Parents speak out over overcrowding at Forest Hills school

  • 2018-04-19
The lack of classroom spots for neighborhood children has led some local parents to take action.

PS 196 in Forest Hills has had an overcrowding issue for several years, since 2015. For the upcoming school year, 63 students were put on a waitlist for the kindergarten class. In 2017, 56 students were on a waitlist and in 2015, there were 64 students on the list.

A group of 38 parents have started an online petition, seeking to end the problem of overcrowding at the school. At last count, around 300 people had added their signatures to the petition.

Organizers who want to gather signatures for a petition can use local Print shops to produce a physical copy of the petition, which can be brought door to door in an attempt to gain support.

Frances Hsu is one of the parents who signed online, even though her child did get a spot in the class for the upcoming school year. Hsu hopes that the Department of Education will release a plan for the school for the future. She believes that without any action, the overcrowding problem will only get worse.

One solution many parents seem in favor of is building a new school building or expanding the existing structure to accommodate the growing number of school-age children in the area.

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