PEP Votes to Close P.S. 22

The city’s Panel for Educational Policy voted last night to shutter 18 schools – including P.S. 22 – and cut the middle school grades from five others, according to DNAInfo.

Patch reported in December that , after receiving a C grade from the Department of Education in 2010, and an F in 2011. The most recent test scores had 30.10 percent of the students passing the standardized English test and 32.50% passing math.

According to the New York Times, hundreds of parents, teachers and protestors inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement filled the auditorium of Brooklyn Technical High School, in Fort Greene last night.

But their pleas to the board were not enough to keep members from voting to close or partially close all 23 schools, says the article.

Takiesha Robinson, a member of the PTA at P.S. 22, told DNAInfo that the vote was “heartbreaking.”

“The panel had their mind made up already,” Latosha King, a Crown Heights mother of a fifth grader at P.S. 22, told DNAInfo.

Although 18 schools were voted to close, the Times says that most will remain open for several more years, but will not accept new students.

The PEP also voted to eliminate the middle school grades at P.S. 161, in Crown Heights, according to DNAInfo.