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Built 129 years ago, P.S. 26 in Travis is one of Staten Island's oldest schools.

Wednesday, the kindergarten through fifth grade school opened a very modern annex, meant to provide some desperately needed space for its students and faculty.

"We didn't rebuild the school, we just added on a little, but in a way that would make the school functional for us," said Principal Joanne Mecane.

Before, there was also no lobby, just one bathroom for the nearly 200 students, and no place for parents to wait when they visited the school.

Now, the $3.6 million extension, which was seven years in the making, has freed up other rooms inside the crowded building.

"All the related service members of the staff who come to the school, but may not be here full time, they haven't had a place to meet with the children, so they were in auditoriums, and different areas," Mecane said. "So now they have a room that they can meet, which was our old general office."

Councilman James Oddo, who helped fund the annex, is also involved at P.S. 48, which has been overcrowded for years. According to the United Federation of Teachers, the kindergarten through grade 5 school has seen a 10 percent increase in enrollment this year, with 507 students, up from 460 last year.

P.S. 48 has no library, science or computer lab, multi-media room, gymnasium, or auditorium. Instead, students use a so-called "cafe-gym-atorium" for all their needs:

"It's frustrating for everyone involved," the councilman said. "Schools should have basic, I'll call them amenities, but they're not luxuries, they're basics, they should have gyms, they should have libraries."

Part of the solution of Staten Island's overcrowding problem is finding ways to adapt to the existing infrastructure, which school officials say is a challenge in itself.

"You could have a workshop on one side, a class on the other side, the phys ed teacher, she's remarkable, when she can't get into the cafeteria, she's taking kids down the hallways!" exclaimed P.S. 48 Parent Coordinator Terry Guthrie.

The Department of Education says it is aware of the problem, and is working on solutions.

The city's purchase of the former Doctors Hospital across the street from P.S. 48 may help, with plans to use it with the existing building to alleviate overcrowding. But that building will not likely be open for several years.

So, for now, administrators will have to continue to make the most of the space they've got.