First there were four.

And then two.

And now maybe none.

Despite earlier assurances in official city documents, the city’s Education Department now says it has no plans to construct schools at the Kingsbridge Armory. They do suggest the possibility of one, but only if their demographic projections change as the redevelopment process goes forward.

In a June 12 letter to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Deputy Schools Chancellor Kathleen Grimm responded to complaints from the Bronx City Council delegation about the removal of 1,700 seats from the Department’s capital plan for school construction.

The Council members stated that the current capital plan does not reflect the city promise of two schools at the armory, which is included in the Economic Development Corporation’s (EDC) request for proposals. They further criticized the city for not replacing facilities “inappropriate for school purposes,” such as the tiny classrooms of PS 246, built originally as a home for the blind.

Grimm responded that the necessary school seats for District 10 have already been sited and that demographic trends have made more schools unnecessary.

As for the Armory, she wrote: “We will continue to monitor our demographic projections, identify any new need that may evolve and work with EDC on developing plans for the Kingsbridge Armory to include a school outside the armory.”

A spokesperson for the Education Department was more blunt. “We do not have a need for seats around the [Kingsbridge] Armory,” she told the Norwood News.

Schools were the linchpin of a community organizing campaign over the last decade to redevelop the armory. As a result of those efforts, led by the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, virtually every development proposal has included school seats. Plans developed by the Coalition and the Richman Group, a firm now collaborating with Atlantic Development Group, one of three bidders on the project, called for four schools at the Armory.

The EDC ensconced those priorities into its RFP, issued in December, though the city reduced the number of schools to two. It states: “… DOE and SCA plan to build schools on the 195th Street frontage of the Schools Site. DOE is prepared to fund and construct one Small Primary School (441 seats) and one Primary/Intermediate School (630 seats) at this location. DOE and SCA will work with the Selected Developer to move the plan for school construction forward during the 2005-2009 Five-Year Capital Plan period.”

In Grimm’s letter to Quinn though, the DOE holds out the faint promise of only one school.

Council Member Oliver Koppell says the DOE’s argument that it has met capacity requirements doesn’t hold water.

“The way they count capacity is false because they count music rooms and laboratories that aren’t being used regularly as classrooms,” Koppell said. “They have a very odd way of determining available capacity.”

The idea that the area has all the school seats it needs, particularly high school seats, offends some local parents.

“They’re building a plan for failure,” said Desiree Hunter, a parent activist with the Coalition, whose daughter’s French class at chronically overcrowded Kennedy High School had 46 students this year. “They’re vested in it. For them it is OK that only 36 percent of kids who entered the ninth grade in 2005 will reach the 12th grade. And they’re OK with building just enough seats for those children.”

The Coalition saw the writing on the wall last winter, when the DOE released its proposed amendment to the capital plan, calling for the reduction of 1,500 District 10 seats stipulated in the original 2005-2009 capital plan.

They released a report in conjunction with the Annenberg Institute for School Reform called “Planning for Failure,” focusing on the 36 percent figure and they pressed Chancellor Klein at a public meeting.

Community leaders say they are disappointed by Grimm’s letter.

Greg Faulkner, chairman of Community Board 7 and a member of the Armory Task Force the EDC created, said he believed there was a clear city commitment to build two schools at the armory.

“If that’s now changing, that’s a problem,” Faulkner said. “They need to come back to the task force and discuss [it].”

Meanwhile Coalition leaders and organizers say they will push to get not just two schools, but the four schools and 2,000 seats they originally proposed, included in the new capital plan or an amendment to the old one.

But their sights aren’t limited to the armory. On July 25, they launched a new campaign called SEATS (Schools Exploding at the Seams) at a legislative breakfast co-sponsored by Koppell, to increase the graduation rate and end overcrowding. The campaign’s “principles of student success” include calling for “a seat for every year of a student’s academic career, from pre-K through high school.”