JERSEY CITY -- When Jersey City public-school students head to class for the first day of school next Thursday, the brand new, $54 million school in the Heights may be only half full.

School 26 was built to house 770 students but enrollment for now is about 350, and it is not expected to reach full capacity until 2025.

The state funded construction of the Laidlaw Avenue school to alleviate overcrowding in the 28,000-student district.

The district's initial plan was to change neighborhood school boundaries to account for the new pre-k through five school, a 123,000-square-foot building located four blocks north of Route 139. Some students who attend School 25 would move to School 26, some who attend School 27 would move to School 25 and so on.

But at a series of meetings in the spring, parents whose children would have been affected by the new boundaries balked, and the nine-member school board came up with its own plan to keep students largely where they were at the end of the last school year and to phase in enrollment at School 26 for the next eight years.

Joel Torres, the school board president, told The Jersey Journal that he dreamed up the phase-in plan "to make sure we're not rushing into it, doing everything at once."

"A lot of the concern from some of the parents," Torres said.

Luis Felipe Fernandez was the sole board member to vote against the phase-in plan when it was approved back in May. Fernandez told The Jersey Journal he empathizes with parents who aired their complaints about the rezoning plan, parents who said they worried about their children taking new routes to school, making new friends and meeting a new set of teachers.

But, Fernandez said, "Eight years I just felt was too long ... We have a brand-new school that won't be to capacity."

Maryann Dickar, the district spokeswoman, declined to comment on the school board altering the district's plans. Dickar said even with the new school at half capacity, the district has alleviated overcrowding in Heights schools by renovating the School 31 building (all the students in that school were moved to School 26 earlier this year) to make it a preschool and creating more preschool space at the old School 21 building.

Students continue to register for School 26, Dickar said, and the district expects there to be "many more students" there by opening day.

The state Schools Development Authority funds new schools in Jersey City and the state's other "special needs districts," which include Irvington, Newark and Union City. SDA spokeswoman Edythe Maier declined to comment on the district's plan to keep School 26 from full capacity until 2025.

"The school was delivered to help relieve district-wide overcrowding," Maier said. "The SDA does not get involved with building utilization following building turnover."

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.