The Department of Education is planning to close a record-breaking number of schools for poor performance this year, adding 62 programs to the list of 114 that Mayor Michael Bloomberg has shuttered over the past decade. NY1’s Lindsey Christ filed the following report.

Department of Education officials are fanning out across the city from Brownsville to Harlem to the South Bronx. In the past two weeks, they've held meetings at 42 schools, and they've repeated the same line at each one.

“The school lacks the capacity to turn around quickly,” said Deputy Schools Chancellor Kathleen Grimm.

That means they're closing it down. At each school, parents, teachers, students and elected officials are angry, saying struggling schools should get help, not be closed.

“This is not about failing schools. This is not about failing kids. This is about a failed policy and a failed mayor,” said parent leader Noah Gotbaum.

There are several different plans for the 62 schools on the chopping block this year.

Eighteen are scheduled to phase out over several years by not accepting any new students and officially closing after current classes graduate. Five will close in June, meaning current students have to transfer. Six will lose their middle school grades but stay open as either a high school or elementary school, and the final 33 will close in June but immediately re-open with a new name.

The students will remain, but the DOE will be able to hire new principals and teachers. Officials say they may keep up to half of the current teachers but no more.

Confused? So are parents, teachers, and community leaders.

“I don't understand it,” said one parent.

The Department of Education defends the strategy, pointing to research showing some of its new high schools are better serving students.

Closing schools is really the only way the DOE can clear out the staff that's otherwise protected by their union contract. That's 4,500 teachers working at schools on the chopping block this year.

Some will find jobs at other schools, but even those who don't will still get paid. The DOE can't layoff tenured teachers. They'll continue to draw hundreds of millions of dollars in salary and benefits working as substitutes.

The Panel for Educational Policy will vote on the first 25 closure proposals on February 9. Every year, several thousand people show up to protest. This year, many expect the size of the crowd to be record-breaking as well.