Courtesy of Archinect
Sen. Addabbo blasted the City Department of Education for its decision to allow students from neighborhoods outside of Centreville to enroll in PS 335, which is scheduled to open next fall.
By Michael V. Cusenza
An elected state official this week blasted the City for changes that were made to the zoning regulations of a new elementary school set to open next fall in Ozone Park.
State Sen. Joe Addabbo, Jr. (D-Howard Beach) on Tuesday denounced the administration’s decision to allow large numbers of students from neighborhoods outside of Centreville to enroll in PS 335.
Addabbo, a member of the Senate Education Committee, reached out the Department of Education in July, asking the agency to ensure that PS 335 is opened strictly to children who live nearby. In a letter to the DOE Queens Office of District Planning, Addabbo urged the department to see that Community Education Council 27’s vote in favor of keeping PS 335 zoned for families in area neighborhoods is upheld in order to help ease overcrowding in not only this new Centreville school and in other Ozone Park schools, but also the overcrowding that exists in nearby schools, like PS 146 in Howard Beach.
“The construction of PS 335 has the potential to help ease some of this congestion, but only if done right,” Addabbo noted. “It is vital that the DOE makes sure PS 335 serves Ozone Park first and foremost, before filling yet another school with children who live outside the district.”
By keeping the new building strictly a zoned school, the facility would be exclusively for children living east of Cross Bay Boulevard, to the railroad tracks and Aqueduct Race Track, and south of Rockaway Boulevard, to North Conduit Avenue, Addabbo said. The DOE responded to the senator’s missive, informing him that the school would remain zoned for that area with the exception of 10 homes – a total of 15 children – outside this specific zone.
However, Addabbo learned last week that the agency instead has amended its plans to include approximately 250 residences outside the originally agreed-upon zone, about half of which are two family homes and threaten to take up more than 400 of the schools approximately 500 available spots.
“This community is in dire need of an elementary school that is safely accessible,” Addabbo said. “We have hundreds of children who live in Ozone Park who are forced to attend schools in Howard Beach or other neighboring communities because there is simply nowhere else for them to go. This ultimately means that some young students must cross a major roadway, including Cross Bay Boulevard and Rockaway Boulevard, to get to and from school every day, putting them and their families at risk. Our community reached an agreement with the city more than two months ago when the Department of Education committed to keeping PS 335 zoned for this specific area of Ozone Park, and we will not settle for anything less. These taxpaying families deserve the same access to public education that residents have elsewhere in the city, without having to leave their home neighborhoods to get it.”
Assembly candidate Stacey Pheffer Amato this week echoed Addabbo’s sentiment.
“Now that long-overdue Albert Road School is finally a reality, we need to ensure that any proposed zoning puts the needs of Centreville families first,” the Democratic district leader said.
The new plan is scheduled to be discussed at the next CEC 27 meeting on Oct. 17. Addabbo said that his office has reached out to the DOE for an explanation of its decision but it has yet to receive a response.
