More than a dozen public schools are facing impending closure, the city’s Department of Education announced Monday.
The closing schools include nine that are in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Renewal School Program, which aimed to improve 86 low-performing schools, and the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation in the Bronx, where a student fatally stabbed another student in September.
Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña told CBS2 that Wildlife Conservation’s enrollment was among several factors taken into consideration for its closure.
“Students have asked to leave,” she said, adding that no more than five students cited it as their first choice for next year. “In terms of trauma, it’s going to be more and more difficult and by anticipation for this is that by closing it and allowing the kids to go elsewhere that we’ll actually be offering them and the staff a better opportunity.”
On Sept. 27, 18-year-old Abel Cedeno admitted to fatally stabbing Matthew McCree, 15, in a fifth-floor classroom. Ariane Laboy, 16, was also stabbed in the altercation Cedeno later said was self-defense after he was bullied.
Five of the renewal schools will be merged. In addition to Wildlife Conservation, the slated-to-be-closed schools are:
• PS 050 Vito Marcantonio
• Coalition School for Social Change
• High School for Health Careers and Sciences
• New Explorers High School
• Urban Science Academy
• PS 92 Bronx School
• Brooklyn Collegiate: A College Board School
• PS/MS 42 R. Vernam
• MS 53 Brian Piccolo
• KAPPA IV
• Academy for Social Action
• Felisa Rincon de Gautier Institute
• Eubie Blake School
“We’re not giving up. We are just tweaking a little bit about where the support is needed,” Fariña said.
