A public hearing to discuss the city’s plans to co-locate Martin Van Buren High School will be held next month, education officials said.
The city’s Department of Education (DOE) has proposed adding a new early college within the struggling Queens Village school.
The two schools would share the 230-17 Hillside Avenue building, including its gym, cafeteria and auditorium.
A time and date was not yet specified, but officials said the hearing will take place in October.
The proposed Early College and Career Technical Education High School would serve grades nine to 14, which education officials say gives students the chance to get an associate degree while in high school. It would focus on computer science and business technology.
The DOE said last month it would open the Queens school and two of its kind in Manhattan by next September.
DOE spokesperson Devon Puglia said the handful of new schools citywide “will be a special new option that will deliver great outcomes for children.” He said the department is “confident it will be in very high demand.”
Early college programs give students “real-world work experience” through internships and focus on career readiness, officials said.
But Queens legislators, who rallied in July against the co-location plans, said the city would undo the progress Van Buren has made since Principal Sam Sochet took over last June.
Van Buren received a C in the DOE’s most recent progress report, which is based on student progress toward graduation, performance on standardized tests, coursework and student attendance. The school improved a full letter grade from the year before.
It was also acknowledged as “developing” during last year’s DOE evaluation, a step above the failing grade “underdeveloped.”
“One of the worst things that could happen to a school like Martin Van Buren is a co-location,” said State Senator Tony Avella. “Principal Sochet should be given every opportunity to restore the school to its former eminence.”
The number of applicants to the ninth to twelfth grade school has dropped by roughly 40 percent since the 2010-2011 school year, education officials said.
Van Buren was one of 22 schools in the city awarded $74.2 million in School Improvement Grants to be used over three years, State Education Commissioner John King Jr. announced in July.
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