By Lillian Rizzo
It is John Dewey High School’s most desperate moment, and the faculty and teachers are looking to the Department of Education for help. The only problem is, the DOE is their number one obstacle.
Dewey faces a problem that plagues many other city public high schools: low performance grades on annual report cards put the school in danger of being closed down and split apart into multiple schools. But Dewey is a little different.
Over the past eight years of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration, the city has closed 91 elementary, intermediate and high schools, dividing once large schools into “campus” models that reflect the growing belief that small is better. This past year 26 high schools are in danger of being closed and split apart – among them, John Dewey. But Dewey has been hailed as a beacon of progressive education in the years since its opening in 1969 and some of that spirit lingers. Its educators, parents and students are pushing back.
Dewey’s problems hit the spotlight last year when it was posted on the list of underperforming schools. At the same time, $17 million in federal aid was given to New York in January to aid the 56 underperforming statewide schools. In the city, 34 schools in danger of closing were to present a model to turn the school around in the next year in order to receive their $500,000 share.
Dewey made a plan, but the ax is still looming over. The DOE is apparently not convinced anything has improved due to low graduation rates and poor grades in what is called “school environment.” Rated on a scale of one to 10, a school’s environment is surveyed based on five areas: academic expectations, communication between teacher and student, engagement, safety and respect, and attendance. Dewey received a D in school environment and got its lowest grade in the communication category: 5.8. Dewey also received D’s for student progress and student performance.
According to the DOE Fact Sheet of Dewey as of Oct. 18, the high school has had graduation rates in the 50 percent range for the last five years. The graduation rate decreased dramatically in the last three years, falling below 60 percent in 2009-2010. The fact sheet also points out that in 2008 only 57 percent of the students earned at least 10 credits in their first year.
The future also holds another challenge for graduation rates. As of the next school year the DOE will force students to graduate from high school with a Regents diploma, which requires extra classes and above 65 grades on Regents exams. The fact sheet says that when this is applied to Dewey the four-year graduation rate will drop to 49 percent.
So Dewey remains on the list of schools to be “phased out” or turned into a campus, which would hold multiple schools in the one building. Dewey, though, is trying to change the DOE’s mind.
Its faculty and principle, Barry Fried, had their first meeting with the DOE on Oct. 18 and will continue to meet throughout the year until Dewey’s future is decided. New York City DOE High School Superintendent Aimee Horowitz said in a letter to Dewey that the DOE will continue to meet with the school and community members.
The DOE has different models of solution for underperforming schools. The most appealing route is the offer of federal funds and a change in principle. If this doesn’t work there are three other options. The first is a charter would take control of the school from the City; the second is that at least 50 percent of the staff is replaced with new teachers, sentencing the old ones to a pool for substitutes; the third option is closure, or breaking apart and turning into a campus.
If Dewey is closed then the school will stop accepting freshmen next year and will only house the remaining three years of students. While these students will stay in the building, other smaller schools will be created within the same walls.
Only a few blocks from Dewey, Lafayette High School in Bensonhurst was closed three years ago. In the 2007-2008 school year Lafayette was reopened as a campus after many years of low graduation rates, failing progress report grades and an increase in school violence. UFT members have found flaws in this kind of solution. They say it creates only a larger problem for New York City public education.
Thomas Bennett, a UFT Brooklyn high school representative, used Lafayette as an example of the problems with phasing out a school. He says low achievement students that would have attended Lafayette no longer have a place to go and are shuffled to the next closest school. “What happens to them? They go to Dewey.”
Principle Fried attributes the school’s poor grades to the recent higher standards of the DOE. In a notice sent out to the entire school community- teachers, students and parents- in the beginning of November, Fried wrote that these low grades are due to the “re-calculation of how progress report grades are determined.” He wrote Dewey’s 2009 graduation rate of 55 percent was the reason the school’s future existence is being questioned. New York State changed its graduation rate expectancy to 60 percent.
“The Department of Ed doesn’t seem to be hearing us, we’re not a bad school,” said Michael Solo, an art teacher at Dewey. “We’ve never been a school with difficulties.”
One thing that does set Dewey apart from schools that have been phased out, such as South Shore, Samuel J. Tilden and Lafayette, is its past as a leader in public education. Opened in 1969 as an experimental school that accepts students only who apply, Dewey sent students in large numbers to college, including schools in the Ivy League for many years.
In 1994 when the city threatened schools with the loss of an hour a day of classes due to budget cuts, The New York Times described Dewey students as perplexed about the shortened day. According to the Times, students had chosen to attend Dewey primarily because it was one of the only city schools that offered eight-hour long days, beefing up their college transcripts. Students organized petitions and threatened a sit-in if the hour was to be deducted.
Some of that attitude continues. The strong school spirit can still be found in protests being held now to keep Dewey open. For three Fridays in November, faculty, UFT and community members and students gathered in front of the gates at 7:15 until 7:50, before the first period class of the day. At the last protest on Nov. 19, about 200 people were present.
“Their first period is 8 a.m. and they have been coming out,” said Marie Ellen Gibbs a lab specialist of the science department. “They come off of the train and they join the line.”
Even though school grades are low, students and faculty feel Dewey has not lost the core students that kept it in the top tier of public schools up until about five years ago.
“I wasn’t surprised because a lot of schools have been closing but I was surprised because it was Dewey,” said senior Teddy Rungreang, holding an oak tag sign in the middle of the circular picket line. “This kind of shows how much dedication we have.” Rungreang is a member of the Classic Rock Club, which meets weekly to listen to music and play instruments. They hold school concerts throughout the year. The school website boasts its many clubs, events and organizations. In order to keep its main focus on academics, it never housed an athletic program.
Dewey alumni join current students at the protests, holding signs and walking with faculty. Former student Michelle Kaplun contacted such local politicians as assemblyman William Colton and councilman Dominic Recchia, Jr. about the situation; Colton has appeared at the protests.
“It was a big period in my life, I had great teachers,” said Kaplun who graduated in June and is a freshman at Long Island University. She says her teachers, primarily art teacher Michael Spooner, who was present at the protest, were the reason she joined the fight to keep Dewey open.
Faculty and students are trying to emphasize that Dewey is still a place where students excel. “This is a fantastic school,” said Gibbs. “We have good kids but you only hear about the bad kids.”
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