A new elementary school in Melrose is one of eight schools opening in September for kids in The Bronx in the 2024-2025. One of the new schools is P.S. 487 at 639 St. Ann’s Ave.

The city broke ground on the four-story building in 2021. At the groundbreaking, the city said the school would come with “four pre-kindergarten classrooms, three kindergarten classrooms, 15 standard classrooms, two district special education classrooms and reading and speech resource rooms.” The building is also expected to house a District 75 special education component with occupational and physical therapy rooms, and other support space.

Bronx Councilman Rafael Salamanca, Jr. was there when the city broke ground on P.S. 487 back in 2021, and told News 12, “It's about time. I'm really excited and I'm happy with this new school building that the Bronx, the Melrose section of the District is getting.”

“We've seen that in the past … the amount of students in these classrooms makes it difficult for students to learn,” the District 17 councilman said on a Zoom call. “Having smaller class sizes gives students the opportunity to have that extra education one-on-one with their educator.”

The United Federation of Teachers reported that last school year, more than 300,000 NYC students were in oversized classrooms, in spite of a 2022 law mandating smaller class sizes. UFT found that nearby school, PS5 Port Morris had 60% of its classes were over the size limit.