Over half of the 47 students on P.S. 107’s kindergarten waiting list have just been granted a major reprieve.  

According to the school’s Parent Coordinator, Pat Mannino, a fourth kindergarten class will be added next year, accommodating 25 of the students currently on the schools monster kindergarten waiting list.

But this solution is not without its own problems: to accommodate the additional kindergarten class, P.S. 107 will have to relocate its one, 18-student pre-k class. According to Mannino, they don’t know yet where the pre-k will be housed, though she assured that it will be moved, not eliminated.

The DOE said that it could not yet comment on the specifics of the relocation.    

Even once the school finds a new spot for its 18 pre-k students, though, the school will still face overcrowding issues as this newly expanded kindergarten ages through P.S. 107.  One additional classroom will be freed up when the pre-k is relocated, but unless the kindergarten is shrunk back down, come fall 2012, P.S. 107 will need two spare classrooms—one for the added kindergarten class, and one for those extra 25 who will by then be in first grade.

One solution is larger classes.  First grade classes can be as large as 32 students.

But P.S. 107’s first grade classes each have only 25 students currently and there are no plans to increase that number.

Theoretically, the flood of applicants might not repeat itself next year. According to Mannino, historically there have been similar—though significantly smaller—jumps in the applicant pool that were ultimately isolated events. This year was the first year that P.S. 107 could not accommodate all the zoned children on its wait list – last year’s waiting list topped out at 15, zoned students, all of whom were ultimately absorbed into the school. 

Nonetheless, both P.S. 107 and the DOE are actively researching options for expanding the school’s available classrooms. Others are looking at the situation more broadly.    

In an E-mail message to his constituents, Councilmember Brad Lander noted that while the DOE may be building a new building for P.S. 133, in North Slope, “we need at least one more in the South Slope . . . not just to make sure everyone gets into kindergarten, but also to avoid overcrowding and keep class sizes down.”

Both Lander and District 15 Community Education Council President Jim Devor have expressed hopes that P.S. 133’s temporary location at St. Thomas Aquinas’s old parochial school building can be converted into a long-term DOE facility.

Mannino agrees that converting a building such as St. Thomas Aquinas into an Early Childhood Center is the answer.  In Mannino’s vision, these centers would house schools dedicated to pre-k, kindergarten and first grades, comprised of children from all of the neighborhood’s zoned schools. Such a solution would free up space in the overcrowded elementary schools and alleviate the need for re-zoning, something parents are often leery of—having purchased apartments expressly so that their child could attend their zoned school.

As for parents of the 22 children still left on P.S. 107’s kindergarten waiting list, they may be counting the days until their child can rejoin the school for first grade, assuming—as many do—that they are then guaranteed a spot in their zoned school. 

But it may not be that simple.

According to the Chancellor’s Regulations zoned students are only entitled to attend their zoned elementary and middle schools “subject to available seats.”

Children who remain on their zoned kindergarten waiting list by May will be reassigned to another school, according to the DOE. Efforts will be made to keep these alternative placements near children’s’ zoned schools.

“We absolutely try to accommodate every zoned student in any grade,” said DOE spokesperson Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld.  “But if a school has more zoned applicants than it has the space for, in either Kindergarten or first grade, some students may have to be served at other nearby schools.”