State Education Department officials this evening approved the city’s controversial bid to improve 24 struggling schools by closing, restaffing and reopening them while keeping the students in place.
They also oddly announced the “conditional” approval of $60 million in grants to help boost the reconstituted schools — even though the city hasn’t yet met all the requirements to secure the funding.
SED spokesman Dennis Tompkins said officials pulled the trigger on the late Friday announcement — rather than simply waiting for the city to meet all the conditions first — because they had promised the city an answer by mid-June.
He also cited “persistent media requests” for the premature announcement.
The state’s final decision on the grant money will depend in part on how the city restaffs the schools — something that will be known next week after an arbitrator rules on a contract dispute between the city and the teachers’ union.
State officials also said the city must prove it has consulted with teachers, principals and parents about its plans for the two-dozen reincarnated schools— a sign the city has been unable to provide evidence for a vital element of its applications in all the months since it submitted them in late March.
The city only has until July 1st to provide evidence that the plans were collaborative.
State officials also forced the DOE to address a complaint that it has been placing the most challenging students into struggling schools identified as Persistently Low Achieving — a practice critics say sets the schools up to fail.
City officials admitted that they sent nearly 2,000 students who were special education, overage or not fluent in English to struggling schools mid-year in the 2010-11 school year.
Despite years of complaints, education officials only started to test out a plan to address the long-running placement problem this year, without public notification.
They’ll be required to show they’re not overburdening the 24 schools with challenging students in order to secure the grants.