Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum is giving the Department of Education until the end of August to shape up its parent coordinator program or she’s going to recommend that the $40 million set aside for the program be used elsewhere.

Ms. Gotbaum released a report yesterday saying that parent coordinators are hard to reach during after-school hours and failed to return phone calls in a timely manner.

The report showed that parent coordinators are even harder to reach today than when Ms. Gotbaum’s office issued a similar survey in November 2003, just three months after the program was first put in place.

“I’m not saying the program isn’t good but it’s not working right now,” Ms. Gotbaum said. “It is unfortunate that the very people that are hired to help parents can’t be reached.”

She said she would give the chancellor until August 23 to train coordinators and make sure they know their responsibilities toward parents.

“If this doesn’t happen before the start of the school year, I will be back here asking for a better use of the $40 million,” Ms. Gotbaum said.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein set up the parent coordinator program in September last year with the aim of providing a liaison between parents and school administrators.

According to yesterday’s survey, Ms. Gotbaum’s office was only able to reach 23 of the 99 parent coordinators surveyed. Coordinators in Brooklyn were the least reachable of all the five boroughs. High school and middle school coordinators were harder to reach after hours than their elementary school counterparts.

The survey also found that some coordinator phone numbers were not posted on the department’s Web site, making their numbers difficult to find. Ms. Gotbaum said all parent coordinator numbers should be accessible via the Internet.

“Of the few parent coordinators we did reach they were helpful and informative,” Ms. Gotbaum said.

The surveys findings are based on phone calls placed to 99 out of the 1,200 coordinators in the city school system. The phone calls were placed between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., after school hours. The Department of Education requires parent coordinators to work school hours, which fall between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. They are also required to return parent phone calls within 48 hours.

“We think the program, which is less than a year old, is off to a good start and that parent coordinators are doing an outstanding job,” a department of education spokeswoman, Michele Mc-Manus, said. “We will review [Ms. Gotbaum’s] report and we appreciate the public advocate’s efforts.”

A Department of Education survey showed that 95% of the parent coordinators were rated by principles as meeting or exceeding expectations, Ms. McManus said.

Those ratings included input from parents, she said.