NEW YORK – Five schools in New York City will be closing due to low graduation rates and general poor performance, the Department of Education announced on Dec. 11. They will be replaced by smaller schools with student bodies no larger than 400-500.
Lafayette, Samuel J. Tilden and South Shore, three Brooklyn high schools, and Urban Peace Academy and School for the Physical City, two Manhattan high schools, will be phased out over a three-year period beginning next September.
Tilden, whose four-year graduation rate is 43.5 percent, has been designated an “impact school,” a label referring to schools with safety problems in need of extra attention from police. Lafayette and South Shore were at one point also impact schools.
The five schools were managed by principals who had graduated from the New York City Leadership Academy, a private training program developed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Seventeen other schools in New York have closed or are slated to close.
