“The education system is going to the dogs,” said Elizabeth Thompson, a representative of the Kingsbridge Heights Neighborhood Improvement Association, at a meeting last week.

Thompson, along with a slew of parents from PS 340, lobbied together last Thursday night at the Community Education Council 10 meeting to express their frustrations after being notifying by the school that some 20 students would be transferred midway through the semester to PS 310 due to capping.

Capping comes into effect when a school exceeds it’s capacity for students and “they don’t have either the space or staff to take on another classroom,” said Marvin Shelton, president of the Community District Education Council 10 (CEC 10). “This year it seems to be more problematic in that they’re sending out the cap letters late. If you’re informed in September this may happen and then you’re told in the middle of October — six weeks into the year — that, no, you can’t stay in that school go reassign to another school, it’s very disruptive.”

According to Terry Moss, president of District 10 Presidents’ Council and the parent’s association president for PS 340, 20 students are to be reassigned to P.S. 310 and parents were just informed of the decision last Wednesday.

“Why did it take so long to notify us of this change?” Moss asked council members. “I’m speaking for parents. I have a child there  too, we don’t want to send our kids over to 310.”

PS 340 is located across from the Kingsbridge Armory on West 195th Street, while PS 310 is more than a half-mile away on Kingsbridge Road near Bailey Avenue.

Most parents addressed the council hoping the volunteer body had control over the capping decision. Shelton told parents the council didn’t have power over capping decisions.

“We are parents and appointees from the Borough President’s office,” said Shelton. “We are parents of students, our kids go to D 10 (District 10) schools, we are not the decision maker on this.”

Shelton, however, assured parents that the council relay their concerns to the appropriate decision makers at the DOE.

“Our body here is in charge of advocacy and academic achievement,” said Shelton. “My responsibility is to help represent you guys in this situation.”

It remains unclear why students were being capped and sent away so deep into the school year. Several other local schools are dealing with capping issues.