Choir Academy of Harlem Takes Advantage of Reprieve
Last year, city education officials issued the Choir Academy of Harlem a death sentence. Unable to find its footing after a 2001 scandal that led to the demise of its founding organization, the famed Harlem Boys Choir, the school, along with 18 others, “lacked the capacity to improve student performance,” and would be closed, the city said.
But then the unexpected happened. A judge reversed the closings on a relative technicality. Given an extra year, the Choir Academy raised its graduation rate to above the city’s average, and in so doing, it saved itself. The city announced this week that it would allow Choir Academy to stay open.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to tell a school it doesn’t have capacity, because that’s also telling the principal she doesn’t have capacity,” A. Ellen Parris, the principal, said Tuesday. The crisis did not bring additional resources, she said, but it did help to rally the school. “I am the kind of person that if you give me one good chance, I will take advantage of that.”
The city announced 14 schools on Tuesday that it will seek to close for poor performance, bringing the total number of schools it will recommend for closing this year to 26, the most since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg began using the policy as a cornerstone of his effort to improve the school system. The city must hold public hearings in each of the 26 schools before the Panel for Educational Policy, which is controlled by the mayor, formally votes to close them in February.
Of those schools, 15 had been scheduled to close last year before the judge’s ruling, including Jamaica High School in Queens, Paul Robeson High School in Brooklyn and Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx. At Robeson, the news on Tuesday brought bitter disappointment.
“We asked the city to help us turn our school around,” said Stefanie Siegel, the coordinator of student affairs, “but there has been no support here.”
Four schools saved by last year’s ruling, including the Choir Academy and W. H. Maxwell Career and Technical Education High School in Brooklyn, improved enough to avoid closing for at least one year, the city said. Additional schools that the city recommended be closed include Performance Conservatory High School in the Bronx, Roberto Clemente Middle School in Manhattan and Ryder Elementary School in Brooklyn.
Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld, a city schools spokesman, said: “These are the most difficult decisions we make, and they come after an exhaustive and thoughtful process. We make decisions based on the most recent information we have.”
Officials had announced over the past several weeks that 55 schools, including many large high schools, were being considered for closing, a process that happens over several years. Students already enrolled are allowed to graduate, but no new grades are admitted, and typically, a new school, or several new and smaller schools, are given the space.
But while there was some relief at the more than two dozen schools that were spared, there was also anxiety. They may still face corrective action from the state, including “transformation” in which the principal is removed but the teachers may remain. The city is also seeking an agreement with the teacher’s union to allow a federal model known as school “turn-around,” in which the principal and half the teachers must leave, but the school stays open.
“People are waiting with bated breath, because these are people’s lives here,” said Dominick Scarola, the principal of Grover Cleveland High School in Queens, adding he believed his school would be selected for transformation.
Reesa Levy, the principal of Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn, which avoided closing, said she announced over the loudspeaker on Tuesday: “It’s not over, it’s just begun, and we all have to be on the same page.”
Choir Academy opened in 1993 in cooperation with the Boys Choir of Harlem. Many students were members of the choir, rehearsing after classes, and Walter J. Turnbull, the choir’s founder, was a driving force. But allegations that Dr. Turnbull had failed to properly report the sexual abuse of a student by a school counselor began a slide that led both the school and the choir to falter.
Dr. Turnbull and his staff were barred from the building in 2006, and by the time Dr. Parris arrived three years ago, the school had been through four or five leaders. The students were traumatized over the loss of the choir, and the staff felt beaten down. The result was disorder. “The students were more in control of the school than the teachers,” Dr. Parris said.
Slowly, the school began to stabilize. The bad publicity hurt the school enrollment, but also had the effect of shrinking class size, making it easier to give students individual attention. These days, there are just 25 ninth graders, one-third the normal amount, and enough instruments in the school band that every student can sign one out and take it home. The school received a “B” on its annual report card, and the graduation rate is now 70 percent.
By SHARON OTTERMAN“We kept faith when the Department of Education was losing faith,” said Willie Abercrombie, 17, a senior who plans to be an engineer. “The students are doing more for the school now. It’s up to us.”