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PTA President Wants Cover on Walkway for P.S. 234's Annex A small delegation from P.S. 234 got a first look at the new annex, a space that will bring much-needed new classrooms to the school in September. The annex is located on the third and fourth floors of a residential tower behind the school. The entrance to the 10,000-square-foot annex, off the school’s back playground, will lead to a small lobby with an elevator, and a staircase that children will use to get up to the classrooms. The six sunny classrooms, likely to be used next year for kindergarten, have floor to ceiling windows. “It has a tremendous amount of light,” said Kevin Doherty, the P.S. 234 president who toured the raw space in December. But school representatives were surprised that a covered walkway between the back door of the main building and the annex entrance was not in the plans, since it had been repeatedly requested by the school last spring, according to Doherty. The walkway is needed, he said, because the children may need to go back and forth for lunch, gym and other activities. And because the annex lobby is too small for indoor drop-off in bad weather, the kindergarteners will need to gather in the main building and walk outside to their classes. “We feel having small children go back and forth unprotected in rain and snow is unacceptable,” Doherty said. At a meeting last month, the School Construction Authority told the principal, Lisa Ripperger, that they estimated a walkway would cost between $400,000 to $500,000 and that it was not in the budget. “I think it’s important to get the walkway and I was disappointed that it’s not part of the original plan,” Ripperger told the Trib. A few other details about the annex are still to be worked out. The plans show a cafeteria/multipurpose room with 39 seats, which may be too small to accommodate all the staggered lunch periods. “Because of space considerations the question of where the children will have lunch has yet to be determined,” said Doherty. And the walls of windows present a challenge to the architects about how to fit in classroom fixtures, such as coat closets, supply cabinets and a sink. Doherty said the space was “98 percent speced out” by the School Construction Authority, but that the school would have some input in a few things like the color scheme. Doherty said they hope to meet this month with Councilman Alan Gerson about the walkway. “We told them [the SCA] that we want it. Now we are going to pursue other avenues,” he said.
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