NYC and Amazon Have a School Plan for HQ2 Families: Wait and See

Though little is known about Amazon’s new headquarters in Long Island City, speculation is already rampant about how the company’s arrival (or is it an expansion?) will affect housing, employment, and dating in New York. To the many unanswered questions raised by the arrival of up to 25,000 affluent techies, we might add one more: where will their kids go to school?

Perhaps more than in any other city, families in New York City face a difficult challenge in figuring out where to send their kids to school. Admission to coveted public and private schools is notoriously selective, and overcrowding in the boroughs makes finding a satisfactory school for one’s child feel like trying to find a classic-six rent-stabilized apartment. In Queens, where HQ2 will land in a few short years, the problem of school capacity is especially acute: the borough’s high schools are at 117 percent capacity overall, and the only elementary school in Long Island City, PS 78, is presently at 135 percent capacity.