DOE gets an ‘F’

It’s high time the Department of Education started phasing out its method of phasing out and closing schools.

A public hearing on the fate of John F. Kennedy High School — held in the school’s auditorium on Jan. 28 — drew local politicians, parents, teachers and few Kennedy students. They spoke to a seven-person committee deputized to forward their comments to the Panel for Educational Policy. That panel was charged with voting on whether to shutter 22 schools — including JFK.

But the committee’s members barely even took notes until attendees started complaining. The school’s principal, Lisa Luft, a hatchet woman placed at the helm of JFK from her perch at the DOE’s central office, sat there, text messaging away.

Only a meager “public” showed up at the Jan. 28 hearing that — it is worth noting — was scheduled for 6 p.m. on a Friday. But as it turned out, it didn’t matter much anyway. Attendee’s comments, which could be made available to panel members only 24 hours before the final hearing that preceded the vote on Feb. 4, would have made little difference.

The front page of this week’s Press reveals how little panel members knew about the school their powerful body ultimately elected to close. Those interviewed the day before, the day of and the Monday following the vote, made it clear they would be lucky to find JFK on a map, never mind prescribe solutions to its myriad problems.

Nevertheless, it voted to close all 22 schools under consideration. JFK and 11 other schools got the axe on Feb. 3. Just days before, 10 other schools were terminated.

The Panel for Educational Policy, made up of 13 members — five appointed by the City’s respective borough presidents and eight appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg himself — has one job when it comes to closures: to rubber stamp proposals made by the DOE.