Some mischievous high-school students don’t have to cut classes anymore. The Board of Education now simply gives them the afternoons off.
A network of four “alternative” city high schools has a dumbed-down scheduling policy of sending kids home at noon every Wednesday, a Post investigation has found.
No classes are offered in the afternoon at Satellite Academy’s four high schools in Manhattan, Queens and The Bronx, which contains many students who have been held back a grade and who won’t graduate on time.
Instead, teachers and other staff use the time to participate in “professional development” sessions like writing curriculums.
Students seen during a recent early dismissal at Satellite’s school on West 32nd Street in Manhattan said they love the lenient policy.
“I got the rest of the day off. I’m going to party!” said 18-year-old Terrell Brown.
“It’s neat. I work. I got things to do,” said 17-year-old Rafael Rosario. “They should offer early dismissal in all schools.”
But not everyone agrees with the time-shaving.
One disgusted staffer complained students are also given an hour for lunch on other days, longer than the 45 minutes that other high schools provide.
“So our students lose another 15 minutes for instruction time each day as opposed to other schools. We fudge this information so we can count it towards instruction time,” the staffer said.
Some allege the policy is illegal because it cheats students of the daily class time required by the state – a charge heatedly denied by Principal Alan Baratz.
He insisted the early dismissal on Wednesdays was helping, not cheating, his students by giving teachers part of one day to improve the curriculum and their instructional skills.
“This school is a very, very special place,” Baratz said.
Charges fly that some teachers are abusing the prep time.
The Post was tipped off on Dec. 12 that staffers from the Jamaica, Queens, campus would hold a holiday party at the nearby Austin Alehouse during their afternoon “brainstorming” session. A license-plate check found that a car of one of the participants was registered to a teacher at the school.
State law requires that pupils in grades seven through 12 have daily sessions of no less than 5½ hours, excluding lunch. But a huge loophole allows school officials to count time spent by teachers on “staff development activities” out of the classroom toward that requirement.
Critics slammed Satellite Academy’s dumbed-down schedule.
“There’s something wrong. It’s more than dumb. They’re cheating kids out of instructional time,” said Sy Fliegel, a former Queens district superintendent who heads The Center for Educational Innovation.