A controversial proposal to relocate a Manhattan transfer high school for students behind on credits will come for a final vote Monday by the school’s governing body.
Enrollment at Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School on the Upper West Side has decreased by 57% over the last five years, leading the city to propose swapping sites with the Young Women’s Leadership School, a program in East Harlem that’s nearly double its size.
But education officials pulled the proposal from last month’s meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy after The News reported the new site lacks critical spaces like child care and health centers that its current location offers.
The swap is slated to come before the panel on Monday evening at 6 p.m., after two weeks of discussions between education officials and students, staffers and elected officials — who sounded the alarm about gang violence if moved crosstown without accounting for the dynamics at play.
Councilmember Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan) submitted a formal request Thursday to defer the proposal by a year for the school to boost its enrollment.
West Side High School enrolls more than 200 students, including 35 who signed up over the last month. Another two students signed up after Brewer connected them with the school earlier this week at an unrelated Council hearing.
“Advocates, social workers, attorneys, and other service providers need to know about the school,” Brewer wrote in a letter. “Currently there is no coordination.”
The next day, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine also called for a delay.
“I fully understand that these proposals would allow for both schools to utilize buildings that better align with the current and projected size of their student bodies,” he wrote. “However, I believe that these proposed re-sitings, in their current form, are not in the best interests of the student bodies of both schools, due to the failure to align with the real needs of these students.”
Across the five…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply