Testimony to NYC Council Commission on CFE – Class Size/School Size

October 19, 2004

Good afternoon.  My name is Marge Kolb and I live in District 24 in western Queens.  I am the mother of three children, a former PTA president, at both the elementary and middle school level, and a current member of the CEC for District 24.

Our district is one of the largest in terms of student population, with approximately 38,000 students in grades K-8. We are also very large in area, extending from Flushing Meadows Park in the north to the Brooklyn border in the south and encompassing the neighborhoods of Sunnyside, Woodside, Corona, Elmhurst, Maspeth, Middle Village, Glendale and Ridgewood.

Although we have seen several new schools built in the past few years and many additions to existing schools, we still face a crisis of overcrowding and unbelieveably humungous schools.  Our district includes one of the largest elementary schools in the country, P.S. 19 in Corona, which has close to 2,000 children in grades K-5. We also have two large elementary schools which due to intense overcrowding are forced to end before the 5th grade – P.S. 199 in Sunnyside, with over 1,000 enrolled, ends at the 4th grade, after which students go to I.S. 125, and P.S. 7, with approximately 1,300 students, which ends at the 3rd grade, after which students attend a 4th-5th grade school across the street.

We not only face overcrowding in our elementary and middle schools, but I’m sure I don’t have to tell you about the situation in Queens’ high schools, which routinely have split sessions and where students are unable to take a full course-load.

New school construction which is currently in the plans will not keep up with our current overcrowding let alone take into account the construction of new housing units in our area, which anecdotally, appears to be rampant.  In Elmhurst a new 46-unit housing complex on Queens Boulevard has just been completed, in Maspeth and Ridgewood several new multi-family developments have or will shortly begin construction (28 units on Mt. Olivet Crescent, 59 units near Admiral Avenue, many multi-family houses on Flushing Ave), and all over western Queens – multi-family houses replacing single-family homes.

In addition, prospective sites for schools are hard to come by and so we build wings in our schoolyards, sometimes completely eliminating any outdoor play area, such as at P.S. 88 in Ridgewood, which has an enrollment over 1,300 in grades K-5.  Two new schools on the drawing board in our district will be built in the yards of existing schools – at P.S. 199 in Sunnyside and at P.S. 12 in Woodside. This is simply unacceptable, but yet it will most likely happen.

Please, please do something to help us in western Queens. Our children deserve better.