![\"Jersey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/jersey-city-schools-2.jpg\")
P.S. 16 main building for grades 3-5, built during a school construction boom 110 years ago. Photo courtesy of Patrick Carr.<\/p>\n P.S. 16 main building for grades 3-5, built during a school construction boom 110 years ago. Photo courtesy of Patrick Carr.<\/p>\n
This is a guest post by Patrick Carr.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the course of Jersey City\u2019s long construction boom, education has been woefully neglected. During the Fulop administration, Jersey City added 45,000 residential units<\/a> and 13 classrooms. The public school that serves the waterfront area, P.S. 16, is currently at 200% capacity. It\u2019s ranked one of the best elementary schools in New Jersey, but it\u2019s also about the most crowded school in the state.<\/p>\n Classrooms will have 35-40 students this year. Starting in 2018, the district started bussing preschoolers to a disused building dating to 1900. That building is now past capacity, and some preschoolers will get bussed to three additional schools. A small annex at Washington and Columbus built by Mack-Cali was overcrowded the day it opened in 2021. It\u2019s at 250% of its intended capacity of 200. Elementary schools throughout the downtown neighborhood are crowding up, and many of our public schools are in terrible disrepair even as their neighborhoods get redeveloped. What gives? We see the towers going up everywhere, but where are the schools?<\/p>\n At the moment, there are 0 new classrooms in planning or construction near the waterfront or downtown. Still, at least 10,000 residential units will come online there in the next few years. There is no plan for school space to accommodate current or future students, and no mechanism exists that links real estate development to educational need. Private developers can build as they like\u2014and taxpayers have given them break after break to do so\u2014but building schools requires political will and coordination between governing bodies.<\/p>\n There are two potential avenues to getting school space built in Jersey City. There\u2019s the \u201ctraditional\u201d avenue, where the state\u2019s School Development Authority coordinates with the district and handles funding and construction. This avenue is slow, and resources are currently scarce. Then there\u2019s the private-public avenue, in which a developer agrees to provide school space as part of a larger deal. That\u2019s how the small P.S. 16 annex got built. In 2020, a similar deal was struck for another school downtown. At the time, it was reported that<\/a> \u201cJersey City has found a way to have new development mean new schools \u2014 at no cost to taxpayers.\u201d A miracle! Alas, the developer pulled out of the deal in 2022 because the former mayor changed the agreement and didn\u2019t really care about the school project. Years were wasted. The private-public avenue is a fraught one.<\/p>\n To be clear, I would be delighted for a developer to build school space to alleviate crowding at P.S. 16. But I don\u2019t imagine that private developers are going to provide adequate facilities for the entire district. The state really needs to step in here. Most Jersey City schools are between 95 and 130 years old, built at a time when only 10% of Americans graduated high school. These buildings show their age, and they\u2019re only getting older and more crowded\u2014as are urban schools around New Jersey. We need a plan. Today, the district\u2019s Long Range Facilities Plan is long outdated, Jersey City\u2019s master plan<\/a> doesn\u2019t even contemplate education, and the state is struggling to muster the political will<\/a> to fund school construction in districts that desperately, desperately need it<\/a>.<\/p>\n Education hasn\u2019t been a political priority for a long time. That\u2019s due in part to the fact that education isn\u2019t a priority for the general public. Many people hear \u201ceducation\u201d and think immediately of their tax bill. While we hear a great deal about how expensive education is, we need everyone who can to advocate at the state and local levels for quality education.<\/p>\n Educating children is about the most important thing the city does. It impacts everyone, whether they\u2019re parents or not. If you hope to grow old in a competent society\u2014if you want to visit competent doctors or participate in a competently managed economy\u2014you need a strong education system. So please, take the time to learn about Board of Education candidates. (Vote For Stronger Schools<\/a> this November!) Attend public meetings. Ask your neighbors about their school situation. And when community feedback is solicited for development plans, ask: Where are the schools?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"P.S. 16 main building for grades 3-5, built during a school construction boom 110 years ago. Photo courtesy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-342139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Jersey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/jersey-city-schools-1.jpg\")
P.S. 16 Annex, designed for 200 students, will be packed this year with about 450, some 35 per classroom. Photo courtesy Patrick Carr.<\/p>\n![\"Jersey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/jersey-city-schools-3.jpg\")
Danforth, where preschoolers get bussed, dates to 1900 and has no auditorium or outdoor play space. Photo courtesy Patrick Carr.<\/p>\n![\"Jersey](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/jersey-city-schools-4.jpg\")
The former P.S. 3 building on Bright Street has sat disused since 2006, in need of an estimated $25 million of repairs. Photo courtesy Patrick Carr.<\/p>\n