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QUESTION
How is the NYC School Construction Authority addressing classroom and space constraints?
1:17:33
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The NYC School Construction Authority (SCA) discusses various strategies to address classroom and space constraints in New York City schools, including capitalizing on already available space and constructing new facilities.
- The SCA has initiated surveys to identify schools with available space for immediate utilization.
- Approximately 100 schools have sufficient space on paper to absorb additional classrooms, making this the fastest and least costly method.
- For schools requiring significant space, the process of building new facilities is explored, with 27,000 new seats currently in development.
- The SCA also considers expanding existing schools and repurposing underutilized structures to add classroom space.
Gale Brewer
1:17:33
What about the class room?
1:17:36
How are you gonna find more space?
Nina Kubota
1:17:38
Right?
1:17:39
At Thank you for that question.
1:17:41
I think in my testimony, it talks about 4 different strategies.
1:17:44
And I will say that as you can hear this afternoon.
1:17:48
This is very complicated, and building is just one of the solutions.
1:17:52
So I think what we've started to do is to the tier 1, the sort of low hanging fruit.
1:17:58
We're looking at where and remember, there was a survey that was sent out to principals to say, Do you have space in your school and where our data aligns?
1:18:10
We we have a few dozen schools that we immediately have to look at.
1:18:13
That say we have a space.
1:18:16
We agree that they have space.
1:18:17
Let's get to those schools.
1:18:19
And if there's a renovation project that needs to happen, we can bang that out.
1:18:23
Pretty quickly.
1:18:24
And that's only if they need one classroom.
1:18:25
We're looking across the system, and there are probably about a 100 schools that that on paper have sufficient space to kind of absorb.
1:18:34
So that for for the school construction authority is the easiest and fastest and least costly method.
1:18:41
So that's what we're doing now as we're finishing, analyzing these principal surveys.
1:18:45
But those couple of dozen, we can get to pretty quickly, and we've already started to do that.
1:18:51
I think the other strategy is what do we do with the 27,000 seats that are in process?
1:18:57
And we talked about that again in our testimony to say, We have 3 schools coming online in District 20.
1:19:04
That's an area of need with without class size, but it's it compliance.
1:19:09
So we are working with district planning and other offices at New York City Public Schools so that we can use those seats that are in process to address.
1:19:18
The biggest thing is obviously how many new schools and where.
1:19:22
And as I mentioned, that is the most costly and also the toughest.
1:19:28
Right?
1:19:29
Where do we build these schools?
1:19:32
So and I think that's the process that we're going through right now.
1:19:36
To analyze where it's most impactful.
Gale Brewer
1:19:38
Okay.
1:19:39
Don't forget on 66th Street, you have a school that you didn't know about.
1:19:43
Right?
1:19:43
The school that you were like I told you about.
1:19:46
It's a brand new school that you're building that I you didn't know anything about.
1:19:51
So you could use that school to be one of your extra spaces.
1:19:56
Are you aware of that school?
1:19:57
Yes.
Nina Kubota
1:19:59
Yes.
1:19:59
And and and and w chancellor also mentioned, you know, we are also looking at where we can expand existing
Gale Brewer
1:20:07
So that'll be the place.
1:20:07
I'm just listening.
1:20:08
No.
Nina Kubota
1:20:09
Agreed.
1:20:10
Alright.
1:20:10
Thank you.
Emma Vadehra
1:20:10
Can I just can I speak to the expansion pizza?
Khalek Kirkland
1:20:13
Because
Gale Brewer
1:20:13
From my school or the in general.
1:20:15
THE SCHOOL ON Sixty six?
Emma Vadehra
1:20:16
I'M WORRIED TO TRY AND SPEAK ABOUT THAT, SO I'M GOING IN GENERAL.
1:20:19
I Just THINK 1 1 OF THE OTHER THINGS Just NEED A FLAG is, and this gets to your enrollment point.
1:20:25
It's not just building new schools anywhere, and it's not just building new schools in the most overcrowded districts, which is how obviously SEA's done its work.
1:20:34
It's building new classrooms close enough to those schools that are currently over enrolled.
1:20:39
It's just building out that same building, which is an additional level of that last category for.
Gale Brewer
1:20:43
I'm afraid to mention parochial school because I know when I'm up against, but they are all empty.
1:20:49
Thank you.