New York Daily News

Help on way for Bryant Pk. bloodsucke­r

- BY BEN CHAPMAN With Jill Jorgensen Shayna Jacobs

THE CITY is closing the troubled Bronx school where a bisexual teen who said he was bullied stabbed a classmate to death.

City Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña announced Monday her aim to close the Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservati­on, along with plans to shutter or merge 18 other struggling city schools, starting in June.

Fariña said the decision to close Wildlife Conservati­on came after students fled the school following the September classroom killing — and few kids applied to go there next year. “Students have asked to leave,” she said. “When you start looking at things like that, the message is really written for you.”

Wildlife Conservati­on has been under intense scrutiny since Abel Cedeno, 18, according to police accounts and the teen’s jailhouse interview with the Daily News, plunged a switch blade into the chest of fellow student Matthew McCree, 15, during their history class. Cedeno is also accused of stabbing McCree’s friend.

Cedeno pleaded not guilty to a manslaught­er charge in the attack. He says he “snapped” after enduring weeks of anti-gay slurs and other abuse from classmates.

Since the stabbing, the crumbling school has all but collapsed.

Forty-five families have requested safety transfers to get their kids out of Wildlife. Principal Astrid Jacobo was removed from her job amid an ongoing investigat­ion. And just 15 kids listed the school as their first choice for the academic year that begins in September.

“My anticipati­on is, that by closing it and allowing the kids to go elsewhere, that we’ll actually be offering them — and the staff — better opportunit­ies,” Fariña said.

She said the city has no firm plans for the Wildlife campus once the school is closed.

Besides Wildlife, Fariña said the city will close 13 other schools that were targeted for reasons including shrinking enrollment and poor academic outcomes.

Those schools include nine that were part of Mayor de Blasio’s controvers­ial, $600 million Renewal Schools turnaround program.

On NY1 Monday, de Blasio said he was “very satisfied” with how his Renewal Schools program played out.“The question in my mind was always, if we gave the school the help it needed, could it turn around? The ones that could, and that’s the majority as we see it, we’ve been proven right on,” de Blasio said. “The ones that didn’t, well, look, we said from the beginning we knew not everyone would make it.”

Forty-six schools will remain in the program and will continue to receive added supports such as extra counselors, extended days and additional social services.

Fariña said she will also close another four schools that were not in the Renewal Schools program, including Public School 25 in Brooklyn, where enrollment sank to just 109 kids. The city will also merge five struggling and shrinking schools with other nearby schools that are more effective, Fariña said, and remove grade levels from another school. NEW LEGISLATIO­N would force city Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña to lead an anti-bullying task force to fight the unfolding crisis. The bill, which City Councilman Mark Levine (D-Manhattan) plans to introduce at a hearing Tuesday, comes after a record 81% of students reported being bullied in the school year that ended last June. Students also blamed bullying for a Bronx student’s murder at his school in September. Levine’s bill would require Fariña or a delegate to head an antibullyi­ng task force, with members appointed by City Hall, the City Council and the NYPD. The bill requires the task force to issue recommenda­tions, within one year of the law’s passage, on how city schools can address bullying. “We need to take action and we need to take action now,” Levine said. “Bullying can be destructiv­e to a child’s confidence and mental health.” City Education Department spokeswoma­n Miranda Barbot said the age ncy will review the bill. THE COUNT Creepula of Bryant Park who was busted for tearing off the head of a pigeon and drinking its blood — dubbing himself a “vampire” — is expected to get treatment in a plea deal.

Daniel Ventre, 34, was in court Monday for the nauseating Aug. 30 episode in which he stood in a park fountain covered in blood about 2:30 p.m.

“I’m a vampire. I love to eat and suck the blood out of pigeons,” he allegedly told cops.

Ventre’s attorney Caitlyn Hall confirmed to the judge that she was “looking for some kind of a treatment-based plea” and was in talks with the prosecutor.

Ventre’s plea would cover his other open cases for marijuana possession and for trespassin­g on subway tracks. His case was adjourned to Feb. 13.

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