P.S. 8 to Cut Pre-K Class in 2014

By on November 25, 2013 11:42 am in Education


P.S. 8, also known as The Robert Fulton School, has announced it will cut its pre-K class in 2014 due to lack of space.

However, the school will be adding an 8th grade class next year. (It is currently pre-K-7th grade.)

Assistant Principal Robert Mikos told DNAinfo, “We are growing and this is a matter of space … We are over capacity and we absolutely needed the extra room.”

The handwriting seemed to be on the wall for the pre-K class, as last year fewer than 9 percent of the children who applied were accepted, with only one not having an older sibling already enrolled.

Photo: Chuck Taylor/BHB

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  • mike h

    Make Up Your minds. Didn’t they eliminate the 7th and 8th grades after having them for 20 years or so. So now they’ve brought the back and will eliminates the pre k . How long until they switch it back yet again?

  • Doublebara

    I thought the middle school had relocated?

  • TMS

    The middle school (6/7/8) is off site. The problem is developers keep building luxury coops and not schools. When will they be required to build schools for the additional population they bring in. And what about neighborhood infrastructure. I can barely squeeze on the trains anymore, everything is always crowded, tourists are always in my way…it’s becoming less of a quiet haven.

  • great_gazoo

    I’m afraid you;re a bit confused. The elementary school is K-5 and has been for 20 years or so, as you state. PreK was added several years back, but is not very efficient use of space (can only house 18 kids per classroom). Moreover, school (K-5) is bursting at seems with popularity, which makes PreK make even less sense (can only accommodate less than 1/3 of future K students, so not really serving community all that well).

    The current middle school is brand new – set up as a single floor within a large old high school building a mile away. It started as 6th grade and is being fully expanded to 8th grade next year (as those 6th graders have made their way to 8th grade). That’s typically how you start a school on the cheap, without having to recruit several grades worth of kids from the get-go (this also guaranteed that most kids would have attended the K-5 elementary school first, so were familiar with school culture, values, etc.)

    So adding 7 and 8 has little to do with PreK.

  • mike h

    I didn’t realize the jhs was off site. It used to be in the same building and was eliminated there over 10 years ago, maybe closer to 15.

    It has originally started in 1980 or so.

  • Lady in the Heights

    When Seth Phillips started 10 years ago there was 6th grade at PS8. It was eliminated around that time as most elementary schools end at 5th and middle school begins in 6th. It was out of synch with the city.

  • mike h

    I went there and was in the first JhS classes. They added 7th and then 8th grades one at a time. They had always had up to 6th grade before then. I had stopped by the school many years later and was told they were eliminating the 7th and 8th grades due to space limitations.