High Schools Closing - what to do? (Hope: city hall, neighborhood)
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So as you all may know or have heard, Bloomberg is plotting to close down many public schools for their overall low-performance grade, many high schools. One of the schools affected is my alum mater in Queens, which is scheduled to run its last term this June. To be honest, my school's graduation rate has increased rapidly over the years, has a large variety of programs in sports, academics, art and such, plus it is actually one of the high schools that offer so much to the disabled students and ESL students; it offers so much to students, it's atrocious to think how Bloomberg could just target us as a "overall: bad" school. Many students have went on to prestigious universities like NYU, Brown, and so much more. It's so unfair that they overlook the recent academic efforts.
I was at a community board a few weeks ago and one of the UFT reps was talking about how Bloomberg recklessly hired these Chancellors without, and I quote, "nationwide, statewide and citywide search". Let's face it, Cathie Black was not cut out to be Chancellor and she was a mess. What does Bloomberg know about the public education system? His whole academic career was in private schools.
Anyway, a bunch of current and former students have been fighting to save the school for the last few months. We had a pep rally last week, had 2 meetings where many council members objected the plan. We have all done so much and showed so much pride, wrote letters to council members, to Bloomberg (which I assume they've been automatically thrown out) and even made calls, all these efforts might not actually work..
Does anyone have any ideas as to what else to do? It seems like 2 schools were exempt from the decision at last minute. We were going to protest in front of City Hall.. but they again, they'd think of us as lower.
Those school are not really closing, just reset. They will be re-open with new names, new leadership, new staffs. Hopefully, with better results. High schools are pretty much zone free, good kids will concentrate to specialized high schools. Good high schools will continue to be good if not better. Neighborhood high schools will be lacking behind. In a few years, they need another reset.
i know, but that means cutting half (or more) of the staff. Most of my teachers were wonderful, all very encouraging and knowledgable. It's so different seeing it from a political standpoint than from a personal standpoint.
Those school are not really closing, just reset. They will be re-open with new names, new leadership, new staffs. Hopefully, with better results. High schools are pretty much zone free, good kids will concentrate to specialized high schools. Good high schools will continue to be good if not better. Neighborhood high schools will be lacking behind. In a few years, they need another reset.
Those schools are physically closing the doors and will be moved to ONE BUILDING. My neice teaches at one of the affect schools, which is also my alma mater (hers too).
It's cheaper to smoosh more kids into fewer spaces.
Net result is they will come out a little dumber than otherwise but that matters little because when they graduate there will be no jobs anyway.
DoE school closing is based on their progress reports. If a school got D and F 3 years in a row, it will be on chopping block. On the other hand, DoE's progress report can be questionable. Higher grade may not mean better school. Here are 2 reports from 2 nearby schools in East Harlem.
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