Metro

HS’s expelling bee

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A high-performing Bronx public high school has been maintaining its 95 percent graduation rate by forcing dozens of students who underperform to transfer to other schools, students, staffers and other sources charge.

The underhanded practice by the Bronx Health Sciences HS in Baychester lets it shed unwanted students to keep its pristine academic record, while hurting the booted kids and the stats at the schools that accept them, they said.

Sources said dozens of students have been handed their walking papers in recent years, and that parents are pressured into signing forms that make the involuntary transfers appear aboveboard.

“Basically, any student who in someone’s eyes isn’t worth the trouble and not worth investing in — they just pass the buck on them,” said a source familiar with the school. “The parents, a lot of them don’t realize they have a choice and they can say no. So they kind of steamroll over the parents.”

Terrence Allen, a 19-year-old now at Bronx Regional HS, said Bronx Health Sciences HS prevented him from attending summer school when he fell behind in credits last year — and then blocked him from entering the building at the start of last school year.

“I’m very upset,” he told The Post. “I did not want to transfer.”

His mom said she signed his transfer papers only because he had missed three weeks of school as a result of Bronx Health Science’s forced lockout.

She said complaints to the Department of Education and the city’s 311 line have gone unanswered.

“My son showed up for school in September last year and they told him, ‘Oh, no, no, no. You no longer go to this school,’ ” said Julie-Ann Allen. “They broke every rule in the book.”

A Department of Education spokeswoman said the agency is taking the allegations seriously and is looking into the claims.

Many students who fall behind voluntarily seek to attend transfer schools — which are smaller and can provide additional support, she said.

Principal Miriam Rivas, who earned $24,000 in bonuses over the past three years for her school’s performance, did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

Bronx Health Sciences HS’s senior class had just 58 students count toward its overall graduation rate in 2011, even though there had been 107 students in the freshman class four years earlier — a stunning loss of 46 percent.

The Post reported yesterday on other alleged rule-breaking at Rivas’ school, where students claim they are granted half a year’s worth of course credits in just 10 days of summer classes.

Additional reporting by Kate Kowsh