Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Bryant High School to close?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

cry me a river.
W.C.Bryant HS has been in a failing status since the late 60s.
Now their claims of ESL students is debatable since the bd of ed WASTED the "old" LIC HS located in QueensPlaza for "Newcomers" to accomodate THEM and THEM only,so why are they clogging up bRyant HS ?

IF their graduation rate is above 40% it's a miracle and it remains overcrowded and with all the problems for generations of students.

Obviously something's been wrong and remains wrong over on 31st Avenue.

Anonymous said...

Our graduation rate is over 60% and growing. 30% of our population is either ESL or Special Ed, and if you don't believe it, come to the school and you will see for yourself.

Are we perfect? No. Unlike charter, private, and Catholic schools, we cannot kick out students who disrupt, don't show up, or are low-performing, so we try our best to help and counsel these students. Despite what some politicians are leading people and the media to believe, most teachers go into this profession because they want to make a difference in the lives of all children, especially those who struggle. Even though we do not, like charter schools, get to select our student body, we work hard to help each student who walks through our doors succeed. Not every student wants our help, and they let us know in no uncertain terms that we are wasting our time, but we don't give up on them.

However, it is difficult to carry on a tough job with the negativity and bias created against public schools and public school teachers by our mayor and other politicians, corporate executives, and media moguls(and by people like you who think you know what you're talking about). Instead of celebrating our successes, they revel in our failures—failures that are not necessarily our fault but the fault of a system designed to promote failure, and that is not conducive to our students or to education in general. If teachers used this line of thinking in the classroom, the results would be disastrous.

We know there is always room for improvement in any school setting, and we are willing to try anything to help our low-perfoming students, but we need the support of our mayor, the DOE, the community, and the parents.

Considering the strides we have made at Bryant and continue to make despite the lack of support, we feel we are unjustly targeted for reorganization. I challenge you to do what we do. We are NOT a failing school. WE ARE BRYANT.