The number of Bronx schools slated for closure more than doubled today as the DOE released an updated list that now includes two Bronx technical high schools: Grace Dodge and Samuel Gompers.

Those two schools, along with Aspire Preparatory Middle School, joined Jane Addams High School for Academic Careers and Gateway School For Environmental Research and Technology on the list of schools the DOE wants to close because it says the schools aren’t doing enough to serve their students.

Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said the DOE spent the past two months analyzing schools and gathering feedback and decided these five Bronx schools and 14 others citywide should be phased out and started over from scratch as brand new schools (or broken up into smaller schools).

“These are never easy decisions, but when a school has failed to serve its students well year after year — even after receiving additional supports — we have a responsibility to provide students with better options. We are already hard at work creating the great new schools that these communities deserve,” Walcott said in a statement.

Marvin Shelton, the president of the Community Education for District 10, which includes Grace Dodge, said the DOE didn’t give the technical school a real chance to improve after putting it on a watch list last year and replacing its principal this fall. Now, just three months into the school year, Shelton says the DOE pulled the plug on Grace Dodge too early to see any improvement.

In addition to replacing its principal, Shelton said the DOE restricted Grace Dodge’s incoming freshman class this year so it could concentrate on serving the serving the students it already had. But barring what could only be considered as a “miraculous turnaround” in so little time, Shelton said the school didn’t have much of a chance to stave off closure.

Shelton said there will be a meeting at Grace Dodge, 2474 Crotona Avenue, next Thursday to discuss the ramifications of a phase-out, which would take another three years to complete. The decision isn’t final. There will be a local hearing, sometime in January, where opponents of the closure plan can make their case and then the Panel for Education Policy will vote Feb. 9 on whether to approve the closures. Last year the panel closely followed the DOE’s recommendations.

Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. released a statement about closings, saying he wanted to ensure that the students remaining at those schools slated for closure would be taken care of. He also took a shot at the DOE for its role in allowing the schools to fail. “The factors that have led to these proposed closings did not occur overnight,” he said. “The DOE has not provided these schools and others with the appropriate resources to succeed, and that must change.”

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