district-24-rezoning

The Department of Education has proposed to rezone District 24, which serves Glendale, Ridgewood, Elmhurst, Maspeth, Middle Village and Corona, to address problems of school overcrowding. But some parents worry that the rezoning will force many students into a dangerous commute. According to the Queens Courier, “Based on the plans, students would have to cross Queens Boulevard, the so-called “Boulevard of Death,” to get to P.S. 229 from the newly expanded northern area. Also, some children that formerly would be zoned for P.S. 229 will be instead moved to P.S. 153, which may force them to cross the Long Island Expressway via Maurice Avenue.” Parents are particularly cautious after a recent incident in which an SUV jumped the curb on Grand Avenue and injured five students. The DOE staffers plan to reconfigure the proposal and meet with parents again on September 24th. The zoning change, which will adjust school zones based on neighborhood populations, affects the kindergarten class of the 2014-2015 school year — current students won’t have to change schools.

Parents Say School Rezoning Puts Kids in Danger [Queens Courier]
Map via Queens Courier


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. I went to the meeting last night and it was made clear from the very beginning that the proposed rezoning for 229 was dropped after so many members of the community voiced their opposition. Speakers noted how full the cafe-gym-atorium was and how they were happy to see so many people show up. The sign-up for people to make comments or ask questions was over three pages long! It was nice to see the community show up like that.

    However, overcrowding is still a huge huge issue especially in the Northern part of the district. It came up that the a big reason for this is due to the large number of new residents living in illegal apartments. New development also creates an issue. It was explained that the issue of rezoning gets looked at after analyzing the number of new kindergarteners expected to enroll in the new school year.

    One issue that kept coming up was the overcrowding of I.S. 125 in Woodside that has grades 5-8. It’s a school that has a capacity for 1400 students but currently has 1756 students enrolled this year. All of the 5th graders have classes in trailers on school grounds. I learned a lot about overcrowding problems last night but not a lot about how those problems are going to be fixed.

  2. I can’t understand the anti-development attitude of some people who love in Queens. I’m not saying that Joe feels this way, but statements like his are often used by people who oppose all development in Queens. As long as it is done legally, development is generally a good thing for Queens. After all, Queens is part of NYC and it is not realistic for people to expect Queens to remain the same as it was 50 years ago–more like a suburb than part of the city. Cities are crowded places. I think people who complain about the city being crowded probably shouldn’t live in Queens or in any part of NYC.

    • I don’t think he’s complaining about all development. Just the fact that the overdevelopment going on in some areas is really putting a stress on things like Public School seating causing a problematic overcrowding in many of our schools. If they’re going to build more housing, it should also be put into consideration if our school system can handle the development. If not, then something should be done. Like building more schools or adding on annexes to already existing schools, if that is possible of course.