When Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Carmen Fariña as Schools Chancellor, he promised to support schools that are struggling instead of closing them. They unveiled a renewal program last fall to save about 100 of them by giving teachers more training and extending the school day. But Fariña is making it increasingly clear that this option isn't right for every low performing school.

On Monday, Fariña told two pairs of schools in East Harlem and central Brooklyn that they will consolidate. Global Neighborhood Secondary School, which was already planning to move into the same building on E. 120th St. as P.S. 96, will now merge with its new neighbor into one combined K-8 school. In Brooklyn, two under-enrolled middle schools that already share the same building - J.H.S. 57 and M.S. 85 Business, Finance, and Entrepreneurship - will also combine forces into one new school serving grades 6-8.

The Department of Education said both pairs of schools performed lower than their district-twide averages. Just about 10 percent of students were proficient on the 2014 state math and English tests at the East Harlem elementary school, and the middle school had only 149 students. The two Brooklyn schools also had low scores on their state tests and a combined population of just 258 pupils.

Fariña already announced a consolidation earlier this year for two schools in Brooklyn, and said she was exploring the model in other cases. Deputy Chancellor Dorita Gibson explained that in these two campuses, the city was responding to the needs of families and faculty members. She denied the city was moving away from investing in struggling schools. "A merger' s not a closure," she said.

"Nothings cookie-cutter. There's no one way," she explained. "We're doing this based on what we're hearing in the communities, what the parents are saying."

She also anticipated there could be more mergers in the future though she said it's too early to give a number.

At the Bedford Stuyvesant schools, which serve similar populations, Gibson said the two schools will share professional development training to improve the whole teaching corps while sharing their separate arts and business programs. In East Harlem, District 4 superintendent Alexandra Estrella said combining the middle and elementary schools will satisfy parents' requests for a K-8 school so their children wouldn't have to transition in sixth grade. She also said the two schools have strengths that will be combined.

Global Neighborhood Secondary School partners with the group Global Kids and Princeton Blairstown Center, which provide counseling and expeditionary (outdoor) learning and helped the school use positive behavior interventions for students who had trouble with attendance or maintaining focus. The school started a regular "merit games" in which students competed for prizes based on who had the most points earned for good behavior.

All four schools were just learning about the changes on Monday and their parent coordinators did not respond to requests for comment.

Luis Genao, the principal of Global Neighborhood, said he supports the merger. "I think that the notion of having one building that's a community school with the community resources to really support the families pre-K to 8 is really a beautiful vision." He said only 28 incoming sixth graders had expressed a preference for his school this fall.

Although Genao is replacing a retiring principal at another school in the district this summer, the Department of Education said all four schools will keep their own faculty as they merge this fall. But attrition is expected in the 2016-17 school year because some positions will become redundant. The department will also need approval from the Panel for Educational Policy to officially consolidate the schools that year and give them new names.