As the dust settles following Schools Chancellor Cathie Black’s quip about birth control and Downtown school overcrowding, school advocates working the hardest on the problem see a possible bright side to the unintended frenzy of attention.

In interviews, activists who met with the new chancellor on Jan. 13 during her appearance before Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s school overcrowding task force, said the uproar following her off-handed joke put a crisis into sharper focus.

By 2014, they told Black at the meeting, Lower Manhattan would have a 1,000-seat shortage of classroom space. Eric Greenleaf, the P.S. 234 parent whose demographic projections are often cited in discussions of Downtown school overcrowding, had been reciting the alarming numbers to Black when she interrupted him. “Could we just have some birth control for a while,” she said, adding with a smile, “It would really help us all out.”

“I saw those numbers in a lot of places [in the  media] and that’s great,” Greenleaf told the Trib. “It may not have been in the context that I expected or the best context but the more people who read that the more people will know that we do need those seats.”

Black’s remarks and Greenleaf’s citing of overcrowding figures were included in the Tribeca Trib’s video coverage of the meeting, shown here, that was replayed widely on television and the Web.

“The fact that her remarks brought more attention to what I consider an ongoing but worsening crisis is a good thing as long as people don’t get too distracted by her specific jokes and comments,” said Leonie Haimson, who heads the organization Class Size Matters and who attended the meeting. “It adds to the larger background noise about this issue, which is good because the administration keeps on wanting to downplay it.”

Tricia Joyce, a P.S. 234 parent and outspoken critic of Department of Education planning, said she is less concerned by Black’s jokes—and by what she says—than by what she does. “I’m hoping from this unfortunate thing for [Black], people will more fully understand our situation here and we will have some results, concrete results,” she said.

Three days after making her comments, Black called Community Board 1 chairwoman Julie Menin to apologize. Menin had forcefully addressed the chancellor at the meeting, calling for a “long-term strategic plan” to combat overcrowding.

CARL GLASSMAN / TRIBECA TRIB

Cathie Black (at left with back to camera) listens to concerns from members of Sheldon Silver's task force on school overcrowding.

In a telephone interview, Menin complained that Black had offered no plans or specifics, either at the meeting or in the call to her. “She said, ‘I understand. It’s something we will work on,’” Menin recalled.

Still, Menin said, “This controversy will, I hope, draw a lot more attention by the Department of Ed to our acute overcrowding issue.”

One test of the DOE’s willingness to listen, say Downtown school advocates, is whether officials are willing to scrap their plan to put an experimental charter middle school in Tweed Courthouse rather than keep the classrooms for Downtown children after P.S. 397, now located there, opens in its Spruce Street building in the fall.

Tina Schiller, a P.S. 234 parent and frequent critic of the DOE who attended the meeting with Black, said she hesitates to predict what will come of it all. “I think that the best we can hope for is that Cathie Black gives that information to Mr. Bloomberg,” she said. “Clearly, he couldn’t have missed it this time around.”

A DOE spokesman declined to comment for this article.