With construction beginning in just nine months, many details concerning a new state-of-the-art building, slated for the PS 94 campus in Norwood, have yet to be determined by the city’s Department of Education (DOE).

The new building will replace two transitional structures on PS 94 grounds that currently house 13 classrooms and 325 of the school’s 1,050 students. The transitional structures will be torn down next summer when construction begins, leaving those 325 students without classrooms for the two years it will take to complete the new building.

PS 94 Principal Diane Daprocida said it’s imperative that the DOE create a plan to relocate the displaced students by this winter. That will give the principal, her staff and the DOE time to notify parents, organize supervision, work out transportation and, finally, pack up all the supplies and materials.

Daprocida, however, is not hitting the panic button. She said the DOE and the School Construction Authority (SCA) have kept her in the loop virtually every step of the way – “from soup to nuts,” she said – and she’s confident that they will come up with a viable solution.

While not exactly setting a timetable, DOE spokesperson Margie Feinberg said in an email that SCA officials are “working on a plan but a plan has not been finalized.”

SCA planners are scheduled to meet with Daprocida on Sept. 21, to take a tour of the PS 94 campus and discuss relocation possibilities.

Miriam Seminario, PS 94’s parent coordinator, doesn’t have all the details about the new building, but said she believes the DOE and SCA have the students’ best interest in mind and will come up with a good plan. “They always do,” she said.

From a parent’s perspective, however, Seminario said, “they want to know where their kids are going to go.” She added later, “As parents, they have a right to be concerned and be reassured that the situation will be even better. I really don’t know what’s going to happen or where they’re going.”

On the other hand, the design of the building appears set. The three-story structure is being called an Early Childhood Center, meaning it is specifically designed to accommodate pre-kindergarten through third grade. It will contain 24 classrooms – two for Pre-K; four kindergarten, first, second and third grade classrooms; three special education rooms and three additional classrooms – for a total of 515 students.

The building, which will have an entrance on East 211th Street (as opposed to the main building’s entrance on King’s College Place), will have two elevators, two playground areas, a cafeteria, multi-purpose room and a library. Plus, there will be central air conditioning. Daprocida is pushing to have her main building outfitted with central air conditioning as well to avoid any “beauty and the beast situations.”

Feinberg wrote in an email that the SCA scoured the district to find places to build on existing DOE property and, as a result, chose PS 94, PS 95 and PS 79 to receive permanent annex buildings. It’s all part of the DOE’s plan, she wrote, to alleviate overcrowding by adding 2,500 K-8 seats to District 10 in the city’s revised Five-year Capital Plan. The new Early Childhood Center at PS 94 will “provide 420 additional seats” in District 10, according to DOE calculations.

But after a closer look at the numbers, those calculations appear optimistic at best. The new building, which the DOE says will be part of PS 94 when it opens (but even that is subject to change once it’s built), will contain 515 seats. Currently, PS 94 houses 1,050 students; 600 in the main building, 325 in the portables on campus and an additional 125 at a satellite building on Gun Hill Road four blocks away. As it stands, the DOE says all 450 students housed outside of the main building will move into the new Early Childhood Center. That leaves 65 additional seats, not counting the new Pre-K students who will arrive as part of the DOE’s citywide push for more Pre-K classes.

The school’s population, or the area’s need for new seats, does not appear to be declining. Demographics may change a little, but Daprocida said that her school stays constant at a packed, but manageable, 1,050, with about 20 or 30 coming or going during the winter, making it unclear exactly how the new building will provide 420 additional seats or alleviate overcrowding.