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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Students Mark School Closings With Memorial Service Outside DOE Headquarters « EdVox

Students Mark School Closings With Memorial Service Outside DOE Headquarters « EdVox

Students Mark School Closings With Memorial Service Outside DOE Headquarters

One hundred high school students from the Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC), New York City’s largest student-led group, gathered on the steps of the Department of Education headquarters today to hold a memorial service for the four high schools being closed at the end of this school year and the more than 30 others that have been closed by the Bloomberg administration so far.

The students held a funeral precession through City Hall Park up to the steps of the Tweed courthouse. There they conducted an entire service complete with coffins, flowers and eulogies as they mourned the schools’ untimely passing, and the administration’s failed policy of unnecessarily shutting down struggling schools instead of helping their students achieve success.

“We mourn not only the closing schools, but the death of public participation in education under Bloomberg,” said