Local students who hoped the city’s new school construction plan would alleviate their overcrowding problems may not see any relief until after they graduate.

The Department of Education’s (DOE) latest Five-Year Capital Plan for the years 2010 to 2014, released three weeks ago, calls for the creation of only two new schools in District 10, the third most crowded school district in New York City.

The new plan, which the DOE says was contracted due to budget restrictions, does not include any high schools for the Bronx.

It calls for the creation of 25,000 school seats (a little more than 3,000 in the Bronx). But 8,000 of those seats were rolled over from the previous (FY 2005-2009) plan because construction had not yet begun.

The plan does not specify locations, but it does identify two general areas in need of overcrowding relief — one in Riverdale, and one in the Kingsbridge/Norwood/Bedford Park neighborhoods — where it says the schools will be built. Construction should begin in 2012.  

It will include a middle school and an elementary school for a total of 1,154 additional seats for students in the district.

But that number is deceiving.

In fact, only 399 seats of additional capacity were included for District 10 this time around because 755 seats were rolled over from the previous capital plan.

The previous plan (FY 2005-2009), which the city hailed as its biggest capital plan ever, called for 4,000 new seats in District 10. But 1,500 of those seats were eliminated after a 2006 amendment cited declining local enrollment in the area, leaving a total of 2,500 seats.  

Local students, politicians and education activists cried foul when the seats were cut in 2006 and have lobbied hard since then to have the seats restored as well as the inclusion of additional new seats in the new capital plan.

They say 399 new seats are not nearly enough.

“To do all that work, and to not see them build any high schools in the Bronx is demoralizing,” said local activist Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter, whose daughter attends school on the Kennedy High School campus in District 10. “My daughter’s now a senior. This year, they lost the dance program because they lost more space [that needed to be used for regular classrooms due to overcrowding].”  

Pilgrim-Hunter doesn’t buy the DOE’s story about budget woes. “We’ve been fighting for this since long before the current financial crisis,” she said.

Recent high school graduate Jattna Ramirez, 18, who now works as an education organizer for the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, said she spent four years at Bronx International High School (in District 10) periodically taking classes in hallways or leaky portables because there wasn’t enough space.

“And even if we wanted to, we couldn’t take advanced classes,” she said about her high school experience. As for the new plan, she said, “We got two new schools for District 10. It will help, but it’s not enough and we need more.”

Council Member Oliver Koppell, who represents a sizable chunk of District 10, was similarly disappointed.

“While I welcome the acknowledgment by the DOE that additional capacity is necessary in District 10, an argument that many of us have been making for a long time, the addition of two new schools is not enough to relieve severe overcrowding in the District,” Koppell said in a statement.

Bedford Park elementary school PS 8 is a shining example of the district’s overcrowding as 1,147 students are currently crammed into a building with an 800-student capacity. Norwood’s PS 56 is similarly cramped, housing 593 students in facilities designed for 475.  

Marge Feinberg, a spokesperson for the DOE, said in an e-mail: “We are making great strides towards alleviating overcrowding with the current plan.” She added, “More work is needed as indicated by the 1,154 new seats proposed in the new plan [for District 10].”

Leonie Haimson, the executive director of Class Size Matters, a nonprofit advocate for smaller class sizes, said that if the DOE is serious about reducing class size, it would need to provide seven times as many new seats as was proposed in the new plan (or a total of 160,000 new seats), according the Department’s own class size goals. Haimson said the lack of high schools, especially in the Bronx where she estimates 16,000 new seats are needed, is glaringly unacceptable.

“The new proposed capital plan is breathtakingly inadequate,” Haimson said in a statement. “The administration clearly does not care enough about providing our students with a decent education, from the evidence provided in this plan.”

Marvin Shelton, a parent and president of the District 10 Community Education Council, said he’s afraid it might be “a case of too little and too late” for many local students.