#Teachers at elite NYC high school revolt amid new academic policy

Teachers at the city’s most prestigious high school revolted last week after they were forbidden from penalizing kids for missing tests, the Post has learned.

New Stuyvesant High School principal Seung Yu issued a memo telling staffers that they can no longer lower exam scores for kids who miss tests and then make them up later.

Roughly 100 teachers signed a letter objecting to the dictate and said administrators were undermining their authority and diluting student responsibility.

“These are our city’s best and brightest kids and we’re weakening their accountability on purpose,” said one Stuyvesant source. “It’s baffling.”

Yu told staffers that kids who miss tests “for any reason must be given an opportunity to take/submit the assessment,” according to the new rules.

And if students do take exams late, teachers at Stuyvesant can no longer dock test scores — only deduct “homework/preparation” points, which are a marginal component of overall grades.

The Department of Education defended the new policy.

“Stuyvesant is more focused than ever on students mastering rigorous academic content, and this updated grading framework aligns with NYCDOE academic policy,” said spokeswoman Danielle Filson.

“Teachers are still permitted to penalize students for tardiness, this just makes sure there is more consistency and transparency across all departments.”

Yu took the reins at Stuyvesant from Eric Contreras, who left the school at the end of the last academic year for a new position on Long Island.

Other city schools have introduced similar policies that have drawn backlash from both parents and teachers.

Staffers at Marie Curie MS 158 in Bayside were incensed last year after a former principal told them to accept late work from kids without consequence.

In addition, several Stuyvesant parents said they were disquieted by Yu’s introductory letter earlier this year because it made no specific mention of the school’s vaunted Science, Technology, Engineering and Math focus and instead highlighted student social and emotional needs.

“Yu’s use of Tweed-speak is deeply alarming,” wrote one parent in response last month. “What Stuyvesant parents want to hear from Yu is commitment to advanced Math and Science courses despite the lockdown, commitment to ever more rigorous and challenging STEM offerings, and commitment to a Stuyvesant that remains world-class competitive in STEM.”

The city’s specialized high schools have become political powder kegs in recent years with critics arguing that their single-test entry system has produced minimal black and Latino enrollment.

Objectors to the current admissions process contend that the exam is an arbitrary measure of student talent and favors those with the resources to prepare for it.

They favor scrapping the exam altogether and using multiple admissions metrics.

Backers counter that the test is inherently color-blind and has forged some of the most academically renowned public schools in the country.

Stuyvesant is currently 73 percent Asian, 19 percent white, 3 percent Latino and 1 percent black, according to DOE figures.