The City announced today that 14 schools will close at the end of the school year and that means 4,500 students and 400 educators will be seeking a new school. Of thee 14 schools over half are in the Bronx (8) with Brooklyn (2), Manhattan (2), and Queens (2) providing the rest. Of the 14 schools closing 9 are Renewal Schools. In addition 4 other schools will merge with another school, with 2 of the 4 located in the Bronx and 2 in Brooklyn. Some of these educators will also be dumped into the ATR pool.
Add the 400+ educators that will no longer have a position with previously announced staff shakeups at DeWitt Clinton and Flushing High Schools, and there could be an influx of up to 500 more educators to the ATR pool. Since the ATR incentives have been a failure, I suspect that the DOE's program to reduce the ATR pool us simply a pipe dream.
The list of schools that are closing or being merged with other schools are as follows:
The nine Renewal schools the city plans to close are:
- P.S. 50 Vito Marcantonio (District 4)
- Coalition School for Social Change (District 4)
- High School for Health Careers and Sciences (District 6)
- New Explorers High School (District 7)
- Urban Science Academy (District 9)
- P.S. 92 Bronx School (District 12)
- Brooklyn Collegiate: A College Board School (District 23)
- P.S./M.S. 42 R. Vernam (District 27)
- M.S. 53 Brian Piccolo (District 27)
The five other schools the city plans to close are:
- KAPPA IV (District 5)
- Academy for Social Action (District 5)
- Felisa Rincon de Gautier Institute (District 8)
- Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation (District 12)
- Eubie Blake School (District 16)
The schools the city plans to merge are:
- Holcombe L. Rucker School of Community (District 8), becoming part of Longwood Preparatory Academy, another Renewal school
- Entrada Academy (District 12) into Accion Academy
- Middle School of Marketing and Legal Studies (District 18) into East Flatbush Community and Research School
- Middle school grades of Gregory Jocko Jackson School (District 23) into Brownsville Collaborative Middle School
Maybe, the influx of new ATRs will finally convince the DOE to come up with a better ATR buyout and to eliminate school based fair student funding.