As students poured out of Bayard Rustin High School for Humanities this afternoon, most of them were discussing the news that principal Nancy Amling had announced during fourth period: the Department of Education is phasing out the large, comprehensive high school beginning this June. No new ninth graders will accepted for September, and the final class will graduate in 2012.

Reactions were mixed - some students said that "the school needed to be closed" and that life as a Bayard Rustin student was "boring. All I do every day is go home and sleep because there are no extracurriculars and no homework that needs to be done." Other students vigorously defended their school, arguing that they were getting punished for past classes' graduation rates and defending the principal, who came to the school this September, as a strict leader who should have been given the chance to turn things around.

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Many of the teachers walking out of the school looked depressed and walked quickly away from the building. They had been told yesterday afternoon by a tearful Amling, and although several of them admitted that the news didn't surprise them, they were still upset. The educators who have been at the school for the least amount of time will be the first to let go, they said. "Insideschools?" one young teacher asked. "I am going to be spending a lot of time on your site in the near future."

The Department of Education cited the school's low graduation rate, the F on its latest report card, and low student interest in attending the school as factors in the decision, but Bayard Rustin's recent troubles also include allegations that the former principal tampered with Regents scores and generally unfavorable press-coverage. In the past two months, teachers have anonymously criticized the school leadership on our forum, suggesting that it would take something as dramatic as a student strike to draw attention to the school's problems.

Students were hardly striking today as they left school, but knots of ninth graders debated whether or not they would stay for the next three years or transfer to another high school, an option reserved for the freshmen, they said. Again, they were divided:

"I am staying! This is my school, and I like it," one girl said emphatically.

"I'm not staying," another girl said. "I am going somewhere else. There are going to be too many less people here."

"Too many less people?" her friend repeated. "Get your grammar right! Now that is why they are closing this school down."