GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

A small but raucous crowd turned out for a closure hearing at Academy of Business Community and Development Tuesday.

When senior Omar Herara ranked Academy of Business and Community Development as one of his top high school choices four years ago, he admits he didn’t know it was an all-boys school or much else about it either.

“At first, it was an accident,” Herara said. “I chose it because it had ‘business’ in the name.”

Herara, who wants to become an entrepreneur, said the decision turned out to be serendipitous. At a hearing on the school’s future Tuesday evening, he said he now viewed the school with a sense of pride.

“I hope to come back and visit ABCD when I graduate,” said Herara, who will study business management at Monroe College in New Rochelle in the fall.

That prospect looks increasingly bleak. Herara is the only senior who is on pace to graduate this year, one of several reasons that the Department of Education is taking the unusual step to completely shutter the ABCD middle and high schools at the end of the school year. Most schools are phased out, one year at a time, but officials said that low enrollment — coupled with poor academic performance — made it virtually impossible to survive on the system’s funding formula, which allocates money on a per-pupil basis. (more…)