Class Dismissed at Lafayette

It's just too bad they didn't dismiss the whole class years ago. Here's the story from the NY Daily News.

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Class dismissed
BY TANYANIKA SAMUELS and BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Tuesday, December 12th, 2006

Five failing high schools were slated for closure yesterday, including a Brooklyn campus boasting a principal who was a grad of Mayor Bloomberg's elite Leadership Academy.

Education officials said dismal graduation rates, consistently low test scores and lackluster demand prompted the schools' shuttering.

The soon-to-be defunct institutions are Lafayette High in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn; South Shore High in Canarsie, Brooklyn; Samuel J. Tilden High in East Flatbush, Brooklyn; Urban Peace Academy in East Harlem, and the School for the Physical City in Gramercy Park.

Education brass met with teachers and principals at all of the schools yesterday to break the news.

"These are schools that we've reviewed for a long time and have a track record of low performance and difficult circumstances," said Melody Meyer, spokeswoman for the Department of Education.

Sources said Jolanta Rohloff, Lafayette's controversial principal and a graduate of Bloomberg's Leadership Academy for principals, was the primary catalyst for the surprise decision.

But Education Department spokesman David Cantor defended Rohloff: "We think that she has performed very well in difficult circumstances."

Since arriving at the Bensonhurst school in 2005, Rohloff has had a series of missteps, including docking students' grades for failing to score higher than 65 on Regents exams and paying teachers overtime to tidy up their classrooms.

She also prompted a student walkout by having a mural they created painted over and caused outrage this year by withholding textbooks from students for up to six weeks.

"It is no secret that there have been problems at Lafayette, so its closing is not surprising," said United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

"As to Lafayette, we are working with the DOE to create a redesigned school - and potentially two new schools - that parents will want to send their children to and where educators will want to teach," she said.

The schools will be phased out over the next three years, with the three large Brooklyn high schools likely replaced by smaller schools.

More detailed plans will be released next month, Meyer said.

The schools will not accept ninth-graders in the fall. The approximately 6,100 students already enrolled at the campuses will be allowed to graduate from them, the last classes in 2010.

Graduation rates at all of the schools have routinely been well below the citywide average of 58%.

Crime has also been an issue at several schools, especially Tilden, which in August was named among the 17 most violent public schools in the state.