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.