If the city goes ahead as planned, Brooklyn's Paul Robeson High School will close – with nothing to take its place. All this week, NY1's Lindsey Christ is taking a behind the scenes look at the school's challenges, its successes and its failures.

Fifteen minutes into Mr. Jacobs' second period U.S. history class, he's the only one in the room. Ten minutes later, two students sit at their desks. By the end of the period, there are five. His roster for the class has more than 30 names. At Paul Robeson High School, teachers say simply getting students into the classrooms may be their biggest challenge.

"It's kind of like if you walk in and out of a movie, you don't know what is going on. A lot of kids have that kind of attendance in school. They're called LTAs -- long term absences. And then when they come back, you are like 'Yeah you're back!' but the kid is lost because he hasn't been here," said Paul Robeson High School teacher Larry Jacobs.

Many of the teachers at Robeson say attendance is such a big problem, the school can't overcome it on its own.

"We have one attendance teacher who goes out and we would need a whole cadre of people who would help support that kind of mission to keep track of the children," said Paul Robeson High School teacher teacher Stefanie Siegel. "And then you might come into situations where the parent is not supporting you and letting the child come to school, so it's like, where is the law behind this? It is a very complex problem."

Last year, the average attendance at Robeson was 69 percent, but that official attendance is only taken during third period, and if students miss that class but prove they attended just three other classes, they'll be counted as present. And for students who don't show up to any of their classes, the school tries to reach out.

"We call. Teachers call from their classes. Also if a child doesn't go to their classes, we have people go to their houses to look for them," said Paul Robeson High School attendance coordinator Jadzia Malinowski. "Sometimes the addresses are incorrect, telephone numbers are incorrect. We try to update them as best we can. We usually have the student come down here and we ask them. Sometimes they give a real number and sometimes they don't and sometimes the number is real and in a week or two it's already been disconnected."

Teachers say that when several of their students don't show up to class consistently, it makes it hard to stick to a curriculum and then everyone gets off track.

"So suppose I have five kids on Monday and I'm saying, 'Okay kids we are going to move ahead' and I'll five kids and we'll do the lesson and then the next day I'll figure we'll move on and I'll have five kids again but a totally different five," Jacobs said.

This week, NY1 will continue to bring viewers inside Paul Robeson High School – looking at the stories behind the statistics. Leading up to the vote on whether the school will be closed, the station will focus on the challenges students face, from the top students applying to college to the teenage parents who rely on the school's daycare center to those at risk of dropping out.