Temporary Classrooms Getting Permanent Fix

by Rob Palazzolo | 10/14/2014 | 5:00am

Temporary Classrooms Getting Replaced

City is working to remove trailers from Queens schools.

The so-called "Temporary Classroom Trailers" have been hanging around New York City schoolyards for two decades. But permanent classrooms are in the works, and in Queens in particular, construction is aggressively moving forward.

At P.S. 70 in Astoria, workers are finishing up construction on a sleek new classroom building. It's just one of twenty eight current projects in Queens, more than double the amount of similar projects in any of the other boroughs.

So why the flurry of school construction in Queens?

Over at P.S. 199 in Sunnyside, it's easy to see why this borough got top priority. P.S. 199 just had two annexes built, but they still have to teach some classes in three trailers out back because of overcrowding.

Anthony Inzerillo is the principal of P.S. 199, and he says the school has had the temporary units, in their small scrap of land, since the mid-1990's. Inzerillo also says the trailers are particularly problematic for the students when rain comes rolling in. 

"When they walk up to the front door here, there's no awning to cover them, to protect them from the elements, so they tend to get wet," Inzerillo said.

Pointing to a few mismatched gray tiles by the door, Inzerillo says that the puddles of water by the door caused the floorboards to rot. He says the city did the best they could to repair everything, but replacement is the only real fix.

The trailers were only meant to last ten years. But Inzerillo says the new permanent classrooms under construction across the borough will increase capacity enough for P.S. 199 to be able to get rid of their trailers in a year.

"So that was the first, like, real plan, where I could see this light at the end of the tunnel," Inzerillo said.

"It's a real strong possibility that these children will no longer have to be in the temporary units," he added.

A spokesperson from the Department of Education says they will eliminate all of the temporary classroom trailers by 2019, the end of the next capital budget period. The city might also get state funding to help do it.

So when construction is finally finished across Queens, kids will sit down in classrooms meant to last a lifetime, instead of just a few years.

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