UFT Sues Over Franny Lew Crowding
By Jessica Ablamsky
The United Teachers Federation is taking the Department of Education to court over violations involving oversized classes at Francis Lewis High School.Most high school classes are limited to 34 students, according to UFT contracts. With students packed into half classrooms and trailers, some classes at FLHS have as many as 40 students.
In March, FLHS UFT Chapter Leader Arthur Goldstein identified 34 overcrowded classes at the school. A week or two after an arbitrator ordered the DOE to fix the violation, there were 60 oversized classes.
“Because we are good, they overload us,” Goldstein said. “Every single time we have tried to deal with the overcrowding, they have said, let’s give them more kids.”
FLHS has been in violation of class size agreements for two years, said James Vasquez, UFT High School District Representative. The goal is to get the DOE to comply with the arbitrator’s ruling.
“The DOE talks about their motto as ‘children first,’ but obviously ‘children first’ does not apply to them,” he said.
Though FLHS is the most chronically overcrowded high school in Queens – the school day starts at 7:15 a.m. and runs for nearly 12 hours in five sessions – the DOE continues to send more kids to the school.
It was built to hold somewhere between 1,800 and 2,400 students according to Goldstein, but with no cap on enrollment, today more than 4,400 attend.
The concern is that school resources will be stretched to the point where academic achievement suffers, said Principal Musa Ali Shama.
“When is too big too big,” he asked. “We’re at that point right now.”
Ideally, he would like to see the school move towards a more normal schedule of 8 a.m. until 3 p.m.
“One session is a pipe dream,” he said. “You don’t want to see kids get home at 8 at night. There are some positives. We are keeping kids off the street.”
A number of high schools in Queens, including Benjamin Cardozo High School, had class size violations at the beginning of the semester. FLHS is the only one that has not fixed the problem.
“It is up to the Department of Education,” Vasquez said. “The chancellor [Joel Klein] always says that he wants to be held responsible, so we are saying, Mr. Chancellor, we are holding you responsible.”
Students fare better, and are more engaged in smaller classes, said Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, a not-for-profit that advocates for class size reduction in city schools.
“There’s been a lot of research to show that the larger the class size, the less able teachers are to provide the kind of instruction that students need,” she said.
About half of all high school classes in the city average 30 students or more, while outside the five boroughs, the average is 20 students.
“It’s just not fair,” Haimson said. “The city has gone absolutely wrong in its priorities.”
In order to keep enrollment down at the specialized schools, larger schools are assigned more and more students, she said.
“There is just a total abdication of responsibility of providing enough space,” Haimson said.
The Department of Education could not respond by press time.
Reach Reporter Jessica Ablamsky at jablamsky@queenstribune.com, or (718) 357-7400, Ext. 124.