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Q&A
SCA's target for total seats to open by 2027-2028 school year
5:34:06
ยท
120 sec
Council Member Rita Joseph asks about SCA's target range for total seats to open by the 2027-2028 school year. SCA President Nina Kubota and First Deputy Chancellor Daniel Weisberg discuss the challenges and plans for increasing seat capacity.
- SCA is working on about a dozen room conversion projects to increase seat numbers
- Finding sites to build on is a significant challenge in New York City due to limited available space
- The availability of space is a major factor in determining how quickly new seats can be brought online
Rita Joseph
5:34:06
does SCA have a target range for how many total seats you want to open in the 2027 and twenty twenty eight school year?
5:34:12
Is there a number you have in mind and what does that look like?
Nina Kubota
5:34:15
In addition to what we already have in the pipeline in terms of our seats opening, and we have that figure here, we have about a dozen or so room conversion projects that we're looking at right now that would help increase those numbers.
5:34:31
And we work with our counterparts at Space Planning to come up with those room conversion projects.
Daniel Weisberg
5:34:38
One of things, Chair, if I could just jump in and Nina will elbow sorry.
5:34:42
President Kubota will elbow me if I'm getting this wrong because this is really in SCA's orbit.
5:34:48
But one of the reasons you're hearing our friends at SCA talk about how many jobs are sited so far, it involves finding sites to build on.
5:35:01
And so one of the reasons that and SCA, I can tell you, is moving as aggressively as it possibly can to find these sites, to then get the projects in the pipeline, get the funding there, do the design.
5:35:16
This is New York City.
5:35:17
There's not a lot of extra space.
5:35:19
And so one of the real hindering factors that exist in terms of when we will be able to bring these new seats online is just the availability of space.
5:35:29
And we, you know, we were talking about it with in the earlier hearing with Councilmember Ressler, you know, talking about a school that's a high demand school where these guys already built an annex in the schoolyard ten years ago or something, and it's already full up.
5:35:46
So space is a is a big factor in that.
5:35:50
If, you know, I'm sure you would say, President Kubota, if a bunch of properties open up and you're able to acquire them more quickly, then they'll be able to move more quickly by 2728.
5:36:01
If we don't find these properties, then it's gonna take take a longer period of time.