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Days from state deadline, city begins detailing turnaround plans

Confusion about whether the city’s turnaround proposals would amount to school closures can be put to rest.

Eight of the schools the Department of Education has said it would “turn around” are on the Panel for Educational Policy’s April agenda — as closure proposals. The schools are among 33 the city has said it would overhaul in order to qualify for federal funding earmarked for overhauling low-performing schools.

The eight schools do not represent all of the closure proposals the city will ultimately make. Other schools that are not yet on the agenda, including Brooklyn’s School for Global Studies, were told on Monday that the city had scheduled public hearings about their closure proposals for late March and early April. (The panel approved 18 non-turnaround closures earlier this month.)

City officials have said that they would move forward with turnaround at all 33 schools, even after the city and union settled a key issue that had derailed previous overhaul processes at many of the schools and after it became clear that the schools’ performance varies widely. Turnaround would require the schools to close and reopen after getting new names and replacing half of their teachers.

Thirty-page “Educational Impact Statements” for each of the closure proposals offer clues about what the replacement schools would look like. The statements indicate that the city would maintain the schools’ partnerships, extracurricular programs, and many curriculum offerings. The school that replaces Automotive High School, for example, would still offer vocational certification in car repair. Several of the schools would be broken into “small learning communities” that include ninth-grade academies, according to the city’s plans.

In the statements, the department also explains the switch to a more aggressive overhaul strategy from the models that most of the schools had been undergoing until the end of last year, when their funding was frozen because the city and teachers union failed to agree on new teacher evaluations.

Banana Kelly High School, for example, was assigned to “transformation” in 2011 and given extra funds to pay for teacher training and new technology. The city now says transformation was a mistake.

“The data show that the school was struggling even more than the DOE had thought at the time it chose the Transformation model for the school,” reads the school’s impact statement.

The statements come weeks after an internal deadline the city set and missed and just days before state law requires. Under the 2009  school governance law, the city must published detailed accounts of how schools would be affected by major changes by six months before the start of the school year in which the changes would take place. If school begins the Wednesday after Labor Day, as is usually the case, that deadline would be Sunday.

The city’s public notices about the proposals suggest that it might move forward with the unusual closure plans even if State Education Commissioner John King does not approve the federal funding for the schools. The notices say only that closure would “maximize New School’s chance of receiving” federal School Improvement Grants ranging from $800,000 to about $2 million.

King has said the city’s unorthodox turnaround plans are “approvable.”

  • Guest

    Is there any evidence to support this model of turnaround?

  • Transformation Teacher

    Any reason why there are only 8 schools on for the PEP of 33? At Lehman, who is not on the agenda, our principal informed us an EIS would be going out this week for our school. Does that mean we can be added to the April 26th agenda, or will our pep vote be on a seperate date?

  • Manhattan70

    I’m confused by this report.  How could the city schedule public hearings about the closures of the other 25 schools for late March and early April when it has now scheduled public hearings for the first 8 on April 26?  Isn’t that working backwards?  Also, how can there be hearings for the 25 schools in late March and early April when there is a required 45-day public review period?

    Please Gotham Schools, some clarification.  Thanks.  

  • Celia Oyler

    There is no evidence to support any models of turnaround.

  • Philissa Cramer

    Sure: The April 26 date is the public hearing that will culminate in a vote by the PEP to approve or reject the proposals. (The panel has never rejected a city proposal.) Before that, though, state law requires that the city hold public hearings at the schools themselves. This has been the practice since the 2009-2010 school year, the first time the state required the PEP to vote on closure proposals.

  • Docluke56

    Why doesn’t anyone report that these PEP hearings are rigged? It is reported like there will be a fair vote at these hearings.

  • Transformation Teacher

    Read one of the EIS statements. It still doesn’t make it clear whether the Doe will be aiming to fire half of the staff exactly/more than/less than.

  • Manhattan70

    DOE has added 15 more schools to the April 26 PEP meeting for turnaround.

  • Mosaic

    As of right now, I see 15 schools slated for a closure vote on the DOE website.  Since eight schools were reported yesterday and seven more have been added, I’m assuming that even more could be added.  I’m confused by this whole scenario.  Why can’t there be a definite list?  The whole idea of not knowing your fate is torturous.

    Btw, @ Transformation teacher.  Lehman is now on the closure list.

  • Jfur48

    Where is Long Island City HS?

  • Ubayed Muhith

    Lehman high school has been doing extraordinarily well from the transformation fund we received this September. It’s not rocket science, lack of funding was one of the primary reasons we struggled in the past few years.So why derail us of our recent success with the turnaround, when haven’t been given at least a year to fare with the transformation fund?

  • Guest

    How are the EIS statements being crafted?   Who is writing them?  I’m curious……….

    Many of the statements for the proposed turnaround schools are repetitive –  the gist seems to be that existing “successful” practices/programs will be enhanced and that new staff will automatically result in better test and graduation results.   This is the new mantra -proven, of course, by no evidence whatsoever.

    Some of the data cited is also interesting – for example, in regards to various metrics these schools are cited as being in the bottom 30-40% of NYC high schools.  However, these schools certainly do not represent 30% of NYC high schools. I wonder how many other city high schools have similar metrics as those identified for Turnaround — basically,  a gradation rate at or around 60% and difficulty in making AYP for some subgroups. 

    How many othercity high schools are strugging and may be identified as closure/turnaround/restart/ transformation/PLA soon?    Why are so many high schools in the city struggling? 

  • Guest

    edited for spelling

    “graduation”
    “struggling”

  • Guest

    Where do the teachers who are being replaced (the 50% leaving the school) go? Are they just shuffled to other schools in the system or will they take on other non-teaching assignments in the DOE? Presumably they haven’t been rated Unsatisfactory for two years in a row (so very few ever are), and their leaders may not have the requisite paper work in order to support their dismissal from the system entirely.

  • Unhappy Career Educator

    It is frustrating to see that the Impact Statements are really saying that the schools have not done their job.  The system failed.  Mr. Bloomberg is unhappy that he didn’t get what he wanted, so he changes the rules of the game 1/3 of the way through.

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