A necessary part of the DOE’s closure process, the public hearing included a seven-person panel and drew about 100 attendees. Panel officials, including District 10 Community Education Council President Marvin Shelton, Deputy Chancellor Marc Sternberg, JFK Principal Lisa Luft and District 10 Superintendent Sonia Menendez, were in attendance to hear what the public had to say. Leaders from the other schools housed on the Kennedy campus were invited to speak but declined, Mr. Sternberg said.

Those who will vote on the proposal this week — members of the Panel for Educational Policy — were not present. Bronx PEP representative Monia Major said the DOE often schedules more than one meeting at a time. However, Mr. Sternberg said the entire meeting would be transcribed and ready for the PEP, whose members are appointed by borough presidents, to read before they vote on the proposal at a public meeting, scheduled for today, Thursday, at Brooklyn Technical High School at 6 p.m.

Many who spoke at the meeting railed against what they called the privatization of public education, claiming the DOE’s unfair treatment of Kennedy had driven it into the ground. They said the closure process had excluded those whom it affected most — students and their families.

“Kennedy doesn’t really have a fair chance … because every year they yank more funding away,” said senior Brianna Graham, one of the few JFK students to show up, in an interview before the hearing began.

David Kazansky, a Bronx representative from the United Federation of Teachers, likened Kennedy to a ship that the DOE sunk by sending large numbers of high-need students and cutting funding. He said the statistics Mr. Sternberg read during his presentation citing low graduation rates and test scores as reasons Kennedy should close, were the “greatest insult” because they blamed the school’s performance on students and teachers rather than the DOE itself.

Councilman Oliver Koppell, one of several politicians to speak about the closure process, took issue with how the DOE has handled the process.