LES fights plan to cram another high school into building

200 Monroe (Inset: Margaret Chin)
200 Monroe (Inset: Margaret Chin)

Cramming another 300 students into the University Neighborhood High School on the Lower East Side isn’t flying with the parents of the kids already enrolled there.

The Department of Education wants to put another high school at 200 Monroe Street, near Gouverneur Street. The building is an old elementary school, with smaller classrooms, only four bathrooms and a cafeteria/gym/lobby hybrid.

“There needs to be room to take kids out when there are problems or they are in trouble,” University Neighborhood PTA president Haydee Rodriguez told DNAinfo.

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The angry moms and dads argue that doubling the building’s capacity will hurt their children’s education and the school’s academic progress. City Council member Margaret Chin helped lead the effort against the plans.

The city’s Early College and Career Technical Education High Schools program, which lets students earn both a high school diploma and associate’s degree in six years, will include this new school. [DNAinfo]Mark Maurer