DOE Plans To Replace Ridgewood H.S.
The city’s Department of Education (DOE) officially announced on Tuesday, Feb. 28, that it intends to close Grover Cleveland High School in Ridgewood this June and replace it with a brand new district high school for area students when classes resume in September.
Grover Cleveland, located at 2127 Himrod St., was one of a number of public schools selected to be overhauled under the federal “turnaround” model, which calls for the dismissal of its current principal and at least 50 percent of the faculty and staff. The school was chosen after the state Department of Education previously declared that it was “persistently struggling.”
Under the turnaround model, the new principal would be given greater budgetary and “operational flexibil- ity” to enact “a comprehensive approach to substantially improve student outcomes,” according to the U.S. Department of Education.
In recent weeks, parents and students at the Ridgewood institution protested the plan, charging that it would be detrimental to the education of the students, adding that teachers at the school have worked diligently to improve the graduation rate and overall academic performance.
The plan announced by the city DOE on Tuesday would result in the closure of Grover Cleveland High School when the current school year concludes in June. All incoming sophomores, juniors and seniors would be guaranteed seats at the unnamed new school that will open at the Grover Cleveland campus in September.
“By closing Grover Cleveland and replacing it with [the] new school, the DOE is seeking to expeditiously improve educational quality on the Grover Cleveland campus,” according to a proposed closure notice issued by the DOE and received by the Times Newsweekly on Wednesday morning, Feb. 29. “If this proposal is approved, [the] new school will develop rigorous, schoolspecific competencies to measure and screen prospective staff-including Grover Cleveland staff who apply to work” there.
Eliminating Grover Cleveland and hiring new staff based on the established criteria would enable the new school to hire “the best possible staff” and “develop new programs and school supports that are intended to improve student outcomes.” The DOE would also increase the new school’s “chance of receiving up to $1.7 million in supplemental federal funding under the federal School Improvement Grant program.”
The DOE announced that it will hold a public hearing on the proposed closure of Grover Cleveland on Monday night, Apr. 2, at 6 p.m. at the campus located at 2127 Himrod St. The proposal will be voted on by the Panel for Educational Policy at their Apr. 26 meeting at the Prospect Heights Campus located at 883 Classon Ave. in Brooklyn.
The department is also accepting comments from the public in writing via e-mail at D24Proposals@schools. nyc.gov. To submit a comment orally, call 1-212-374-7621.
For additional information regarding this project, contact Elaine Gorman, Division of Portfolio Planning, 52 Chambers St., New York, N.Y. 10007. Copies of an environmental impact statement on the proposed closure of Grover Cleveland are available to pick up at the high school’s main office.
More information on this development will be featured in next week’s issue of the Times Newsweekly.
