They don’t want no education — especially if it’s at August Martin HS in Queens.
The troubled Springfield Gardens school is the least popular in the entire city, Department of Education statistics show.
Under New York’s open-enrollment system, all middle-schoolers apply to attend the high school of their choice. For academic powerhouses like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science, the number of students who want to get in far exceeds the number of seats.
But so few asked to be placed in August Martin that it still has room to accept 774 students, DOE records revealed.
That number exceeds the 445 freshman seats August Martin normally has, since the DOE expects even students who pick the school in the second round to drop out or go somewhere else.
The DOE refused to say how many students have been assigned to the school for the fall so far.
It raises the question why August Martin is still in business, considering it had a dismal 39 percent graduation rate in 2013 and got an “F” in student performance and progress.
“This school holds students back, especially the ones who are doing well,” one anonymous student posted online. “They treat us and talk to us as if we’re animals.”
The school also has a reputation for violence. Students committed at least 72 offenses in the 2011-2012 school year, including eight assaults, two sex offenses and 19 instances of intimidation, state records show.
“There are ALWAYS fights around the school,” posted one critic. “My friend’s teenage son attends there, and it is terrible that he cannot read, or write properly.”
Middle-school kids in the five boroughs listed up to 12 of their high-school preferences last December and most were placed in one of their choices last month. But about 10 percent of prospective freshmen were shut out of their choices and must find a school in the second round.
Other unpopular high schools based on the number of spots they can offer include Boys and Girls HS in Brooklyn, DeWitt Clinton in The Bronx and Murry Bergtraum in Manhattan.
Boys and Girls got “F”s in student performance and college and career readiness in 2012, and had a 44 percent graduation rate in 2013. It can offer up to 475 freshman slots there for the 2014-2015 academic year — 125 more than the 350 freshmen slots this year.
“It’s startling to see these numbers,” said Pamela Wheaton, the managing editor of InsideSchools.org, a Web site that tracks city public schools’ performance. “It shows nobody applied to these schools. Nobody wants to attend.”
For the 10 percent of students without a high school, “there’s no question that at this point in the process it gets harder and harder,” said Maurice Frumkin, who served as the DOE’s deputy director of student enrollment and now runs a consulting firm focused on admissions to city schools. “At this point, they’re making reluctant choices.”
“Students receive an offer to a school but may end up moving, going to private or parochial school, going to a specialized high school,” he added.