Last summer Inside Schools, an organization that reviews the city’s public schools, described PS 226 in the Bronx as “cheery” and “calm” with “colorful artwork and student writing lining the pastel-colored hallways.”
But the 450-student elementary school, located on Sedgwick Avenue in University Heights, also has its downsides. Many teachers are inexperienced due to high staff turnover, and students don’t have a gymnasium to run around in, play sports, and otherwise let off steam.
In the Bronx, PS 226 is far from alone. In fact, 23 percent of the borough’s public schools are without a gym, according to a report released in May by Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión Jr.
Thinking outside the box
Worried about students’ health – 42 percent of Bronx kids in kindergarten through fifth grade are overweight or obese – some schools are taking matters into their own hands.
At PS 226, teachers have launched a gymnasium fund. They hope to raise $3 to $4 million privately, so that they can build a gym in the school’s playground. So far, they’re held several fund-raisers – including a celebrity golf tournament in Los Angeles – and raised about $1 million, which includes a $500,000 commitment from Bronx Council Member Maria Baez. Health teacher Robert Romano, whose brother is Ray Romano of “Everyone Loves Raymond” fame, is leading the effort.
Most inner city schools don’t have such well-connected staff. Take CIS 204, an elementary school on 174th Street in Morris Heights. The school looks impressive – it’s located in a former synagogue, a throwback to 50 years ago when the neighborhood was largely Jewish. But overcrowding is a major issue, and there is no recreational space, inside or out.
During recess, students make do with a stretch of cordoned off street, weather permitting. Or they play in nearby Half-Nelson Playground. It’s a situation that’s far from ideal. Crime is high in this part of the Bronx, and in 2005 an annual basketball competition held in the playground was cancelled indefinitely because gang members from the Bloods, Crips, and Latin Kings kept showing up. “We had to stop,” said organizer and local resident Tyrone Brown. “It was really frightening me.”
Other schools have enlisted the help of outside organizations, such as The Sports &Arts in Schools Foundation (SASF), a non-profit based in Queens, which is funded by the City Council to connect schools with nearby – and often underutilized – community centers.
In the 2007-08 school year, the program served 2,000 students from 40 schools in Brooklyn and Queens. And this December, a Bronx school – PS 352, a special education school on Bryant Avenue – enrolled. Students are bused to Bronxdale Community Center on Rosedale Avenue, where they play basketball and enjoy other sports and activities in what is a state of the art gymnasium.
“These facilities [community centers] are not used between the hours of 9 and 3:30 when kids are at school and parents are at work,” said George Greenfield, an instruction supervisor for SASF. “They’re empty. That’s the gist of our program, to get kids in there.”
In the new year, seven more Bronx schools will take part in this “anti-obesity initiative,” Greenfield said.
Jesse Mojica, Carrión’s director of education and youth, calls the program “extremely interesting.”
“We have to explore innovative ideas like this one... so that physical education isn’t compromised in the interim as we fight this battle [for new gyms]” he said.
Carrión’s demands and the DOE’s response
To gather data for the report, Carrión’s office e-mailed a survey to the Bronx’s 363 public schools. In all, 209 schools responded – 49 of whom reported having no gymnasium. Many said they use a multi-purpose room instead, such as a cafeteria.
The problem isn’t unique to the Bronx. Citywide, 18 percent of schools are in the same position, according to a 2003 study by the City Council’s Education Committee. Mojica
says it’s an issue “that’s been in existence for decades and decades,” due to miserly funding and the city’s failure to appreciate the positive impact exercise has on children’s
health and performance in the classroom.
Other findings from Carrión’s report included: 22 percent of Bronx public schools don’t have outdoor physical education facilities, such as playgrounds; more than 90 percent of elementary schools and 49 percent of secondary schools don’t provide enough physical education hours to meet New York State requirements; and 21 percent of schools don’t have a certified physical education teacher on staff.
Carrión’s report, titled “More than Child’s Play: The Need for Improved Physical Education Policy and Infrastructure in Bronx Public Schools,” carried a series of recommendations he’d like the DOE to implement, including: allocating funds in the 2010-2014 Capital Plan to build gyms for schools that don’t have them; hiring certified education teachers for all schools; and ensuring all schools are meeting the hourly requirements for physical education as mandated by the State.
“The DOE has both a legal and a moral obligation to ensure that students have access to sufficient physical education programs and facilities,” Carrion said in his report. “In order to assure a healthy future for our youth, the DOE must take a proactive role in addressing the lack of adequate physical education in our public schools.”
Marge Feinberg, a DOE spokesperson, said the department has read Carrion’s report, but she refused to commit the DOE to any of its recommendations.
“We share Borough President Carrión's concerns,” she said in an e-mail, “and that's why we have worked hard over the past five years to improve physical education in New York City schools and give more students access to high quality programs.”
Feinberg said $232 million of the 2005-09 Capital Plan is being spent on upgrades to gyms, swimming pools, and playgrounds, and that “we are continuing this work in the next Capital Plan.”
Still, she admits that the “economic picture is bleak right now.”
Jumping out of their skins
Mojita says the DOE “has been a willing partner in listening to us,” and that a number of Carrión’s recommendations popped up in the draft of the 2010-2014 Capital Plan the DOE released in November. But much of the $215 million put aside for physical education will go towards playground renovation, not the building of new gymnasiums.
“There are concerns,” Mojita said.
Romano, PS 226’s health teacher, says the DOE hasn’t given his school any cause for hope. “They haven’t said anything,” he said. “We’re not top of their priority list.” PS 226, like CIS 204 in Morris Heights, doesn’t make an appearance in the DOE’s 185-page draft.
Romano called the fact that his school doesn’t have a gym “insane.”
“The lack of it really affects these kids, both emotionally and mentally, and physically,” Romano said. “They have all this energy, and it translates into a lack of focus, because [in the classroom] they’re jumping out of their skins.”
Naturally enough, he continued, parents are weary about letting their children play outside in a neighborhood that is rife with drugs and gangs. Instead, they prefer them to watch television and play video games, he said. Subsequently, many local kids never get run around – let alone play sports.
To help raise money for the new gym, teachers at PS 226 have made a video, which Romano plans to show to potential funders. In it students, parents, and teachers explain how the facility would benefit the school and the wider community.
“Prisons have to have gymnasiums,” says one local dad in the video. “Why not schools?”
