Schools

Another School At Metropolitan Campus?

Department of Education plans to temporarily put Maspeth high school class in new Forest Hills building.

, the brand new school building in Forest Hills, could get a bit more crowded next year with the temporary introduction of a new high school class in the building.

The Department of Education announced this week that they are proposing to add one grade of an as-yet unfinished Maspeth high school to the campus, increasing the number of students there by as many as 225. The plan would begin and end with the 2011-2012 school year.

, who advocated for the new school on Metropolitan Avenue for years, said she had serious reservations about the plan.

Find out what's happening in Forest Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“I am very concerned about the impact that the proposed incubation of the Maspeth High School will have on the Metropolitan Avenue Campus,” Koslowitz said.  “I am sending a letter to Chancellor Black to spell out these serious apprehensions, which include location of the school on the campus, amount of students and length of the incubation.”

Department of Education spokesman Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld said that in areas with school shortages like Maspeth and Forest Hills, finding new spaces to put students is a big issue for the department.

Find out what's happening in Forest Hillswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“Our priority in Queens and in Districts 24 and 28, is to really get high school seats up and available as quickly as possible,” Zarin-Rosenfeld said. “The schools on the Metropolitan Campus are now, and they’re phasing in, growing one grade at a time, so that’s a lot of space that’s sitting unused.”

Currently, even with three schools taking up space, the Queens Metropolitan Educational Campus is less than 50 percent full.

Next year, with grades nine and 10 in Queens Metropolitan High School, grades six through eight at the Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School, and grades six through 12 of the campus’s branch of P.S. 233.

With all of those students combined, the school would still be just over 60 percent full, with around 1,100 students.

The addition of 175-225 proposed ninth graders from a Maspeth high school would take the school to 72 percent full.

Still, Koslowitz said that after the great victory of finally finishing the new campus for District 28 and Forest Hills parents, it would be a shame to create a new, unintended situation at the school without first considering the consequences.

 “It took eighteen years to get the Metropolitan Campus up and running and I will not allow the wonderful progress made this year to be derailed by poor planning and decision making regarding incubation,” Koslowitz said.

There will be a Department of Education Hearing on Feb. 9 at 6 p.m. at Queens Metropolitan High School to discuss the proposal, which will be voted on by the Panel For Education Policy on March 1.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Forest Hills