September marked the opening of the public school system in New York City, which included 23 new school buildings with more than 13,000 seats. The new construction, along with 18 new school buildings opened last year, brought the most ever new school classroom seats online in a two-year period since the School Construction Authority was created in 1988. For the decade ending in 2012, the Department of Education is on track to construct more than 110,000 new school seats across the city, with more than 82,000 seats already completed — 28,323 in Queens, 19,394 in Brooklyn, 19,268 in the Bronx, 9,434 in Manhattan and 5,619 in Staten Island. [more]