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Department of Education officials have promised to resolve scheduling problems this week at Queens Metropolitan High School — and to keep a closer eye on the school in the future.

Officials from the DOE and Children’s First Network have visited the school multiple times in the past week, observing classes and meeting with parents and administrators. They will also sit in on future Parent-Teacher Association meetings, according to a list of promises that officials outlined in a meeting with PTA members at Queens Metropolitan High School last week.

Since early in the school year, parents at the year-old school have complained of missing textbooks, incompetent substitute teachers, and multiple schedule changes that forced students to miss gym class, electives, and some core subjects.

After he discussed the problems by phone with one parent, the city’s Chief Academic Officer Shael Polakow-Suransky, told the audience at November’s regular Panel for Education Policy meeting that the DOE would act quickly and aggressively to fix the problems.

He was not among the officials who met with parents last week at an open meeting in the school’s auditorium. The officials said they had worked late into the evenings and through the previous weekend to address the issues and create new schedules, which took effect today.

According to John Sadowski, the parent who originally contacted Polakow-Suransky and has a son in tenth grade at the school, the officials a detailed a shortlist of promises for improving the school: (more…)