#NYC DOE is letting parents’ morale plummet

Every single child in New York City deserves the opportunity to go to a school where he or she can succeed while feeling supported and safe, but through the years, it has become clear that the Department of Education does not desire for that opportunity to exist for the families of District 29. 

Morale among families, students and even many educators has plummeted. Our schools are failing right before our eyes. 

The DOE is hemorrhaging engaged and successful students while elevating the less-than-stellar administrators who are responsible for this failure. 

As The Post reported, schools in District 29 are spending upwards of $27,000 per pupil to produce academic proficiency rates in the single digits. 

Meanwhile, parents feel that they have no option but to spend their savings, take out loans, or work two jobs to send their children to private schools. 

If chronic underperformance doesn’t scare away successful students, then the pervasiveness of violence and bullying does. Enrollment is dipping and the DOE continues to operate as if the problem will solve itself. 

But parents understand that it will not and are raising the volume on their demands for change. 

The DOE is again offering to listen, but the time for listening has passed. 

My colleagues and I as well as concerned parents have repeatedly warned the DOE that our best parents and students are fed up. It is time for action — deliberate action — in the form of policy and personnel change. 

It is time for the DOE to come to the community not with open ears, but rather a strategic blueprint for how to turn District 29 around and a team of tested individuals who can lead the charge. 

The DOE must acknowledge and detail these issues so that the next mayoral administration can hit the ground running. 

Our public schools will continue to lose the ambitious and successful students and parents that they so desperately need to retain. 

I fully support the parents who are fed up with the DOE’s dereliction of duty, and I will work with them to highlight inequities, inefficiencies and failures in our schools while demanding a comprehensive plan for fixing this problem. 

State Sen. Leroy Comrie (D) represents several communities in southeastern Queens.