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Lefferts Gardens Charter School to Close Next Year, Chancellor Says

By Rachel Holliday Smith | February 12, 2016 3:34pm | Updated on February 14, 2016 7:25pm
 The Lefferts Gardens Charter School will close next school year, the Department of Education said Friday, after the elementary school failed to meet academic standards set by the DOE last year.
The Lefferts Gardens Charter School will close next school year, the Department of Education said Friday, after the elementary school failed to meet academic standards set by the DOE last year.
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PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS — A low-performing neighborhood charter school will be closed next year following a decision by the Department of Education to not renew the school’s charter, the agency announced Friday.

The Lefferts Gardens Charter School failed to meet academic standards set by the DOE last year when the school was granted a year-and-a-half extension of its charter to June 2016, the agency said.

Now, the DOE is opting to close the elementary school as a “last resort,” along with two other charter schools in Brooklyn and Staten Island, the department said in a statement.

“We're committed to giving every child a path to success,” said Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina. “Each of these schools were given clear conditions with benchmarks for performance, and they failed to meet them.”

The DOE said of the 11 charter schools up for renewal in the city this year, LGCS was the lowest performing; both math and English Language Arts proficiency rates at the school were well below the average within its school district, District 17.

The school, co-located with P.S. 92 at 601 Parkside Ave., also had “inconsistent leadership,” the department said, with three principals serving there since its founding in 2010.

LGCS’ current leader Michael Windram and representatives of the parent association did not immediately respond to inquiries about the closing. But as of last month, Windram was staying positive about the school’s future.

“Our math proficiency levels have increased 14 percentage points from the end of last year. Our ELA proficiency rates have realized a 10 percent increase from the end of last year,” he wrote in a blog post on the school’s website on Jan. 11. “Our children continue to move in the right direction.”

The DOE said the Office of Student Enrollment will “work closely” with the LGCS community to make sure students are enrolled in a different school by the fall.

LGCS is one of three charter schools set to close next year, including Beginning With Children Charter School in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Staten Island Community Charter School in Stapleton.