New school will get hundreds of students out of 'rotted' portable classrooms in Hempstead

Hundreds of elementary school students will go back to school next week in a new building on the site of the former Marguerite G. Rhodes School, marking a reopening that will ease overcrowding and eliminate half of the district’s aging portable classrooms.

"We’re very excited about it," said Olga Brown-Young, president of the school board. "It’s a 21st century building, and we can’t wait for it to open."

At Rhodes Academy, a prekindergarten through fifth-grade school on Washington Street, orientation for the lower grades begins Tuesday and students’ first day of school is Sept. 9.

"It’s one of those ‘It’s about time’ kind of mindsets," said George Siberón, executive director of the Hempstead Hispanic Civic Association. "It will go a long way to getting rid of those monstrosities … where some of our students have to go during the year."

The "monstrosities" Siberón referred to are the portables that were intended as a temporary solution to overcrowding, a problem worsened by the closure of the Rhodes School in 2004.

"They are not in good conditions; they are rotted," Siberón said of the portables. "The community has fought for many, many years for the school district to get rid of these extensions."

Superintendent Regina Armstrong said 28 of the 56 portables districtwide will be removed as a result of the new school’s opening. About 500 students will continue to use most of the remaining portables. The district had more than 7,100 students in the 2019-2020 school year.

In 2018, voters approved a $46.8 million bond to rebuild the school.

About 675 students have registered to go to Rhodes Academy, most of them former students at Jackson Annex School, which has 22 portables, Armstrong said.

"All students should be educated in a building and not in portable structures," she said. "But unfortunately, for a long time, that was our only option for the students in Hempstead."

The portables at Jackson and six units at two other schools will be torn down, the superintendent said.

At the new school, students won’t have to make trips in heat, rain or snow to enter the gym, cafeteria or the library in the main building. Neither would some be shuttled to the other end of the village to attend school, officials said.

"Now they can go to a school in their neighborhood," Armstrong said.

School officials touted the school’s opening as a point of pride for the community and a new chapter for the district, which has been flagged for low academic performance and plagued by political wrangling.

"It’s actually like a new beginning for the district," board trustee LaMont Johnson said. "This building is somewhat of a symbol of the progress that we’ve made over the past few years."