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Teacher Damaris Mercado speaks at the closure hearing for Jane Addams High School Jan. 25.

The city’s bid to close Jane Addams High School for Academic Careers will proceed without the principal who helmed the school during its recent slide.

Department of Education officials said Wednesday, moments after a public hearing about the closure plan, that this is Sharon Smalls’ last week as principal at Jane Addams.

Smalls’ resignation comes as city investigators are scrutinizing how her administration handed out course credits after teachers reported that she had been giving students math and history credits for classes such as cosmetology and tourism.

Smalls was present at the closure hearing but declined to comment on the investigation or her resignation.

Stephen Tavano, the United Federation of Teachers chapter leader at Jane Addams, told reporters that morale among teachers has been down since the news broke three months ago that the crediting problems had put some students at risk of not graduating and that an investigation would begin.

“The staff is down in the dumps. We’ve been stressed under her so-called leadership,” Tavano said. “It’s emotional for the teachers and guidance counselors.”

But of the dozens of teachers and parents who took the microphone at Wednesday evening’s hearing to defend the school’s career training programs, few mentioned Smalls. Two of the teachers told me during the hearing that they were not aware of her resignation.

Through tears, several teachers and graduates told Department of Education officials that the school deserved to stay open because of its 82-year legacy in the Morrisania, Bronx, community and its state-certified Career and Technical Education programs in nursing, cosmetology, and tourism. (more…)

A picture taken by Civic Builders days after ground broke on construction in June 2010; The school was completed on Aug. 18 this year.

By the time Hyde Leadership Charter School expanded into high school grades three years ago, overcrowding at their co-located Department of Education building had become severe. Limited to two floors for over 700 students, classes were held in hallways and high school students complained of filthy conditions in the bathroom they had to share with elementary students.

“It was terrible,” said Dominic Batista, a junior. “It was like a jail.”

Rather than jockey for more space in an increasingly crowded public school system, the growing school took a road less traveled for a charter school in New York City. Keeping its elementary and middle school at P.S. 92, Hyde developed a private facility for its high school just down the road on Hunts Point Avenue in the south Bronx.

Today, the gleaming 30,000 square foot building was on display at an official ribbon-cutting ceremony with elected officials and community members. Inside the auditorium – which splits time as a gymnasium and cafeteria – Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. recalled how prostitutes and arson used to dominate this stretch of Hunts Point Avenue in the South Bronx. Hyde Leadership, he said, was an example of how the area, still the nation’s poorest congressional district, was turning a corner.

The facility was developed and is now managed by Civic Builders, the nonprofit real estate developer for charter schools. The group bought the property in 2010 with lending help from Goldman Sachs and the Low Income Investment Fund.

The price for giving up rent-free public space – about $1 million more per year – was worth it, said Celia Sosa, the school’s director.

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