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July 16, 2010

Enrollment grows at saved high schools, but not by much

by Anna Phillips, at 5:04 pm

Enrollment numbers at high schools that the city had targeted for closure are on the rise, but still far below past years’ levels.

After a judge’s ruling postponed closures at 19 schools — 14 of them high schools — many of the schools began reporting that they were severely under-enrolled. Metropolitan Corporate Academy had eight incoming ninth graders and Jamaica High School in Queens had 23 — a number so low the school’s principal doubted he’d be able to have a freshman class. Now that the city has completed its second round of high school placements, more students are set to enter these schools next year.

But the numbers are still extremely low. While there are now 23 students enrolled at Metropolitan Corporate Academy, the school traditionally saw an incoming freshman class of between 70 and 100 students. Many of these schools still have enrollments too low for them to support a ninth grade program. If the city does not assign them more students, they could be forced to phase out their ninth grades, skirting the court’s ruling that the schools should remain intact.

A spokesman for the Department of Education said the city expects the enrollment numbers to climb.

Roughly 500 students who were given a choice between a saved school and another school have yet to inform the city of their decision. The under-enrolled high schools will also be able to receive over-the-counter students who move to New York over the summer and are typically assigned wherever there are empty seats.

Part of the reason for the diminished enrollments could be the city’s high school admissions process. This year, students who listed any of the then-closing schools as one of their top choices were matched to other schools. But after a judge’s ruling postponed the closures, the city sent those students a letter giving them a second chance to pick a high school — this time including the would-be closing schools on their list of options.

To make its preference clear, the city’s letters discouraged parents from sending their children to the schools marked for closure.

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  • Invictus

    It is amazing the audacity that the DoE and their invisible patrons, Bloom und Klein, have shown towards the 2 judicial responses towards the lawsuit that the City lost.  Moreover, I would be very careful at using the word, “grows” as it is used towards what is happening to the numbers of incoming freshmen in these 19 schools because it is neither organic/natural but deliberate and manipulated to engineer what the educational DeFormers at Tweed were unable to do by following the law.  

    Perhaps the city will need to be told in no unclear terms to do what they were supposed to do according to the Judges that halted the closures?  or maybe the parties who brought the suit are allowing the “deformation” of what the city is supposed to do according to the judicial review, in order to begin another lawsuit stating that the City had not followed what was told by the courts?  
    No one knows what these two adversaries are doing behind closed doors…but next year, the PEP meetings and opposition will be more boisterous then ever and that will be rightly so. 

  • edwina

    I know for a fact that students zoned for Jamaica, Newtown, Flushing, and Cleveland were placed by OSE into the zoned programs for Cardozo, Francis Lewis, and Bayside. These already overcrowded schools are being used to warehouse kids and prevent them from going to Jamaica, Newtown, Flushing, or Cleveland and thus accelerating their closure due to “low enrollment”. The whole enrollment process has been a politically-driven mess this year. If you need proof, check the list notices that Cardozo, Francis Lewis, and Bayside were given for new students for their zoned programs. It will show that fewer than half of the kids being rammed into these three schools are really from their catchment areas- the other half are from these schools which the city wants to kill along with Van Buren which is next on the hit list.
    This lowers the quality of education, supervision, and safety at Cardozo, Francis Lewis, and Bayside by further overcrowding them while ensuring that the other schools phase out- judge’s order be damned. Having the OSE handle enrollment at these “saved” schools is truly having the fox guard the hen house. Judge Lobis should investigate this and sanction the city for circumvention of her order.

  • Vote NO

    Flushing. along with Long Island City, and Queens Vocational were all designated for the “Transformation” model. The schools are receiving 6 million dollars each over the next 3 years from the Federal government to implement the “transformation.” They are NOT being phased out.

    I can’t imagine that either NY state or NYC DOE would interfere with the enrollment at these schools over the next 3 years. That could potentially jeopardize 18 million dollars in dedicated federal “school improvement grants.” That is an awful lot of money to jeopardize in tough budgetary times.

    Bayside, Cardozo, and Francis Lewis should not be getting any students directed to them from these 3 schools. If the overcrowding is getting worse at these high schools it is probably due to the lack of enrolled students at Jamaica, and Beach Channel.

  • Anonymous

    DOE screws up everything they touch except small schools and charter schools.

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