What’s Next for the 34 Schools?
By Carol Boyd
Everyone knows that last Friday, Supreme Court Judge Joan Lobis ruled against the NYC Department of Education (DoE) for noncompliance with the terms of the new mayoral control laws in order to schedule closure of 19 city public schools. So far, so good but far too early to celebrate this cause célèbre
What you probably do not know is that less than 18 hours before the judges ruling, frustrated parents, students, teachers, clergy and communities at large from across the city gathered at Trinity Church in lower Manhattan to seek answers, to organize and to strategize on behalf of fixing and not closing the 34 schools identified by NY state as “persistently lowest-achieving” schools.
It was at this meeting that the people who should be viewed as key partners in such a process learned for the first time that due to the federal School Improvement Grants (SIG), the DOE is going to receive $500,000 to $2 million a year for three years to implement improvement programs in their school. They also heard for the first time that federal guidelines provide alternatives to school closure: restart, transformation and turnaround. At first,