Parents worry PS 24's woes could hurt gifted

Parents at the Spuyten Duyvil School (P.S. 24) are furious over the Department of Education’s failure to renew a lease for an annex for fifth-grade students at the Whitehall co-op. As they wait for a resolution, attention has fallen to just who is responsible for overcrowding at P.S. 24.

Earlier this month, Bronx state Sen. Jeff Klein sent constituents a mailing claiming that the DOE proposed axing P.S. 24’s Gifted & Talented (G&T) program in order to make space. The department did not directly address the claim in an answer to an e-mail inquiry.

Currently, each grade at P.S. 24 has one class of G&T students, making a total of 165 children in the program. About 150 students currently attend classes in the annex.

Marvin Shelton, the president of District 10’s Community Education Council, speculated that Mr. Klein was referring to a DOE stipulation in which the department can remove programs like G&T if there is not enough space for students zoned to a school. The senator did not immediately answer an interview request.

“The department should be looking at all alternatives,” Mr. Shelton said. “Nothing can be sacrosanct. You can’t have a smaller educational footprint and keep all the programs [in one building].”

But he said moving the G&T program probably would not be a viable option. With overcrowding rampant throughout District 10, there is no obvious place to locate P.S. 24’s G&T students.

P.S. 24 parent Jen Firestone, who is part of a group of parents studying alternatives to the Whitehall annex, said moving the G&T program to another District 10 school would be entirely unacceptable.

“The vast majority of the [G&T] students are zoned students [for P.S. 24], so you’d be ousting them from their own school,” she said.

Mr. Shelton said DOE records showed about one in three G&T students living outside P.S. 24’s zone. He noted that about half of those students live in the area for the Robert J. Christen School (P.S. 81), which does not have a G&T program. Mr. Shelton declined to share a list of P.S. 24 students and their addresses with The Press, citing privacy concerns.

Officials from the DOE and the School Construction Authority are expected to present proposals to accommodate P.S. 24’s fifth-grade students next week.