To get inside P.S. 8 in Great Kills, you have to ring a doorbell, be buzzed in a locked door, and show ID.

Unless you’re there to vote. Then you go around the back and walk right in.

“There’s very little security,” parent Deborah Scaltro said.

What You Need To Know

  • With early voting lasting for several weeks across the year, parents say the impact on schools hosting early voting isn't fair

  • School doors are normally locked, but voters can walk right in to schools without showing ID, while children are in attendance, during early voting

  • At some schools, students are losing access to their gymnasium for more than thirty days, meaning no physical education classes At some schools, students are losing access to their gymnasium for more than thirty days, meaning no physical education classes

  • While schools have always served as polling places, children do not attend school on Election Day, but they are in school during early voting periods

If it were only on Election Day, it wouldn’t matter much because students aren’t in school then. But P.S. 8 is an early voting site, meaning for several weeks each year, voting is happening in the school gymnasium while kids are in class.

Scaltro said it has already led to several concerning incidents.

“We’ve had an individual walking into our cafeteria. One of our teachers, thankfully, was there. He was belligerent with him. He spit at him,” she said, before school staff was able to get the man out of the building.

P.S. 8 students also miss out on gym class, which is required by law and on recess during early voting.

P.S. 8 is one of 33 schools across four boroughs hosting early voting this year. It begins ten days before an election and ends the Sunday before it. Voters casted ballots ahead of Tuesday’s presidential primary; there will be another early voting period ahead of the state primary in June; and again in October and November for the presidential election.

At Robert Wagner Middle School on the Upper East Side, the parent association co-presidents say in addition to safety concerns, it adds up to thirty-three days of disruption.

“It’s incredibly disruptive, and we have 1,100 students at this school who lose P.E. time, who lose all access to after-school activities in the gym,” Val Marsden Fitzhugh said.

“It’s 33 days that we lose access to our after-school programs and that we our families depend on for safe and secure programming that takes them to 5:45 every single day,” her co-president, Elle Erickson, added.

At other schools, voting happens in the cafeteria, leaving students without hot breakfast or lunch for weeks, and forced to eat in the auditorium.

Parents who spoke to NY1 say they are not opposed to early voting they just don’t think it should be happening in schools. That’s not an impossible ask: none of the early voting sites in Queens are school buildings.

But Schools Chancellor David Banks, who has touted the $78 million effort to install door lock and camera systems like the one at P.S. 8 citywide, brushed off concerns last week.

“Public schools are public entities. They belong to the taxpayers, right? So, we put in all of the safety protocols, we don’t have five-year-olds running into strangers who come in to vote, that does not happen,” Banks said.

In a statement, a Board of Elections spokesman said: “These sites are secured by the NYPD during voting hours, and are operated with the safety of the students, teachers, staff and voters as our paramount concern. We have done so for years without incident, and are always open to evaluating other sites proposed by elected officials, communities, or others that meet our needs and geographic area.”