P.S. 154 Drops from A to C in City's Report Card

P.S. 154 parents might be angry about a report card—but this time, it's not their kid's fault.

The Department of Education on Monday released its annual report cards for the city's elementary and middle schools, and results around Windsor Terrace and Kensington were mixed: P.S. 130 maintained its A, P.S. 179 stuck with its C. 

P.S. 154, which just last year scored an A, dropped to a C due to its D in Student Progress, which accounts for 60 percent of the overall grade. (It received an A and a B in Student Performance and School Environment, respectively.) 

The school's Parent Coordinator Debby Wattenbarger said fluctuation in the city's grading system is par for the course. 

"If you really take a look at the history of those reports you can see that over the last few years we go up and down and up and down," she said. 

"There are so many different intricate pieces to the report, just the grade itself doesn't really give the full picture."

She said that parent response will likely be mixed—new parents might be concerned, but more familiar parents are less apt to "take it to heart." 

"We understand around here that we get better and better whether the grade says it or not," she said. 

According to the New York Times, a quarter of the schools received A grades, while nine percent of schools got slapped with D and F grades. Education Department officials announced that in addition to the D and F schools, they will also look into “triple-C” schools, or schools that haven’t earned better than a C grade in the past three years. According to the paper, the number of these triple-C schools jumped from 5 last year to 114 this year.

In all, 304 schools received A’s, 421 received B’s, 365 received C’s, 80 received D’s and 23 received F’s, which, according to the paper was on par with last year’s results.

Here are the results of the schools in Windsor Terrace and Kensington:

• P.S. 134 received an A
• Ditmas I.S. 62 received a B
• P.S. 130, The Parkside School, received an A
• P.S. 154, The Windsor Terrace School, received a C
• P.S. 179 received a C

Shael Polakow-Suransky, chief academic officer for the Education Department, called the new assessment practices for schools “richer,” as well as tougher and more balanced.

The Times says that officials will finalize a list of schools marked for “early engagement” by next week – meaning schools that may close, have a principal replaced, or other stringent measures. Including high schools, 40 schools were on that list last year.