Junior High School 144, located at 2345 Gunther Avenue, in the Bronx could be scheduled for some changes.
The New York City Department of Education is proposing to co-locate a new middle school in the building where J.H.S. 144 is currently located in School District 11.
A town hall meeting has been scheduled for a public hearing on the matter. The meeting is scheduled to take place on Monday, March 5 at 6 p.m. at the school.
The meeting will detail a description of the proposal and also allow for public comment.
After the public hearing, the paenl for Education Policy will consider and vote on the proposal on Wednesday, March 21 at 6 p.m. at the High School of Fashion Industries, located at 225 West 24th Street in Manhattan.
If the proposal is approved, the new middle school would be located in the same building at J.H.S. 144, a middle school which currently serves students in grades six through eight.
The DOE plans to reduce enrollment at the school as an academic intervention strategy to help it improve its student performance.
According to DOE records, in recent years, J.H.S. 144 has received poor progress report grades.
The plan to reduce enrollment would permit a new school, proposed to be “11X566”, to be co-located in the building. The DOE is planning to reduce the enrollment at J.H.S. 144 over a period of three years. If this proposal is approved, by 2014-2015, enrollment at J.H.S. 144 would have decreased by approximately 445 – 480 students, so that the new school could serve 465 – 495 students in sixth through eighth grades.
If this proposal is approved, both J.H.S. 144 and “11X566” would be zoned campus choice middle schools that would serve students in sixth through eighth grades. “11X566” and J.H.S. 144 would admit students through the District 11 Middle School Choice process and offer priority to students who live in the J.H.S. 144 zone through a campus choice admissions method, in which all students zoned to the J.H.S. 144 building would have priority for a seat in the building and would have the opportunity to rank the two schools in order of preference. Students would then be matched to one of the two schools through a zoned campus choice matching process operated by the Office of Student Enrollment, the proposal stated.
Jeff Donn, a seventh grade science teacher, said, “I think it is a bad idea because so many positive things have been going on here in the last four months,” Donn said. “We have a new principal, who has only been here four months. Before our quality report for the school even came out, we received notice from the DOE saying this could be a possibility. I don’t understand how they can make this decision with out even looking at our quality reports and seeing how things have improved.”
Donn said he, along with what he believes will be 90 percent of the staff, will be present at the meeting.
“I think the only way the school will be able to come off of the list of possible sites for co-location would be for parents to show up and make enough noise,” Donn said.
