By Ivan Pereira
After much controversy surrounding its decision to close down failing schools and replace them with smaller institutions, the city announced Friday a new approach to improve the campuses.
City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said the city Department of Education will be applying for federal funding to implement its “Transformation” model for 11 of the 34 city schools on its Persistently Lowest Achieving list. Several Queens schools, including Flushing High School, Queens Vocational and Technical HS and Long Island City HS, will be recipients of the funding, the DOE said.
“We will apply for the full three years of available federal funding in order to implement the appropriate models, once decided, beginning in the ’11-’12 school year,” Klein said in a statement.
Under the transformation plan, the DOE will hire two kinds of teachers — master teachers and turnaround teachers — and will place new principals in the schools. The selected schools will also receive $2 million a year in federal stimulus funding to give the institution more resources, according to the DOE.
There is no set plan on what the city will do with the remaining 23 schools, which include August Martin, Beach Channel, Jamaica, Richmond Hill, Newtown and Grover Cleveland high schools in Queens, according to Klein.
“We will continue investigation and engagement to determine which model of federally mandated action is best for the remaining 23 schools on the PLA list schools,” he said in a statement.
Reach reporter Ivan Pereira by e-mail at ipereira@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4546.
