The Department of Education’s revised five-year plan for school construction includes an increase of more than 1,600 new seats within School District 10 in the northwest Bronx. But it is yet to be determined where the remaining seats will go.

The Department of Education voted this month to close down nearly two dozen schools throughout the city due to poor performance, a controversial decision that’s drawn outrage from students, teachers and parents alike. Included on the list of closures is John F. Kennedy in Marble Hill, which serves a number of students from across the northwest Bronx and is one of the last large high schools left in the borough.

A group of Bronx students are helping to lead a green revolution right out of their own classroom, growing their own herbs and vegetables as part of gardening program at Discovery High School, on the Walton Campus in Kingsbridge Heights. The project is the brainchild of Steve Ritz, a longtime public school teacher who decided to incorporate some real life plants into his earth science and biology classes, rather than have his students read about them in a book. Before long, the classroom was the garden, and his students now grow their own herbs and vegetables in tall, vertical planters they keep in the back of the room.