City Withdraws Proposal To Close Washington Heights High School

WASHINGTON HEIGHTS, NY — The city Department of Education has reversed course on a decision to close the High School for Health Careers and Sciences in Washington Heights, a department representative said.

The High School for Health Careers and Sciences — one of four campuses located in the George Washington Educational Campus on Audubon Avenue and West 192nd Street — will remain open for at least one more year, a DOE spokesman said. The decision not to close the school was made due to community support for the school and a city panel's decision to postpone a vote on closing the campus.

"After receiving extensive community feedback and listening to discussions at last night’s PEP meeting, we revaluated the proposal to close the High School for Health Careers and Sciences and have decided to withdraw it," a DOE spokesman said in a statement.

"The school will remain in the Renewal program for an additional year and we will work closely with Superintendent Ramirez’s office to provide the community with additional resources including hands-on support from their Director of School Renewal, instructional coaching and targeted graduation support, to ensure the school makes the necessary progress.”

The Panel for Educational Policy did not vote on whether or not to close the High School for Health Careers and Sciences at the end of the school year, education publication Chalkbeat first reported. The high school was initially targeted for closure due to its low performance despite inclusion in the city's renewal school program, according to an educational impact statement released by the DOE.

Five other schools in the renewal program — which gives struggling schools extra funding and resources to help them turn around — were approved for closure by the panel, Chalkbeat reported. The decision not to close the High School for Health Careers and Sciences is significant because the panel generally sides with the mayor's administration and Department of Education.

The High School for Health Careers and Sciences struggles when it comes to both academics and enrollment, according to the DOE. The schools' college readiness rate of 21 percent is 29 points below the borough-wide average of 50 percent and its graduation rate has fallen from 70 percent in 2014-2015 to 62 percent in 2016-2017, according to an Educational Impact Statement. Enrollment has dropped from 657 students during the 2012-2013 school year to its current 466 students, according to the Environmental Impact Statement.

City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez and Borough President Gale Brewer praised the panel's decision not to close the school Wednesday night.

"We thank the Panel for Educational Policy for doing its job, listening to the many community members who testified, and deciding to review this matter further instead of forging ahead with an ill-advised closure plan," Rodriguez and Brewer said in a joint statement. "We look forward to working with the mayor and the Department of Education in the coming weeks on strategies to strengthen this high school and others across Manhattan that need help."

Students, teachers, parents and local politicians showed strong support for keeping the High School for Health Careers and Sciences open in the weeks leading up to the Wednesday night vote.

Closing the High School for Health Careers and Sciences would unfairly punish students for the failures of the Department of Education, supporters said at a City Hall rally one week before the panel meeting. Shutting the school down would signal the city is admitting its failure to improve the school, and would send a bad message to the rest of the city, elected officials said.

"Fixing schools, yeah it's hard, it requires patience," Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said at the rally. "You need to be able to wait quite a bit of time — 2 or 3 years — for the reforms to take root. But the philosophy that everything needs to improve quickly or we'll just blow it up is rocking students' lives, families' lives and erasing the hard work that's already been done."

Photo by Patch