By Connor Adams Sheets
In the wake of last week’s controversial decision by the Bloomberg administration to close 19 city schools, including Jamaica and Broad Channel high schools, elected officials, parents and school administrators are questioning why Flushing High School could be on the docket next.
Although Flushing High, which draws from Flushing, Whitestone, College Point and parts of Fresh Meadows, has not been identified for closure yet, the state Department of Education added it to a list of the state’s 57 persistently lowest-achieving schools last week, a designation which could lead to its conversion into a charter school or its shuttering.
But Flushing High School Principal Cornelia Gutwein emphasized at a parents association meeting at the school attended by more than 200 parents and students Jan. 26 that Flushing HS is not the average city school and that the criteria used to make the state’s list should take into account the special circumstances at her school.
In particular, she pointed to the school’s high rate of English Language Learner students. ELL students made up 25.9 percent of the school’s population in the 2008-09 school year, a sizable portion in comparison to schools like nearby Bayside HS, which only has 9 percent ELL students and is strong academically.
“We have a large [ELL] population here. If you look at our immigrants, it is very hard when they move here at 14 or 15 to graduate in four years and I think that’s a factor,” Gutwein said at last Tuesday’s meeting, which was attended by at least 200 parents and students.
The nearly 2,800-student school’s four-year graduation rates have fallen several percentage points short of the 60 percent level it needed to clear for each of the 2006, 2007 and 2008 years in order to avoid making the state list. The school’s four-year graduation rate for the 2008-09 school year was 54.6 percent. Jamaica High’s rate was 46.2 percent that year.
But Gutwein contended because so many of the school’s students have the added difficulty oflearning English, a number need an extra year or two to gain English proficiency and graduate.
“We’re being held accountable for our four-year graduation rate,” she said. “If you look at our five-year and our six-year graduation rate, it is much, much higher.”
And data show the city’s public schools are getting better at graduating their ELL students, leaving hope that Flushing HS could get its rates higher if given more time.
Citywide, the percentage of English Language Learners who graduated in four years rose 10.7 percentage points between 2007 and 2008. The graduation rate among these students was 35.8 percent in 2008, up from 25.1 percent in 2007 — still a low number that drags schools’ rates down, but a promising sign for the city’s education system.
State Assemblywoman Grace Meng (D-Flushing) strongly opposes closing Flushing HS and said she agreed schools need to be measured in a different manner.
“I feel strongly that the measurements being utilized in the determination of closures are seriously flawed,” she said. “When the parameters of measurement are invalid, the conclusions have no justification.”
Reach reporter Connor Adams Sheets by e-mail at csheets@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4538.
