Despite Good Grades, FDR Targeted For Staff Terminations

Our sister site Sheepshead Bites ran an article yesterday about William E. Grady High School which, despite improving from a grade D to a B in its latest evaluation, is on a list of 33 “persistently low-achieving”  schools slated to lose half their staff.

What’s even more surprising, as well as relevant to Bensonhurst residents, is the inclusion of our own FDR High School on the city’s sh-t hit list. Surprising due to the fact that, during FDR’s last two evaluations, it received a grade of B! Not exactly what one would call a low performing school.

One teacher quoted by Sheepshead Bites described the mayor’s policy as a thinly veiled attempt at revenge.

“The reaction at the school is anger, because we have been evaluated since we got put into the transformation model last September. Everyone who has walked through the door – whether from the state or the city – was praising it and giving it high marks…and, yet, Grady is closing,” Chris Manos, a teacher of automechanics and Grady’s UFT Chapter leader, told Sheepshead Bites. “Why is the mayor doing this? And the real reason is that it’s just a political ploy. [The mayor is] angry because the evaluation system didnt pass through the union so they’re trying to break the union by hurting the schools and the students.”

Here are the four schools in Southern Brooklyn currently targeted by the mayor’s “reforms” :

• Grady High School (25 Brighton 4th Road) – received a D in 2010 and a B in 2011

• Sheepshead Bay High School (3000 Avenue X) – received a C in 2010 and a D in 2011
• John Dewey High School (50 Avenue X) – received a C in both 2010 and 2011
• Franklin D. Roosevelt High School (5800 20th Avenue) – received a B in both 2010 and 2011

You can also check out Sheepshead Bites for the complete story.