They’re looking back to go forward.
The city is reviving a zone for struggling schools that provides extra resources and intensive supports – along with much closer scrutiny from top education brass, The Post has learned.
The initiative, which embodies Mayor de Blasio’s mantra of trying to prop up failing schools rather than shutter them, is modeled after one launched in 1996 by former Chancellor Rudy Crew that put a group of low-performing schools under his direct supervision.
Known as the “Chancellor’s District,” it had decent success before being disbanded by former schools chief Joel Klein in 2003.
In the new iteration, about a dozen high schools – including Boys and Girls HS in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Automotive HS in Williamsburg – will report to one district superintendent, according to multiple sources.
An additional selection of roughly a dozen schools – mostly middle schools, along with some elementary schools – would get the extra supports but would be kept separate, sources said.
The initiative will also assign top-level DOE officials to direct oversight of one or more of the struggling schools – something one source described as “adopt-a-school.”
“When I heard it discussed, I thought of the Chancellor’s District,” said Boys and Girls HS principal Bernard Gassaway, whose students often arrive a year or two behind grade level. “I’m guardedly optimistic that the funding and support that will come with this initiative will even the playing field.”
Under the former Chancellor’s District, teachers were given extra pay if they committed to work at struggling schools for a number of years.
It’s not clear if that will be part of the new initiative. But the new teachers contract makes that option newly possible because it includes financial incentives for those who are willing to work at hard-to-staff schools.
The proposal – which has yet to be made public – must also be approved by the State Education Department.
And while the city administration is averse to closing schools, the state has its own criteria for holding schools accountable – some of which are mandated by federal rules.
“If the schools don’t show progress, they’ve got to worry about the state coming down on them,” said a source familiar with the plan. “I don’t think closure is off the table, after they’ve done everything they could for them.”
The city’s initiative is rooted in de Blasio’s campaign platform from 2013, which called for a “War Room” to intervene at struggling schools. It also called for replacing not just the principals but also their supporting staffers when leadership is deemed to be a problem.
Despite also being rooted in the experiment undertaken by Crew, there’s a clear effort not to invoke the name “Chancellor’s District” this time around.
“They’re not going to ever use that term again,” said one source. “People don’t want to go backwards.”