“They were trying to close you, but you’ve weathered the storm and DeWitt Clinton will not close,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew defiantly told the staff of the Bronx high school during an Oct. 30 visit. Mulgrew was at the school, one of the city’s last remaining comprehensive high schools, to speak with staff and hear their concerns on the eve of a mayoral election that he said will be a game-changer for the city’s educators. Bloomberg’s Department of Education intentionally overloaded Clinton and other large high schools with high-needs students in an effort to cause them to fail, but that policy will end when Bloomberg leaves office, Mulgrew told the assembled educators. He praised them for their perseverance in the face of the DOE’s assault and also spoke to them about the union’s commitment to revising the new teacher evaluation system as part of contract negotiations with the next mayor and the need to “move out from a war stance and begin to rebuild our schools” after Bloomberg exits City Hall. “How do we reorganize the largest school system in the nation so that it works for the schools?” he asked. “We need to start talking about what we want, not what we don’t want.”