Final bell for school construction projects.

All across the city, students and their parents are scrambling from clothing store to school supply store, making final preparations for the beginning of the school year.

At the same time, contractors at 17 sites in four boroughs are dotting the I's and crossing the T's, completing both new construction and renovation work for the New York City Department of Education.

According to Chester Yee, vice president in charge of construction for the DOE, all school construction projects are on schedule and will be ready to accommodate students when classes begin on September 5.

"We will meet all the goals set out for us," said Yee. "Every school that we intended to deliver will open on time ... We will meet our commitment."

Yee has been busy this past month checking in on work at sites in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Fifteen of the 17 school projects are "restructurings," or the renovations of existing buildings to fit new needs, such as conversion from a elementary school to a middle school. The other two projects involve new high school construction. Work is nearly finished on both the High School for Construction Trades, Engineering and Architecture on 104th Street in Queens and the Bathgate High School in the Bronx, Yee said.

The school construction comes as part of a $13.4 billion capital plan undertaken last year that looks to deliver 300 new schools to the city by 2009. About 1/3 of these schools will be charter schools and the rest will generally have student populations under 500.

Though students will soon start their fall semester, that doesn't mean all DOE-hired contractors are packing it in. Yee said that limited renovation and maintenance work will continue after hours at various schools throughout the system.

"The key is to get the heavy work done in the two-month window during school vacation," Yee said. "During that time, [contractors] have free reign. But we'll still work at a large number of schools after students go home and we'll continue construction on new schools set to open in the coming years."