 2015
Modified Apr 16, 2015
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Brooklyn Heights parents are enraged that their local public school is too packed to accommodate many of their young Georginas and Marmalades, forcing them instead to commute to not-so-nearby Vinegar Hill.
Of the 207 families zoned for P.S. 8, 40 percent were told to hit the bricks ("placed elsewhere"), to the rage of many neighbors who wrongly assumed that the proximity of their homes would ensure Little Servillete's spot at the school.
“We bought a home here and one of the main reasons was because it was known that kindergarten admissions were pretty much guaranteed,” one parent, Felix Shipkevich, told the Post.
"It’s incredibly unfair,” said another. “There are people who live across the street from P.S. 307 that get to come to my school and my kids don’t get to go there."
The overstuffing can be attributed to the influx of Brooklyn Heights residents in recent years, thanks to nearby residential developments bringing in more families than school facilities can accommodate. P.S. 8 has already lost its pre-K program, and is in danger of losing its art and music rooms as well, the Brooklyn Paper reports.
A parent-teacher group also told the paper that the number of classes in each grade has been increasing each year, with three fifth-grade classes set to graduate this year, and six kindergarten classes poised to move on to first grade.
With an additional 30 kindergartners are already pre-registered for next year, school administrators will be forced to become increasingly creative about space: Maybe class can be held in some of the campus's roomier supply closets? If dumpsters can be made into chic swimming pools, who's to say they can't be converted into music studios? Classrooms are everywhere, if you look hard enough and have all your shots!
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Lauren Evans
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