Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Queens Renewal High Schools Keep Losing Students.



























In my last post I listed the "dirty dozen" high schools in Queens that had the highest student vacancies after the first round of high school selection in 2017 and prominently on that list were the Renewal Schools.  In fact, the top two schools were Renewal Schools.  They were Long Island City High School with 570 student vacancies and John Adams with 500 student vacancies.  In the top five was another two Renewal Schools, Flushing (230 vacancies) and August Martin (200 vacancies) High Schools.  The large amount of student vacancies at the Renewal Schools demonstrates that fewer and fewer students are applying for these academically struggling schools with an inexperienced teaching staff.

To show that the Renewal high schools have failed to attract students to their building I used the last three years of data (2015-17) of the student vacancies associated with the second round of high school choice associated with these struggling high schools.

................................Student.Vacancies
High School...............2015...2016...2017

Long Island City..........373.....406.....570
John Adams................530.....411.....500
August Martin..............454.....303.....200
Flushing......................194.....200.....230
Martin Van Buren.........239.....129.....175
Pan American...............40......126.....110
Richmond Hill...............31.......62.......75

Interestingly, most of the Renewal high schools have seen their, already high student vacancy rate increase over the last three years.  Long Island City, Flushing, John Adams, Pan American, and Richmond Hill  shows an overall increase in student vacancies between 2015 and 2017.  Both August Martin and Martin Van Buren were downsized in the last two years and that accounts for their reduction in student vacancies since they are now a much smaller school in 2017 than they were in 2015.

It appears as the poor reputation of the Renewal High Schools has spread throughout the Borough of Queens, more parents and students are excluding these schools from their high school choice list and this forces the schools to either excess teachers or take the "over-the-counter-students" who are usually "high needs" with academic, behavior, or language issues.  The very type of student that the struggling Renewal schools that made them what they are today.

Chancellor Carmen Farina may claim that she sees the light at the end of the tunnel for the turnaround of the Renewal high schools but the light really is the oncoming locomotive about to destroy the Renewal School program as the schools continue to shed students and teachers.




14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Chaz what happens if these schools listed (and all of the ones not listed) don't make it off the list by the end of this year? I am assuming that they close for good and then reopen under a different name/staff body.

Thanks

Anonymous said...

More ATRs?

waitingforsupport said...

Who are the ATR supervisors that enjoy abusing teachers?

Anonymous said...

Many of them, but lawsuits will be filed for age discrimination and harassment.

Anonymous said...

Most of these supervisors are coming with an agenda.

Chaz said...

Anon 5:14

Based upon the Queens High Schools, I don't see how any of them are getting off the Renewal train.

Anonymous said...

TRAGIC SCHOOL MURDER FACTUAL INFORMATION FROM ATR GUIDANCE COUNSELOR WHO SPENT 4 WEEKS AT THIS SCHOOL.

Here are some facts from an ATR guidance counselor who was at this school for 4 weeks before being "rotated" out of the school. Yes, this tiny little high school sits on the 5th floor of basically an elementary school building. The High School has the top floor (5) and the rest of the building is elementary though 8th grade.

To get to the high school you have to walk up 5 stories as there is no elevator in the building. When you get to the top floor you are out of breath. The school lacks DOE guidance counselors or social workers but rather they have a "no profit" group up there with people pretending to be guidance counselors and social workers but they have little training and most of them are just a bit older than the students themselves not to mention no where near any post graduate study mastering in counseling or social work.

When I was assigned to the school as an ATR guidance counselor they made me sit at a table all day and do nothing. Meanwhile the people from the non profit organization worked with students or should I say they did very little to support kids and after speaking with some of the workers from the non profit group I was shaking my head in disbelief in thinking that the DOE chooses to rotate their "real" social emotional people such as guidance counselors and social workers and keep these no nothing cheap labor bozos to guide the kids. The result unfortunately is quite tragic but maybe a wake up call to the DOE to make sure they get their social emotional people in the schools now!!!

Anonymous said...

Chaz I thought the max period for the renewal program was three years?

Chaz said...

Anon 1:10

Not true.

Anonymous said...

Justin Starke harasses senior teachers.....a total imbecile

chris said...

With the new ESSA rules . They won't be closing any of those high schools. The Mayor ,new chancellor and Betty Rosa don't want to close schools. Cuomo has backed off that mantra and went to bigger scummer things .

Anonymous said...

Chaz, when Diblasio first announced this program, I'm pretty sure he did say that the schools only had a three year timeframe to get off this list, otherwise they close. He actually made that statement when he first introduced the program on record at RHHS back in 2015.

Anonymous said...

6:42

True that!

I just met the "imbecile" Stark this week. Gave me a plan of improvement after 21 years of teaching.

Anonymous said...

He is just a hitman. He does the duty work.