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June 1st, 2010

City Council: Fix, Don’t Close Schools

by Lisa Fogarty, Queens Chronicle

The City Council took a stand against school closings Tuesday by unanimously passing a resolution that calls upon the Department of Education to fix, and not give up, on low-performing schools.

The School Transformation Zone, proposed by the advocacy group NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, calls for the use of federal School Improvement Grants and other funds to implement reform plans in the city’s lowest-performing schools.

Since 2002, the DOE has closed 91 schools. Ten Queens high schools risk closure because of low graduation rates and Progress Report grades: Jamaica, Beach Channel, August Martin in Jamaica, John Adams in Ozone Park, Flushing, Newtown in Elmhurst, Grover Cleveland in Ridgewood, Long Island City High School, Queens Vocational and Technical High School in LIC and the Business, Computer Applications and Entrepreneurship Magnet in Cambria Heights.

Struggling schools would have the opportunity to turn themselves around by applying five school improvement strategies: expanding the school day and year; providing a rigorous curriculum that includes access to Regents courses and Advanced Placement or other college-level classes; taking steps to attract, train and maintain quality teachers and principals by reducing class size and offering professional development and mentoring; giving students strong support services that include small group and individual counselors; and ensuring active parent and community participation by including them in policy and decision-making.

“Resolution number 157-A reflects the view of many parents, educators, advocates and elected officials, including myself and many other Council Members, that DOE has a responsibility to help struggling schools rather than just taking the easy way out by closing them,” said Education Committee Chairman Robert Jackson (D-Morningside Heights).

The CEJ said the resolution is timely because state school districts must submit their plans within the next two weeks for how they will use School Improvement Grants to transform their lowest achieving schools, 34 of which are located in the city.

The DOE has maintained that school closings are a last resort and that the department is open to turning around schools.

“President Obama agrees that in order to prepare all of our children for college and the workplace, it is critical that we turn around our lowest performing schools,” DOE spokeswoman Ann Forte said in a statement. “This can include, in some cases, transformation. We will continue to engage parents and community leaders as we work to transform our lowest performing schools, win federal dollars for our students and build on the progress we’ve made in improving student outcomes.”

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