TAG plans new classrooms; larger expansion on hold

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of May 8, 2009 / 14 Iyar 5769

Torah Academy for Girls in Far Rockaway is constructing three new classrooms that it hopes to have ready for students in September. The project is a scaled down alternative to major construction that the school planned then put on hold late last year when the effects of the economic downturn became clear.

“Thank G-d our mechanical engineer was running behind schedule so we don’t have a hole in the ground,” Executive Director Shmuel Reisbaum said wryly.

Enrollment in the preschool is expected to be up by 25 percent for the new school year, he said, “and that’s mostly because of siblings.”

Very few families are new to the school altogether because there just isn’t room in the current facility. There is a “desperate need” for more space, he said, and even with three new classrooms going up above existing office space, “we’ve taken only those families that we can’t say no to,” because their older children are already TAG students.