Post a comment about the budget cuts at your school on our interactive comment map. more »
GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools
new school on the block
November 10, 2009
Dept of Ed on the hunt for ELL and vocational high schools
Principal wannabes hoping to open up new city high schools got marching orders from city officials last night: Try to focus on students still learning English or vocational programs.
The advice came at a meeting held by the Office of Portfolio Planning, where more than a dozen people stood before an audience of community board members and parents and tried to sell their vision for a new high school. Most said they wanted to open schools that focus on English Language Learners or students who are older and are not on track to graduate.
Though the final proposals are not due until December, the principal-hopefuls were there to see what kind of reception their envisioned new schools would get from parents and community board members.
Johanny Garcia, an assistant principal at the Urban Assembly School for Careers in Sports, proposed a high school for ELL students, which he once was.
“I came to this country at the age of 13 and I couldn’t say ‘hello’,” Garcia said. He made it through George Washington High School thanks to special instruction for ELL students, he said.
His proposed school would start ninth grade students in classes, 60 percent of which would be in Spanish and 40 percent in English. As the student progressed from year to year, the number of classes taught in English would increase until by senior year all classes would be English-only.
Another applicant proposing a high school for ELL students said her school would rely on engaging students through art and theater.
“Art and theater lower the anxiety for ELLs and give them more venues to increase their literacy” said Stela Radovanovic, who has been teaching in New York for 14 years.
Mary Rice-Boothe, principal of Harlem Renaissance High School, described what a typical student at her high school would look like. Cameron, the model student, would have repeatedly failed ninth grade until she arrived at the proposed transfer school, where she would work two days a week at a clothing design internship, Rice-Boothe said.
One applicant described the vocational school she would open, which would focus on preparing students to work in the healthcare industry, while another said she wanted to open an all-male transfer high school.
Hoa Tu, who heads the DOE’s new schools initiative, said where a new school would go wouldn’t be decided until January. On its website, the DOE notes that it’s looking to place one new high school in the Bayard Rustin Educational Complex next year.
-
November 11th, 2009 10:11 am
The International High School network, I believe now eight schools are public high schools that serve students who have been in the coutry four years or less, they are highly successful, and a national model for ELL instruction.
A query: if we have a national model of excellence right here in NYC why are we asking totally inexperienced principals to design schools?
We have very few small vocational high schools, the one that is highly successful is the HS of Computer Technology on the Evander Campus, why is it succeeding and other stumbling? Again. to place the future of youngsters in the hands of beginners, even well meaning beginners, is foolish.
-
November 11th, 2009 12:11 pm
Peter,
How can the mayor and Klein manipulate the stats of the public schools through undemocratic pressure? Hire young, inexperience administrators, who have only taught a few years or never taught at all, and they want to please the mayor and klein. I know a principal who taught ONLY two years making only $48,000 per year and became a principal making $130,000. Why would a principal with little experience in the classroom would want to give up that amount of moola for the sake of education? I understand that some inexperienced principal have good intentions, but the future of our students are at stake. Would you put an councilperson or assemblyperson to run the country? Would you put an intern to run a Sloan-Kettering? Would you just learned how to fly a small plane in charge of a large international airport? Where people’s lives are at stake experienced people **must** be in charge. Why would it be any different for the lives of our youngsters? Bloomberg and Klein have never cared for the youngsters, but only about their political image.
-
December 17th, 2009 8:55 am
All of the International Schools including the first created by Eric Nadelstern started out with “inexperienced” principals. By definition people were doing something else first and felt they had the ccombination of skill, determination and yes sometimes luck to start and sustain a school. The process potential leaders went through is rigorous and demands a well-thought out plan for the first year and after. Secondly, the immersion model that the International Schools use is only one response to the challenge of ELLs. It demands that students from various countries strive to learn the lingua franca, English. Another model is the transtional bilingual model. It assumes one language other than English is spoken. In this case, Spanish. Content classes in the beginning are taught in Spanish as students develop their English skills. The long term goal is for all classes to be taught in English by 12th grade. Both models are supported within the Bilingual community.
-
December 17th, 2009 12:33 pm
I would love to know if mr. Garcia graduated in 4 yrs or 5 and if he had friends that graduated in 5 yrs. Under the new criteria him taking 5 yrs to reasonably graduate because he had to master a new language would have caused the school to close. Also he said he recieved special classes for ELLs.. something small schools are ill equipped to do.. Looks like he is a shinning example of how the current administration continues to operate by flying in the face of reason.
Leave a Reply
Mapping the Budget Cuts
4 Comments
Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack