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District and East High present transition plan: bilingual expansion, special‑education capacity and phased enrollment growth
Summary
Superintendent Strickland and East High leaders described a phased plan to bring East High into the district portfolio, add bilingual and special‑education settings, preserve elements of East’s curriculum and grow enrollment in a multi‑year rollout; student supports and curriculum review teams were announced.
Rochester City School District leaders described steps to transition East High School into the RCSD portfolio while holding to a phased enrollment and curriculum approach.
Superintendent Lesli Strickland and East leadership said the lower (7–8) school will add special‑education classes (including 12:1:1 self‑contained settings) and consultant teaching, and the upper (9–12) program will expand resource/consultant teacher services and serve New York State alternative assessment students. The plan will phase in at grades 7 and 9 and grow by cohort over multiple years.
East leaders said a Transitional Bilingual program will be added so scholars who began bilingual pathways in elementary grades will continue in 7–8 and transition into existing 9–12 bilingual programming. East’s Spanish language students earned 126 college credits during a recent CLEP testing opportunity, school leaders reported.
The district approved East curriculum usage for the 2025–26 school year and announced a joint RCSD–East curriculum review team that will compare East materials with district curricula using an analytic framework. Social studies is slated for review first in February; the team will examine alignment with standards, pedagogical approach, assessment and teacher supports.
Enrollment goals: district staff said the high school is expected to reach about 800 students (roughly 200 per cohort) in regular programming, with more than 100 additional students in self‑contained and alternative settings; the lower school target is roughly 180 students for 7–8. Strickland said the district will add about 50 new freshmen each year as a conservative phase‑in approach, with the school selection process open online and a Feb. 21 application deadline for families.
District and East leaders said the transition will be gradual to avoid destabilizing students and to allow curriculum analysis and supports to be put in place.
