PS 85 is too loud for learning, say parents and politician

Congressman Joe Crowley added his voice to the organized voices of parents at PS85Q in Astoria on Monday when he announced legislation to require soundproofing of schools impacted by urban noise.

“As another school year begins, it is unconscionable that so many children whose schools are located near elevated trains are forced to learn under these adverse conditions,” Crowley said in announcing the Peaceful Learning Act of 2014. “If we are serious about helping our children reach their full potential, providing an adequate and peaceful learning environment is priority number one.”

The PS 85 Parent Association has been organizing around the train noise issue in earnest for the past two years, according to member Evie Hantzopoulos, who spoke at a Crowley-hosted press conference outside the school on Monday morning.

Congressman Joe Crowley was joined by parents to call for soundproof schools outside of PS 85 in Astoria.

“[The students] sit down and they’re ready to say their ABC’s, and by the time they get to L-M-N-O-P, they have to hold up two fingers and wait,” Hantzopoulos said, referring to a hand gesture students use if they can’t hear the teacher.

Sound levels reach up to 90 dB in the train-facing classrooms, and as Rebecca Bratspies pointed out, the train traffic doesn’t stop on test days.

Bratspies works with the CUNY School of Law’s Center for Urban Environmental Reform, and said that the MTA and DOE have known about the noise levels for a long time without coming up with a plan to deal with it.

And as Hantzopoulos pointed out, it isn’t just students who suffer from frequent train noise.

“For the teachers, I think this is an occupational hazard for them,” Hantzopoulos said.

In a YouTube video produced by Allen Schulz and Eric Black for the PS85Q Parent Association, second-grade teacher Jean Kouros said her 30-student class gets interrupted by the train all the time, and it is interfering with the progress of her students who are working on third grade-level work.

“I have been working here for quite a few years. I’m so used to the train but I have to raise my voice all the time,” Kouros said. “Having this train going back and forth, back and forth, being interrupted, it’s a real problem.”

The problem is made worse by the need to keep the windows open in the school’s classrooms on hot days at the start and end of the school year, since the wiring in the building is currently too old to support modern air conditioning equipment.

Parents at the press conference were calling on the MTA to implement rubberized tracks and wheels on elevated subway lines and a barrier between the tracks and the school. They want the Department of Education to install higher-grade, sound dampening windows and acoustic tiles in the school walls to help mitigate the noise.

Marge Feinberg, a Department of Education spokesperson, said that Crowley and his proposed legislation have the full support of the department. She also said that at PS 85 plans are in the works to update the wiring and install air conditioning before the end of the school year.

MTA spokesperson Kevin Ortiz said the tracks outside PS 85 are scheduled for upgrade between 2015 and 2019, which will mitigate some noise from the trains.

Realistically, Crowley said his new legislation wouldn’t be discussed in Congress until sometime next year, when it will likely become part of a larger legislative package up for vote.