Thursday, July 01, 2010

Closing School Litigation: Pyrrhic Victory?

After a long anticipated period the Appellate Division, First Department has upheld Justice Lobis' decision to enjoin the DOE from closing 19 schools. In their decision the Appellate Division found, as the lower court did, that the DOE failed to follow the newly drafted law which required parent and community input in school closing decisions. The law requires, among other things, the preparation and dissemination of an Education Impact Statement whenever the DOE wants to close a school. In the 19 schools case this was found to have been done improperly.

The Appellate Division also dealt with the DOE's main argument in the case wherein the City claimed the Union (and other plaintiffs) had no standing or right to bring the lawsuit. This was rejected summarily when the Appellate Division found that the union had designated persons (Chapter Leaders) on each School Leadership Team and the SLTs were an indispensible part of the law.

Before we start dancing in the aisles it is still unclear what impact, if any, this decision will have on the actual closing of the schools. The DOE has technically complied with the decision by admitting a small freshman class. (Jamaica is reported to have only 22 students enrolled for this September). And of course, there is nothing in this decision which prevents, deters or any way prohibits the DOE from trying to close the schools (or any other school) again. This decision only dealt with the inadequate procedural requirements that the law requires for closing a school.

Additionally there may be other schools, like Rikers, which close without any Impact Statement or notice and because of their lack of parent or union support get little media coverage.

When all is said and done we do have a lot to be proud. In schools like Jamaica students, teachers, staff and in some cases even the union, got together and registered their dissatisfaction with DOE unilateral decision making. Our work is not done. We will continue to sound our voices even after this administration can no longer buy its way into office.

7 comments:

Michael Fiorillo said...

While the court ruling that the union had legal standing is a good thing that will hopefully be of use in the future, for now we can expect the DOE to make minimal nods to law and procedure (until they don't, again) while accelerating its attacks on the schools and teachers.

The heroic - not too strong a word - efforts by James and the school community to keep Jamaica HS open is a candle burning in a very dark time.

NYC Educator said...

It's truly unbelievable what contempt for the law this administration has. You'd think they'd at least put up some pretense or something, but with the state of the MSM they don't even need to bother. Klein had a piece in the News the next day. It should've been titled, "Laws Are for the Little People."

Anonymous said...

What is MSM Mr. Educator?

NYC Educator said...

Mainstream media, sorry.

Anonymous said...

You mean the Bloomberg spokespeople don't you? I would call them the BS.

Anonymous said...

FROM INSIDE THE UNITY CAUCUS IN SEATTLE:


MULGREW HAS TO REFEREE A BIG FEUD BETWEEN BRONX REP VARGAS AND LEROY BARR OVER WHETHER BLACKS OR LATINOS SHOULD GET THE $150,000 PER YEAR JOBS THAT KLEIN IS GIVING THEM TO REMAIN SILENT ON THE CRIMINALITY AT JFK, BRONX high school OF SCEINE AND fORDHAM hIGH SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS.
barr even gave an award to VERONICA COSTA- SHE IS THE LOWEST OF THE LOW AT D.C. 37- SO HE COULD GET HIS GRUBBY MITS OF THOSE JOBS FOR HIS african heritage committee members.
vargas is furious.
this is what mulgrew spends his time on- and to hell with the members.
ASK THE AFT STAFFERS TO LEAK YOU the paperwork on how Jeff- three pensions- Zahler had to work overtime to deal with the many grievances filed against RAndi. call the wall street journal- a great story on how Loudmouth Zahler- who got his nephew a big job at UFT legal just before he left- was run out of town.
but he is o.k.- randi took care of him and his nitwit nephew.

Anonymous said...

And the beat goes on.