Teachers and students rally at Grover Cleveland High School in Ridgewood, one of the schools originally included in the turnaround plan.
It’s over—for now.
New York City and the Department of Education have lost their bid to eliminate 24 schools forcing all teachers at those institutions to reapply for their jobs.
It was part of the controversial turnaround plan that would have closed and immediately reopened the schools, including seven in Queens.
On Tuesday, a state judge refused to overrule an arbitrator’s decision last month that the plan violated the teachers union contract.
The city’s lawyers had appealed that ruling to the court, but on Tuesday were turned down State Supreme Court Judge Joan Lobis who upheld the arbitrator’s ruling.
The union celebrated that victory insisting that’s the end of the fight.
“It is now time to prepare the teachers, principals and school communities for the opening of school, and we hope that the mayor will spend as much effort on helping struggling schools succeed as he does on his own political needs,” United Federation of Teachers president, Michael Mulgrew said in a statement.
The city had prepared for the possibility that they would lose in court.
Last week, they rescinded the pink slips that were sent to all the teachers at the 24 closed schools— reinstating them to their former positions.
However, the fight will go on. The city says it plans to appeal the judge’s decision, but that will not affect the upcoming school year.
New York State’s appellate court does not sit in the summer, so the case will have to wait until the fall.
The turnaround plan had aimed to earn almost $60 million in federal grant money as part of a program to reform persistently low achieving schools.
It was the most drastic of the possible reform plans handed down in federal guidelines, and it met with stiff resistance from teachers.
By Jeremiah Dobruck
