A teacher weighs his role in fueling a closure policy he detests | GothamSchools

A teacher weighs his role in fueling a closure policy he detests | GothamSchools:

A teacher weighs his role in fueling a closure policy he detests

by Philissa Cramer

Mayor Bloomberg announces the city's new schools in April. Often, educators who help start new schools occupy classrooms vacated as another school closes.

It’s a dilemma that thousands of city educators have faced in the last decade: Should they work in a new school, knowing that its existence was made possible by another school’s closure?
When high school social studies teacher (and teachers union activist) Stephen Lazar was confronted with the question last year, he chose to help start the new school — but not without strong reservations.
Today in the Community section, Lazar outlines the thinking that led him to Harvest Collegiate High School, which opened this year in the space being vacated by Legacy High School for Integrated Studies, which is in the first year of being phased out.
In the third piece in a series about helping to open the new school, Lazar writes:

I’m excited for Harvest Collegiate High School to be born, but for that to happen, Legacy High