Parents at PS 16, one of the schools in the Bronx with an overpopulation problem, opposed a plan by the city to reduce the number of schools seats proposed previously in the city’s capital construction and renovation plan for 2005-09.

The New York City Department of Education released its five-year plan for school construction on November 5, which involves $11.3 billion to add 42 new schools and enroll 25,000 new students, representing a drastic reduction in the city’s 2005-09 plan.

“We cannot allow ourselves to continue to spend at the same levels as in the last few years,” the DOE’s proposal indicated.

Ofelia Pérez, who has a six-year old son in first grade at PS 16, a school that according to the DOE has an average of 22.1 students per class from kindergarten through third grade, said that the school budget is sacred and should not be touched, particularly in regard to school construction. The DOE’s goal is to have 20 students per class in those grades, but according to some organizations that advocate for better education, the number should be 18.

“Teachers are more efficient when the class is small. Fewer seats in the coming years will mean less education,” said Pérez.

Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, an organization that fights school overpopulation, called the city’s plan “impressively inadequate.”

Haimson said that the initiative will only provide 25,000 new seats, 8,000 of which were added from the last plan. “According to our analysis, we need more than 160,000 new school seats, just to eliminate the existing overpopulation,” she said.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg recognized when he announced the cuts that there is not enough room for students in the city.