Where's My Seat? How School Overcrowding Disproportionally Impacts Immigrant Communities in New York City

Nov 01, 2015
  • Description

School overcrowding, which occurs when "the number of students enrolled in the school is larger than the number of students the school was designed to accommodate," is rampant in New York City's public school system. Across the city, students are forced to learn in crammed classrooms, ill-equipped trailers or temporary classroom units (TCUs), or other spaces not intended for instruction. New York City's Department of Education (DOE) has acknowledged that more than 49,000 new seats need to be created to address the problem and committed to creating fewer than 33,000 new seats in coming years, and other more likely estimates put the number at more than 100,000.