Chancellor orders troubled Brooklyn charter school to close
Chancellor Joel Klein signed an order today to close a Brooklyn charter school that city school officials said had some of the most egregious charter violations they’d ever seen.
In June, East New York Preparatory Charter School will become the fourth charter school to close in the city’s history. In his recommendation to Klein that the school close, Deputy Chancellor John White wrote that although the charter school’s new board members acknowledged prior wrongdoing, many problems remained.
“ENYP has not presented any evidence responding to the findings that lower performing students were being involuntarily transferred from the school or discouraged from attending the school,” White wrote.
Klein’s decision marks an end to a contentious closure process that pitted parents who wanted the school to remain open against city officials charged with making sure the school followed its charter.
That conflict erupted at a public meeting in February, where parents pleaded with the department to keep the school open, saying the neighborhood offered few other viable options and the wait-lists for other charter schools were impossibly long.
Students currently enrolled in East New York Prep will have to transfer to other district or charter schools next year. To ease their transition, the department is offering a new option: a one-year program run out of P.S. 323 that East New York Prep students in grades two through five can opt into. According to DOE charter school
With ‘turnarounds’ coming, new school creation proceeds apace
Principal hopefuls line up outside Wagner Middle School to enter the city's new school creation fair.
But before she can get started, Vargas must persevere through the city’s new school creation process. She took the first step Thursday night by joining more than 400 other school leader hopefuls at a fair to learn about what the city wants to see in new schools.
Every year, the Department of Education opens new schools — more than 400 since 2002. Director of Portfolio Planning Debra Kurshan told fair attendees that the city intends to keep up the pace in 2011.