Roughly 225,000 — or nearly a quarter of the New York City school system’s students — spent part or all of their first days in school in overcrowded classes, according to a UFT survey released on Sept. 25.
Dino Sferazza, the chapter leader at Queens’ Cardozo HS, which had 266 oversize classes, the most of any school in the city, described the situation at his school as “absurd.” One teacher had 58 students in a class, Sferazza said; another had five classes, none of which had fewer than 43 students.
“Kids are standing in the hallway, sitting on the floor, sitting on windowsills,” Sferazza said. “There’s not enough anxiety in these kids’ lives already? And now they have to worry about getting a seat in class?”