Four years ago this month, I wrote a big double-truck spread for the Daily News about the crazy stuff that was going on inside Brooklyn's long-troubled Lafayette High School. Kids lighting bulletin boards on fire, beatings that were routinely sending kids to the hospital, weapons and drugs being confiscated regularly at the front door, etc. Reviewing the incident reports on file for the school, we found that there was a major incident once every three days, on average. A headline writer threw the phrase "Horror High" onto the page, and the story took off.

Some students and teachers at Lafayette felt the school was unfairly tainted, while students and teachers at other NYC schools complained that their schools were even more horrific than Lafayette, so they should get the title.

For about 18-months, there was a constant stream of negative stories about the school. In one case, the former principal got knocked unconscious by a kid who was trying to bolt from the school. In another, a student went on The People's Court and talked about how crappy the school was (the judge agreed.) In yet another, the U.S. Justice Department alleged that the school was unsafe for Asian students, who were regularly harassed and beaten. Test scores sucked. Teachers were miserable. The beatings continued, even after the Brooklyn D.A.'s office stepped in to try to restore order.

One question that many people had year after year was: Why in God's name is Lafayette still open?

So it was interesting this month when the city announced that Lafayette would finally be closed and eventually replaced by smaller schools within the school. But is it really closing? Half closing? Depends on what you mean by "closing." More importantly, will anything change?