Saturday, December 5, 2009

Chaz's School Daze: Shame On Tweed For Closing Down Jamaica High School - Shame, Shame, Shame


"It has finally happened! Chancellor Joel Klein and his non-educator flunkies at Tweed have finally succeeded in destroying one of the great schools in New York City with a century long history, Jamaica High School. Yesterday the DOE formally announced the closing of Jamaica High School after they setup the school for failure. Under Joel Klein's tenure the school suffered from poor leadership, starved it for funds, was treated as an 'impact school' by the City in 2005, found itself unfairly placed on the State's 'most dangerous schools list' in 2007, and encouraged students to transfer out of the school or discouraged perspective students from selecting the school in the first place. The result was a school that was underpopulated while having large class sizes and only receiving the bottom feeders of the student body."

The closing of Jamaica High School was no great surprise to many who watched helplessly as Tweed dismantled the school step by step. I previously wrote about what the DOE was doing to the school Here, Here, Here, Here, and Here. Still, it was shocking that Tweed ignores the community and student body and goes on their merry way to destroy the traditional large high schools while lobbying for small or Charter schools to replace them. How ridiculous is it that nearby schools like Francis Lewis is bursting at the seams while Jamaica High School can't attract enough students to fill the school.