A meeting of Community Board 1's Youth and Education Committee April 27 turned into a brainstorming session over how to stave off overcrowding at P.S. 234.

Sandy Bridges, the school's principal, who attended the meeting, offered her own solution.

"I'd ideally like another school and I'd like one soon," she said.

But building a new school, even the kindergarten through 8th grade school that is expected to be built somewhere on the east side of Broadway, would likely take too long to alleviate what may be the need for as many as three additional classrooms in the next two or three years.

"My concern about it is that it takes five to six years to build anything. I don't have five years," Bridges said, "Two years from now I have a very big problem."

One short-term solution suggested by committee members would be to pull the half-day pre-K classes from all three local elementary schools to create a separate pre-K center. If the center could be located in leased space, rather than a new building, committee members said, it could be established much more quickly.

Another approach would be to have P.S. 89 and P.S. 150, which do not have acute space problems, share the same zone with P.S. 234. That idea, however, may face resistance from some parents at unzoned P.S. 150 who say they like the diversity that comes with drawing students from other parts of the city.

Kindergarten enrollment at P.S. 234 for the fall is currently at 115 students. In order to keep class sizes below 28 students per class, a new classroom would need to be added. That room doesn't exist, Bridges said, unless the school gives up one of its "enrichment classes": art, science or computer lab.

(The P.S. 234 PTA is planning to allocate funds for the purchase of laptop computers in anticipation that there will no longer be a computer room in the next year or two).

Those at the meeting roundly rejected a city proposal to split P.S. 234 by moving the lower grades into the community center slated to be built in a proposed residential building behind the school. The proposal came in negotiations with the community over the height of the building.

"Real estate shouldn't be involved in education decisions," said David Feiner, an aide to Councilman Alan Gerson.