New York City Will Close or Merge 19 Schools, Most From Renewal Program

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Nineteen of New York City’s most poorly performing schools will be closed or merged, the Education Department announced on Monday.

Fourteen of the schools are part of the city’s Renewal Schools program, which provides support and extra funding to struggling schools around the city. Five schools in the Renewal program will be combined with other schools, while another 21 schools will graduate out of the program.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the program just over three years ago, pledging to flood the schools with support where the previous administration preferred to shut down schools that struggled and replace them. Renewal is slated to cost $582 million by the end of this academic year, and so far, there is scarce evidence that the schools have made significant improvement.

Among the schools the city plans to close, many have seen their enrollment fall, even precipitously. The Coalition School for Social Change had 311 students in the 2013-14 school year, the year before the program was announced. During the last school year, it had just 161 students. Such a small population can make it difficult for principals to create a workable budget, because schools are funded in part by how many students they have.

Despite the investment the city has made, parents appear to be avoiding schools in the Renewal program. Enrollment at 52 Renewal Schools fell by at least 10 percent from the 2014-15 school year to the 2016-17 school year. Only six schools saw their enrollment increased by at least 10 percent during that time.

Not all the schools being closed are in Renewal. Among the schools slated for closure is the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation in the Bronx, where this fall a high school student who said he felt bullied stabbed two other students, killing one of them. A student in the middle school said he tried to hang himself in February because he had been so tormented by his peers.

The 21 schools that will begin their transition out of the Renewal program will be called “Rise” schools. The Education Department said these schools each met at least 67 percent of the goals set for their improvements, and as a group, saw growth in measures like graduation rates, attendance and college readiness. Among those schools are the Renaissance School of the Arts in Manhattan and John Adams High School in Queens.

Graduating schools will remain in the city’s Community Schools program, which creates partnerships with social service organizations to help with things like the attendance and supporting the social and emotional needs of students.

Aaron Pallas, the chairman of the department of education policy at Columbia University’s Teachers College, said that many Renewal School principals have been ambivalent about the program. They’ve been happy to have the extra resources that come with it, but the label has been somewhat stigmatizing.

So what will those schools look like when the extra money goes away?

“That is an interesting longer term question about sustainability,” Mr. Pallas said. “To what extent does this program really hinge on the influx of dollars, and if those dollars are removed, what is going to happen?”