Crowds at PS 321 Making Parents Nervous
According to a Wall Street Journal article, the overcrowding problem at PS 321 has Park Slope parents worrying about both their children’s education and their property values. With 1,300 students on its roster right now, the school is at 117% of capacity. No zoned kindergartner has been turned away or put on a wait-list for…
According to a Wall Street Journal article, the overcrowding problem at PS 321 has Park Slope parents worrying about both their children’s education and their property values. With 1,300 students on its roster right now, the school is at 117% of capacity. No zoned kindergartner has been turned away or put on a wait-list for the school yet, but the possibility is growing for a lottery system or that the PS 321 area will be rezoned to funnel kids into different schools. (PS 133, for example, is expected to open on Baltic Street by September 2012.) According to Streeteasy.com, the PS 321 zone brings in $6 to $19 more per square foot than adjacent real estate zoned for other Park Slope schools. Even an unmarried Novo resident, without children, asserted, “I would certainly be fighting very vehemently anything that takes the building out of the zone.”
PS 321 Draws a Crowd, Sends a Chill [WSJ]
If it’s in the WSJ, bkhabitant, then the point of the article is mainly business oriented, to question how the issue will affect real estate values. I can’t imagine anybody would say a kid in overcrowded PS321 has it worse than kids in a struggling school in the Bronx.
I wonder if the Miss Muffets of Park Slope have read a single word of advice from school experts. I’ve started researching schools (private in our case) as we have to start the whole application process very soon and in everything I read it is emphasized not to value a school merely because of popularity. And I mean everybody says that. They beg parents to look beyond at other things. Like overcrowding.
Both my kids are enrolled in PS321 but we take all courses online now.
We toured 321 in 1996 and it was very over crowded then too. They spent a lot of time on logistics like what stairwell kids go up and down and they held some classes in the hallways. It seemed a bit overwhelming.
There was also a turd in the sink in the girls bathroom. An anomolous turd, I’m sure, but a turd nonetheless.
rf,
The “citywide” statistics – is that all enrolled public school students?
Have to feel for the poor, unfortunate students that need to suffer “overcrowding” at PS 321. They have it so much worse than the vast majority of kids who attend the New York public schools in other parts or Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx. Glad the WSJ decided to shine a spotlight on the most pressing issue facing the New York school system at the moment.
serious over crowding in manhattan has seen “top” schools already tell zoned students that they can not come to their zoned school. it’s a reality. i moved from 321 when kid was a baby because the overcrowding was an issue then, and figured it would get worse. there are other neighborhoods where the schools aren’t so crowded and are really viable, just probably not as gentrified as 321, so not as valuable to the miss muffetts of this world.
321 is good, but so what – there are more options out there. do a little more digging when shopping for your property. local parents boards will be more useful than insideschools.org or the DOE which tell little of substance IMO.
Good idea, Heather.
f*ck these people, their kids, and their property values
I agree with Ishtar.
And, yes, Mopar. I think he should buy them all ponies. Magical ponies that they can ride to school.