The Department of Education agreed this week to negotiate with Manhattan Youth about using several classrooms in the new Downtown Community Center for students at P.S. 234, Community Board 1’s chairperson said.
The D.O.E. hopes to open the classrooms this fall, which would ease P.S. 234’s overcrowding and could prevent the Tribeca school from having to close “cluster” rooms for subjects like art. The D.O.E. visited the community center, which just opened last month next to P.S. 234 on Warren St., and determined that the classrooms needed only minor improvements like window stops in order to use them for P.S. 234 students.
“It’s very, very good news,” said Julie Menin, chairperson of Community Board 1. She found out about the D.O.E.’s support at an overcrowding meeting hosted by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver earlier this week.
The classrooms in the community center would be a temporary solution for the next several years, until the new K-8 schools at Site 2B in Battery Park City and on Beekman St. open.
Silver’s overcrowding taskforce is still looking for a similar temporary solution for P.S. 89 a block away from P.S. 234 in Battery Park City. The best option so far is to use space in the Cove Club condo building, which the Battery Park City Authority is vacating in February 2009. The 17,000 square feet of space would be plenty of room for several classrooms, but the D.O.E. still has to visit the site.
–Julie Shapiro
