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On the fourth ground of a fortress-like constructing in Decrease Manhattan housing 4 public excessive colleges, greater than 500 college students cram into lessons corresponding to calculus and agriculture. They function 3-D printers and have a tendency herbs in a hydroponic farm.
Within the basement, about 500 college students at one other highschool put together for emergency medication careers with a brand new ambulance simulator. They will graduate with affiliate levels and take part in actions that embrace cursive membership and lip sync battles.
In the meantime, the campus’s unique faculty, Murry Bergtraum Excessive College for Enterprise Careers, sits largely empty on the bottom ground.
With about 90 college students, it’s New York Metropolis’s smallest conventional highschool. The college advertises no extracurricular actions outdoors of the sports activities it shares with the opposite colleges on campus. Its lone math instructor can not educate each class that college students want every semester, forcing some to attend night time faculty on different campuses. That’s regardless of receiving greater than $46,000 per pupil final yr, roughly twice the citywide common.
“Whenever you take a look at the opposite colleges, it’s mad folks, mad alternatives,” mentioned Christopher Vasquez, who lately completed his senior yr at Murry Bergtraum after making up a math class at night time. “However once you come to our faculty, actually nothing.”
For the previous 20 years, Murry Bergtraum has been locked in a downward spiral. The college, which as soon as enrolled 3,000 college students and was a tutorial standout, is now in the underside 1% of metropolis excessive colleges in four-year commencement charges and attendance. But metropolis officers have made no significant efforts to show the varsity round. As a substitute, they’ve allowed it to stay open regardless of repeated acknowledgements from high-ranking leaders that the varsity needs to be closed, a Chalkbeat investigation discovered.
Vivian Orlen, the previous superintendent of Manhattan excessive colleges, who oversaw Murry Bergtraum between 2018 and 2022, mentioned she raised the thought of closing or merging the varsity yearly with Schooling Division leaders, however there was “no urge for food” for the proposal.
“What everyone knows about what children deserve just isn’t taking place there,” Orlen mentioned.
Murry Bergtraum is in a rising membership of colleges too small to perform effectively: Citywide, 33 excessive colleges now have fewer than 150 college students, and 113 have fewer than 250, an eightfold improve from 25 years in the past, Chalkbeat discovered.
The Schooling Division declined to reply particular questions on Murry Bergtraum, as did the varsity principal. Colleges Chancellor Kamar Samuels has acknowledged that the town has too many small colleges and has began conversations about underenrollment in some districts. However the Mamdani administration has not introduced a citywide plan to handle the difficulty — or to enhance the scenario at Murry Bergtraum.
A College of Final Resort: The A long time-Lengthy Decline of Murry Bergtraum
Murry Bergtraum, which was named after a former president of the town’s Board of Schooling, opened in 1975 close to Metropolis Corridor because the nation’s first highschool to give attention to enterprise careers.
For many years, it was one of many metropolis’s most in-demand excessive colleges, attracting principally Black and Latino college students who had been inquisitive about enterprise. Its alumni embrace Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson and actors John Leguizamo and Damon Wayans.
Chalkbeat spoke to greater than a dozen college students, present and former employees, directors and district officers conversant in Murry Bergtraum to grasp how the once-thriving faculty diminished to its present state.
Murry Bergtraum’s fall started throughout Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s push within the early 2000s to shutter massive, troubled excessive colleges and exchange them with scores of smaller ones. Metropolis officers stored Murry Bergtraum open, nevertheless it grew to become a faculty of final resort for college kids who had been displaced by the closures and didn’t hunt down or discover seats within the new, smaller excessive colleges. A number of academics mentioned the adjustments introduced new educational and behavioral challenges.
John Elfrank-Dana, a former social research instructor and chapter chief of the United Federation of Academics who labored at Murry Bergtraum for 25 years, in contrast the upheaval to an inflow of sufferers at a hospital’s intensive care unit.
“Think about a hospital being required to tackle 4 instances as many ICU sufferers, however with no further helps,” he mentioned.
These challenges had been compounded by a revolving door of recent principals and a collection of embarrassing scandals that repeatedly landed the varsity within the New York Submit between 2010 and 2014. One article referred to as Murry Bergtraum “the disgrace of the town schooling system.”
As the varsity’s status and educational outcomes plummeted, so too did its enrollment: By 2014, it had fallen beneath 1,000 college students. Dozens of academics left, and the deteriorating situations made it tougher to recruit new ones. Applications, lessons and actions disappeared.
Aristotle Galanis, a 22-year-veteran bodily schooling instructor and the varsity’s present chapter chief, mentioned workloads grew for the academics who remained.
“We’re a skeleton crew,” he mentioned.
8 Years, 3 Mayors, No Plan: The Coverage Vacuum Retaining a Declining College Open
As Murry Bergtraum floundered, the Schooling Division didn’t create a plan to draw extra college students or herald new assets. District officers as a substitute opened competing colleges in the identical constructing.
In 2013, the City Meeting Early Faculty Excessive College for Emergency Drugs moved into the basement. A yr later, City Meeting Maker Academy moved onto the fourth ground, and Manhattan Early Faculty Excessive College for Promoting took over the third ground.
As these colleges grew, so did their course choices. Final yr, they every supplied between 42 and 52 completely different programs, in line with metropolis information. Murry Bergtraum supplied 23.
The elevated competitors, coupled with falling enrollment citywide, has made it almost unattainable for Murry Bergtraum to get well.
When Orlen took over as superintendent in 2018, the varsity had about 180 college students. She started lobbying Schooling Division leaders to shut the varsity and employed the present principal with the acknowledged purpose of shutting it down, she mentioned.
A number of elements obtained in the best way of closing the varsity, mentioned Karin Goldmark, a former deputy chancellor beneath former Mayor Invoice de Blasio who oversaw faculty closures and mergers. A brand new chancellor, Richard Carranza, took over in 2018. Two years later, the COVID pandemic began and the following couple years had been targeted on when and the way to reopen colleges.
However she acknowledged it’s finally the accountability of the town to take motion.
“There’s at all times some disaster that makes it handy to do that exhausting work one other day,” Goldmark mentioned. “It’s nearly unattainable for a faculty that measurement to serve college students effectively.”
Beneath former Mayor Eric Adams, Murry Bergtraum repeatedly got here up in discussions about chronically underenrolled colleges, in line with a former Schooling Division official who requested anonymity to be able to talk about inner conversations.
However the Adams administration targeted on opening new colleges to attract college students again to the system, leaving selections about closures and mergers largely to district superintendents. Orlen’s successor, Gary Beidleman, who has overseen Murry Bergtraum since 2022, didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Eight years after Orlen started her push to shut it, she’s dismayed Murry Bergtraum stays open.
“It’s institutional failure,” she mentioned.
Excessive Spending, Low Enrollment: What It’s Like Inside an Empty College
Murry Bergtraum’s $46,000 per pupil price range — pushed by excessive administrative prices, a high-need demographic, and metropolis insurance policies propping up underenrolled colleges — dwarfs the $19,000 per pupil the basement faculty obtained for serving an identical pupil inhabitants. But, Murry Bergtraum can really feel like a ghost city — one which few college students appear to wish to be in.
Final yr, 39 eighth graders utilized. Some college students transferred in after working into disciplinary points elsewhere. Some mentioned they enrolled by chance as a result of they confused it with the opposite colleges within the constructing.
Although class sizes common 15 college students, many college students don’t come to highschool repeatedly. Three-quarters of Murry Bergtraum college students missed a minimum of 18 days of the 2024-25 faculty yr, in line with the most up-to-date information.
Galanis, the P.E. instructor, argued that the varsity’s attendance and commencement price aren’t a good measure of its high quality as a result of in such a small faculty, a couple of college students disengaging can have an outsized impact on outcomes.
Murry Bergtraum, like many different small excessive colleges, disproportionately enrolls probably the most weak college students. 9 in 10 college students on the faculty stay in poverty, and 20% had been homeless final yr. (Town additionally runs switch excessive colleges designed particularly for at-risk older college students, a number of of that are even smaller than Murry Bergtraum.)
Regardless of the tough circumstances, the small employees works exhausting to create “good tales,” like a pupil who lately transferred into the varsity and have become valedictorian, Galanis mentioned.
Some college students admire the varsity’s smaller measurement. Madison Vernon, a senior who transferred to Murry Bergtraum after getting in a battle at her final faculty, mentioned the ambiance looks like “a little bit household.”
Different college students, although, say the varsity’s measurement is limiting.
“Having such a small group, you’re not getting open to the identical information or experiences you may you probably have extra college students in your faculty,” mentioned Jada Thomas, a senior.
Some college students see the variations between their faculty and others within the constructing and really feel shortchanged. Whereas a number of Murry Bergtraum college students mentioned they get perks like AirPods Max headphones, the varsity nonetheless fails to supply important lessons.
“We’re a final line kind of faculty,” mentioned a pupil named Saany, who declined to share his final title. “They offer all of the requirements to the opposite colleges. I really feel like they only left ours.”
Kae Petrin contributed information evaluation.
Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, protecting NYC public colleges. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.
