Rich in Midtown East may have been correct when he said the DOE "threw those two schools in the mix knowing they wound take them off the list." Think about it...the City is about to shut down or phase out dozens of schools, it has to look like a hero to some of the students and their parents. It reminds of when Mayor Bloomberg outlines his budget every year, calling for massive cuts and closing fire companies, and then coming in to save the day when things aren't so grim. Unfortunately, he'll never look like the hero when it comes to the City's education system.

Wadleigh Secondary School and the Knowledge and Power Preparatory Academy won a last-minute reprieve from the Department of Education today. The two schools were removed from the list of 25 slated to close when the Panel for Educational Policy votes tomorrow night. Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said the DOE "listened to what their respective communities have had to say" and reversed course because the schools are "poised to quickly improve."

The decision came on the same day parents announced a lawsuit challenging the placement of a charter school in Cobble Hill. They are concerned putting the charter school alongside three existing schools in the same building will have a negative impact on the students. The DOE's plan to close struggling schools includes opening new, smaller ones in the same building.

Are you pleased to see two schools saved from closure? What's your reaction to Chancellor Walcott's comments that the decision was made after listening to concerns from the community? Is including more than one school in a building negatively affecting the learning experience?

Send your thoughts using the link above.

They threw those two schools in the mix knowing they wound take them off the list. This is a political game where the children get hurt and the parents look like fools.

Rich
Midtown East

Well...if the DOE actually cared about community input, they wouldn't have, for example, co-located the Success schools ANYWHERE; the Brandeis co-location had unanimous, highly visible objection from parent groups, the community board, elected officials etc, and it still went through. I think it was other pressures that saved Wadleigh for now, which is GREAT for this district that is short on middle school seats. It is funny to hear the Chancellor say the schools are "poised to quickly improve" when his Deputy said the exact opposite about Wadleigh over and over to a packed house earlier this month. Something changed - whatever it is I am glad. In a better world, community input would count for a lot when it comes to the openings and closings of schools. That is an important aspect of mayoral control that needs to change.

DOE should fix its schools, rather than bailing on them.

Anni
Manhattan

I'm pleased with their decision but it should apply to many more, if not all of the schools. Their policy of closing instead of fixing has to go. They should fix and then watch how the schools succeed. The communities are voicing concerns across the City but they're not listening. Why did they listen there - do the residents have money? P.S. 14 on Staten Island is a Title I school, the community is poorer yet their voices very strong. NO ONE IS LISTENING - NOT EVEN THE BORO PRESIDENT. Placing another school inside a bldg with another school has no advantage to learning. You still have the same children and without proper funding, it's impossible to reach them. Then you have two schools that need funding. Same problems exist. With P.S. 14 they're opening another school in the same bldg. The neighborhood isn't changing though. It is our job to teach whatever child is in front of us. We don't judge, we work harder to reach the hardest, most struggling, child. We don't give up - why has the City?

Jessica, Arden Heights, Staten Island.

This is not even a reason for keeping the two schools opened. We know these people only to well.

Are they telling us that you just have to pull switch being OPEN OR CLOSE.
GIVE ME A BREAK.

There is so much that has to go into the closing of any school and much to do to open a new one for instance you need a principal and all of their staff to go with the opening of a new school and what about the changing of the name and all the documentation that goes along with it.

They need to tell their story to someone else other than us New Yorkers. Forget about a legacy they can't even tell a lie with a strait it face.

I can't believe that by them listening to the community that changed their mind on the closings.

Plus what happens to all of the staff in the schools that are going to close. There is just to much to do to have us believe this out and out lie.

After a while I think they start to believe in themselves especially that none of them know how to run a school system. Lord knows that they do it on a fly.

SHAME ON THESE PEOPLE.
YOU ALL JUST CONTINUE TO INSULT US.
NOT A GOOD THING TO DO TO US.

maxxiee
mp

Amazing...my school...The Gateway School of Environmental Research and Technology also had a panel of parents, educators, etc....I see we're not off the hook! Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

(Located in Stevenson Campus, in the Bronx) Incredible!

What a novelty. The Schools Chancellor listening to the parents. But only if they scream loud enough.

Haven’t we all had enough of Bloomberg and his idiots. I would vote for an impeachment or recall of the entire administration.

Joe
Port Richmond, SI

I'm so elated to hear about Wadleigh. This is a legacy school.

KAPPA is being saved for the second time. Once by the UFT/NAACP lawsuit and now by the Chancellor.

Choosing to save KAPPA and not Satellite 3 in our district is very strange. This is our legacy school and has a higher percentage of Black teachers and staff. SAT III principal began the turnaround at KAPPA before she was pulled away to SAT III. SAT III is onward and upward.

SAT III's community was larger at the public hearing attended by Kathleen Grimm. The former principal even attended.

Kathleen Grimm clearly did not advocate for SAT III.

KAPPA of course is a private organization and the DOE would rather close its own school than a school of a CBO.

Khem

Mayoral control of the Department of Education is a dismal failure. Closing schools is a thinly veiled attempt to open the doors for the charter school profiteers to move in. Housing multiple schools in one building is catastrophic for the students. Student are eating lunch at 10AM and as late as 2 PM. They are hungry during classes. Gymnasiums, auditoriums, and laboratories are not available to all students as needed. Facilities are stretched to the breaking pint. Traffic during entrance and dismissal is actually dangerous.
Tweed is destroying New York City schools right under the noses of an apathetic public. Attacking teachers is the only action anyone takes.

Sick of Bloomberg

THE D.O.E. HAS FAILED ITS STUDENTS. THEY RECOGNIZE THAT ONLY 25% OF THE STUDENTS WILL BE GIVEN ELITE STATUS WHILE THE REST FLOUNDER.

IF THE D.O.E HAS FOUND A MAGIC FORMULA OF A EUREKA MOMENT IN SAVING ANY STUDENT, THEY SHOULD APPLY THOSE MOMENTS TO ALL STUDENTS.

JOE, BAY TERRACE

It's all great and all that they saved two schools from being closed, but what about the other schools. I attend one of the schools slated to be closed, Flushing High School. I want to see the schools get reviewed again by people not in the system to save schools that done deserved to be closed.

Davon

It is not just the closing of the schools that is an issue. Every day there are so many students standing outside the schools during regular school hours that it looks like a protest. It looks more like OCCUPY THE SIDEWALK and not OCCUPY the classrooms.
Changing the names of the schools won't do it...have to get the students back inside the schools!

kathy from Throggs Neck da bronx

We hear so much about closing schools, but I swear, I haven't heard one thing about improving them. The simple, common sense answers are never mentioned, let alone considered. There are so many good ideas out there, being almost as neglected as millions of NYC public school students.
Almost, but not quite.

Jordan
Flushing

The answer to your question what should the Chancellor do could be to: keep schools open, lower class size, provide the resources necessary and include the teachers and the students in the decision making especially when it comes to teaching practices. He can also monitor the corruption concerning the allocation of funds, and make sure that the money ends up in the classroom and not to outside consulting and charter companies. Stop the sellout of our public education.

Regards Georgia from Astoria.

Its great to know that 2 schools were saved but what about the others? A lot of schools deserve to be saved. Maybe not all but a lot more then just 2. What about the kids? What will happen to them? How do they feel about it? I can go on forever about this. Im actually a student at Grover Cleveland High School and it is also on the closure list. Im very displeased. I would have a lot to say to Chancellor Walcott and Bloomberg face to face. I hope they make the right decisions. I am still uneasy about what their doing but right now, we can only hope.

A response to Jaime from Ridgewood, as a student in Grover Cleveland, its not the schools fault! If the kid wants to make the decision to fail and not go to school, the most the school could do is inform the parents and try to help them when they actually decide to go to school. There are programs for kids like that. If they actually went to school, maybe they can be helped.

Sherrybee

Teachers dedicate themselves, students stake their dreams, parents give the best of their hopes, and the DOE decimates and destroys!.

When people follow the rules, they do everything they are trained to do, they open their minds and work themselves to the bone, they expect to be successful.

Students, teachers and parents have learned that that is not true at Washington Irving High School.

Students, teachers and parents have learned that this mayor has winning schools and losing schools. His winning schools depend on losing schools and it doesn’t matter if you play by the rules, because just like Animal Farm, the rules keep changing.

Rules that keep segregating our populations of the poor, the students with high needs, and our minorities.

Rules that increasingly stack the deck of the schools that are slated for closing with, high truancy, and students who have a life long history of not showing up. In some cases students who are not even in this country but we are to blame.

Rules that increasingly allow for those with the highest risks, those who need the most help, those who have the largest hurdles, to be placed in one school so that other schools have better data!

Your rules Mr. Mayor mean “Failure by Design”

Your playbook Mr. Mayor means that some of our students will be warehoused in schools slated for closing.

Your rules mean that schools will compete for survival with no extra support for those who have more hurdles. You place our highest needs students in a race to extinction, with no regard that they are too important to fail.

Your ethics mean that even high needs schools who have received federal aid will be closed and the your new boutique schools will receive the money instead! You have no problem serving the influential who know how to use your Byzantine admissions lottery and turning your back on the rest!

Your rules Mr. Mayor mean that schools will be separate and unequal!

What students, parents, and teachers have learned is that you don’t play fair! That your laws don’t serve the public, they serve you!

Your rules lead to segregation, to less minorities in your new schools, and almost no self contained students. Your new schools have smaller class sizes, better technology, and more space.

What are the rules to your shell game? Diffuse! Diffuse students who don’t lead perfect lives into the overcrowded and less endowed schools that you intend to close. Hope that you can get to the end of your administration before anyone notices. Swept under the carpet like everything else?

Your rules are about influence, about favoritism, about deception and now about substantiating your policies of closing large high schools down. Why don’t you just say it Mr. Mayor? You are closing down schools for your schools but at what expense?

Your rules took a school that has survived for a hundred years and destroyed it in ten.

In your court, you have cut our funding for the past three years and then, when we got a federal grant, took it away after 3 months.

In your justice system Mr. Mayor, you have destroyed more schools than you have improved. You are making a terrible mistake. You are blaming hardworking families and teachers for what you have failed to address in our communities. The prison pipeline, poverty, homelessness and crime. I’m sure that you would like to blame it all on Washington Irving. But we know better, the emperor has no clothes. You have lost our confidence, you are hurting our students, you are a mayor in need of improvement, and you should be shut down!

Gregg

John the Bottom line is the school system will keep going down as long as long as King Mike is Mayor. This guy has been Mayor for 10 years and the fact is he does not care about Public schools or Middle class people. John can you please name one good thing Mayor Mike has done for middle class people over the last 10 years? I can't think of one thing he has done.

With that said New Yorkers have no one to blame but themselves because they Voted for Mayor Mike three time or they just stayed home and did not bother to vote. People wake up and vote so that people like the Mayor don't get three terms.

Joe Bayside

It is important to note that the politics behind the decision making for our schools closings, by the mayor who hasn't any type of training in education and Walcott is another puppet once again. We should hold the mayor and chancellor accountable. I would remind the mayor that we the tax payers are the reason for public schools to be existing. I wonder what will they do if we all keep our children away from all of the schools in the five states? Boycott and see what happens.

S. Edwin

I personally know several public school teachers that send their children to private or Catholic schools?

Anyone want to step up and say why? Why are the schools good enough for my children but not yours??

Ann Marie

The schools are not to be treated as a bunch of business'. The teachers are doing a good job,the principals are trying their best & i honestly think that Walcott is not being fair. Helen Marshall, help us!

Penelope
Ridgewood

Why can't we put the emphasis on getting more competent Principals.

Desmond

This entire policy of closing "failing" schools is a smokescreen for a failed DOE. How else can they explain that half the "failing" schools were started by Bloomberg himself; and 90% received A's or B's just two years ago? Wadleigh should not be closed down nor should the other 56 on the chopping block; the know nothing, out of touch non educators at the DOE should be closed down.

Noah - manhattan

Since these school closures have been going on for years now and The New York Times article was not mentioned on NY1 -- I will bring it up here. According to The New York Times Article regarding a Quinnipiac University Poll that was conducted until this morning, only 24% considered mayoral control a success while 57% said it was a failure! This poll also stipulated that 66% of voters want the next mayor to share control of the schools with an independent school board! Wow -- I wonder why?? Could it be that people are finally waking up to the fact that the Mayoral control is a failure and is ruining the NYC schools . . . that actually an independent body is needed in addition so that there is a check and balance system in the process? All I am hearing is that this new Chancellor does not have a clue and we all know that the PEP is clueless and they do not think for themselves. What a combination -- no wonder the school system is in the shape that it is in today. If closing schools were the answer -- don't you think that the other schools would be more successful?

Why bother wondering how the PEP will vote -- we all already know. Just think when Mayoral control is finally changed or ceases -- these PEP members might find themselves eliminated.

Lisa - Upper east side

"Research across the country" has found the opposite of what he says -- the
best study (CREDO) found only 13% of charter schools outperform neighborhood
schools.

Maria from Morningside Hts

Unfortunately the teacher's union binds the hands of administrators, and protects bad teachers, so the only recourse is closure where there can be rebuilding from the bottom up. If the teachers are not meeting the needs of their set of students to bring those particular students to standard, a new approach is needed, and a new group of teachers should be tried.

Jeff
Midtown

I like the innovations that charter schools bring in--all public schools in NYC are not doing wonderful things. We need to find new ways of teaching science and math. We need arts, including music, in all schools.

But closing schools is not a good thing at all. How is that a way of fixing something? When a child loses their school it is demoralizing to that child. They are sent the message that it is okay to give-up. They are sent the message that they are being given up on.

Veronica
East Elmhurst

It's a crime that Jane Addams HS and the other technical high schools are closing. The NYC DOE is short sighted for thinking all students can go to college. Public schools have a rich history of providing training in many areas- automotive, health careers, nursing, beauty culture, electricity, computer repair and many others. Many others have been discontinued. Training that led to careers because skills were learned. The parents of these students understand this and questioned the DOE's logic. Questioned their stupidity. The DOE has a duty to listen to the parents of the students.

Business leaders across the country can't invest in our economy because the young people and work force are lacking the skills needed. Technical schools need updating to match business needs. Jane Addams HS, Samuel Gompers HS and other high schools need to continue providing the technical skills that lead to jobs. Closing them is a step backward. More technical knowledge is needed.

Barney
Dongan Hills

That's very nice that two schools are being saved. What about the rest!!! What about P.S. 215 The Lucretia Mott School. How do you decide to phase out a school that you have never came to. The same school that you have taken funds from. The same school that you are actually telling the parents and children that yes we are going to phase out the school because you are failing, and yes we are going to keep the same administrator to run the school. Mind you, these are the testing grades, 3rd, 4th & 5th grade. Did you not think that we were that smart to understand that?

The DOE continues to fail our children!!!

Parent from Queens

I would like to hear more from the parents of children than the educators complaining about there jobs. I can't understand how or why you would want to support a school that is failing your child.

Tom