Roosevelt Island resident Amanda K shares this message she sent to the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC).
I am a parent at Roosevelt Island Day Nursery (RIDN) where a sewage flood occurred last week resulting in a full remediation effort for the River Road school that will take weeks to complete. Our children may not have a proper educational environment for the last few months of the year.
The Roosevelt Island Day Nursery needs help in finding appropriate education spaces for the 60 students enrolled in the 3K and 4K classrooms. Manhattan Park, who is responsible for the flood, has offered their community space but it needs occupancy approval by the FDNY and Department of Health. It’s unclear how long this will take.
This community needs your help.
– We need your help in expediting the process with FDNY and DOH.
– We need your help in finding appropriate education space on the island for 4 classrooms – putting 60 kids in one room for over a month will not be sufficient
This island is filled with community spaces – some in use, some vacant. Please, we can not be in a scenario where 60 children ages 3-5 do not have the appropriate education space.
Ms Kross adds:
… the school has lost furniture and is going through significant demolition.
Where is RIOC in all of this? It’s interesting to note that there are a lot of education spaces on Roosevelt Island but most are being used by a private school for off-island students. Where is RIOC in finding adequate education space for our growing student population? We now have 60 additional kids without classroom space.
Roosevelt Island resident Amy Kaplan reports:
RIDN at River Road suffered major flooding late last week from plumbing issues at 4 River Road. The site is closed until further notice, and teachers and admin are working to get MP theater club up and running as a backup site. So far 4 classes of prek and 3K have missed several days of school as a result while they wait for fdny and dept of building approval. Even before the flood, RIDN has been working on fundraising—including this link, as they will need it now more than ever:
According to RIDN Executive Director Jean Monaco:
We have relocated to the theatre center at 8 River Road and the team has worked tirelessly to reproduce our incredible educational environment.
We await a Swing Permit from the Dept of Health in order to welcome our little ones back to RIDN.
Fingers crossed our children will not be out of school much longer!!
More information about RIDN at their website.