Staffers from embattled Long Island City HS were busy on office phones and cellphones well into the evening on the first few days of the new school year calling parents in an effort to round up students who had not yet picked up their programs.

Math teacher and 27-year veteran Peter Muhlback explained that the goal of the phone calls was to get everyone on the register into school on time so the school wouldn’t suffer any budget shortfalls because of student absences. Budgets are based on student enrollment.

“We believe the Department of Education has underfunded us by projecting an unreasonably low number of students for September,” said Chapter Leader Ken Achiron, who organized the phone bank.

He accused the DOE under Mayor Bloomberg of deliberately starving the school of students and $3 million in an effort to shut it down.

The calls had brought in more than 200 students by the first Monday, Achiron reported. Teachers in the school’s Small Learning Communities continued the outreach during the day throughout the first week of school, he added.

“No initiative is better than teachers calling parents,” Principal Vivian Selenikas remarked as she dropped by to thank the callers. “This is an important initiative that has been completely spearheaded by the school staff.”

To help get the message across, Isabel Ochoa, a special education teacher, served as an interpreter for Spanish-speaking households.

Intent not only on getting students into the building and reminding parents that school had begun, the volunteers also reassured parents that they were there to help with any problems or concerns.

Social workers Allen Smart and Allison Sherman stressed the importance of getting parents to understand that the staff does care.

After years of fighting threats of closure and co-location, the phone crews took on their task with a new sense of optimism stemming from the school’s year-end quality review rating of Well-Developed. The solid rating, said Achiron, was evidence that the staff was succeeding in turning the school around and, said Smart, had “boosted morale.”

Achiron, a veteran of the long struggle to keep the Queens school open, quipped that it has been through so much it should be renamed Phoenix HS.