The city is arguing that it at least tried to follow the law when it moved to close 19 schools this winter.
That argument underpins the city’s appeal of the State Supreme Court ruling halting the closures, which it filed last week.
The appeal’s all-caps bullet points make the case that the people who sued to stop the closures had a right to do so for only five of the 19 schools. And rather than arguing that the city fully followed the law governing school closure decisions, the petition says the Department of Education “substantially complied.”
It continues: “Even if the DOE failed to substantially comply with [the law], the court should not have annulled the [school board] votes phasing out these nineteen failing schools.”