The city is postponing tonight’s Panel for Educational Policy vote on the last of its 25 proposals to close district schools this year.
City officials announced today that the school board would wait to vote on the proposal to shutter Queens’ I.S. 231 Magnatech until its March 23 meeting. It’s the second proposal the city has dropped from tonight’s agenda. Yesterday city officials announced that they were abandoning their plans to close P.S. 114, which was also scheduled for a vote tonight.
The panel was originally scheduled to vote on the proposal at one of last month’s marathon meetings dedicated to the city’s closure plans. The city delayed the vote after the legally-mandated public hearing to discuss the plans at the school in late January was disrupted by a snowstorm. The city then agreed to hold a second informal parent meeting, which was cancelled, again because of bad weather.
That meeting was rescheduled for last night, but the district’s parent council members did not attend. Parents told the city they wanted a more thorough meeting that included the district representatives and members of the school’s leadership team, and city officials agreed, said Department of Education spokesman Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld.