New York, NY —

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is warning that up to 13,000 students will be without public school seats by 2016 despite increased construction spending in Manhattan. He claims the city's projections don't account for new residential buildings.

But Schools Chancellor Joel Klein defends his forecast and says his department looks at enrollment trends by neighborhood, not by borough.

KLEIN: We're in the process now of bringing on in Manhattan 6000 additional seats and outside of certain areas in Manhattan you get different variations so we're looking at this very closely.

Klein spoke at the newly-constructed P.S. 65 in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, which is among 23 new school buildings opening when classes start next week. Although the Bloomberg Administration says it's on track to build 110,000 new seats by 2012, critics have said it's still not enough to meet demand.