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By Juliet Werner
Every weekday morning, Susan assumes her post at the corner of 113th Street and 71st Avenue in Forest Hills and directs traffic. A school crossing guard, she signals students toward PS 196, Bnos Malka Academy for Girls or Yeshiva Tifereth Moshe all of which share a block. The Reform Temple of Forest Hills is located around the corner.
Two miles away, at the corner of 144th Street and 88th Avenue in Jamaica, parents stand outside of the PS 82 Hammond School and wave good-bye as a school bus, loaded with their children – kindergarten and special education students – pulls away. After the first bus leaves, more parents arrive, and another bus approaches the curb, ready for the second group.
The buses travel up Queens Boulevard, turn onto a side road and stop in front of the Reform Temple of Forest Hills. Teachers quickly emerge from the temple to escort the students to a side entrance: a door with a small sign that reads “PS 82 Annex.” Susan, her hands full with the three other schools, said she had no idea that a public school was leasing space from the temple.
“Due to the extensive overcrowding in our district there are many schools that have trailers and then there are annexes-mini buildings on school grounds,” schools activist Marge Kolb said, adding that several Queens schools have also established annexes off-campus. Corona’s PS 14, for example, buses kindergarten students to a vacant school building in Fresh Meadows. It’s a haul that takes students from school District 24 to District 25.
Both PS 82 and the PS 82 Annex fall within District 28, but the schools are not identical. The school day on the main campus starts at 8:20 a.m. and ends at 3:10 p.m. whereas the hours at the annex are 8:10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The principal is based at the main campus; a teacher supervises the annex.
Temple secretary Louise Florio said the temple and school interact minimally. By the time the religious school starts on Wednesdays at 4:10 p.m., PS 82’s students have boarded the bus headed back to Jamaica.
However, the maintenance staff employed by the temple also does work for the school. Custodian Martin Aranga said he cleans the temple in the mornings, but after lunch, he cleans PS 82.
One speech teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, said PS 82 has been leasing space from the temple for the 11 years she has been teaching.
“I think it’s preferable to a portable where kids have to go back and forth,” she said, adding, “It’s great for the little ones since they don’t have to deal with the big kids. It’s more like a cozy, small, family environment.”
Neither the temple nor the Department of Education returned phone calls from the Tribune regarding the PS 82 annex. The school principal refused to comment.
“Given severe overcrowding – and in Queens especially – it’s better than doing nothing,” Class Size Matters Executive Director Leonie Haimson said, adding, “But if it’s far away from the school it is a problem.”
Director of the Web site www.insideschools.org Pamela Wheaton said that annexing is most common in Queens given the borough’s struggle with overcrowding.
“It seems that there’s a slight lessening with some new construction and some new charter schools,” Wheaton said. “Although even some of the charters have annexes.”
Mera Islam is a parent at PS 82. She has two children at the main campus and one daughter in Kindergarten. Islam, who doesn’t work, waits for her daughter to board the bus in the morning and picks her up in the afternoon. She has never seen the classrooms at the Reform Temple of Forest Hills.
“It’s a little hard,” she confessed.
Her daughter, however, is used to the commute.
“She no complain,” Islam said. “She’s only good.”