Sunday, January 10, 2010

Rally held to keep Jamaica High School open


From NY1:

A spirited rally was held Thursday night outside Jamaica High School in Queens.

More than 500 parents, students, teachers and alumni rallied against plans to replace the school with several small high schools in the same building.

"We're here to tell them that our school is a viable place, and it's a good school, and it's been around for 118 years. It deserves to be around as Jamaica High School for 118 more," said Jamaica High School teacher James Eterno.

Inside, more than 100 signed up for speaking slots to tell officials why the doors to Jamaica High should stay open.

"We're here tonight to show our support because Jamaica is a great school. We have great academics, great programs," said Jamaica High School student Rachael Ali. "What's not to like here? We have a great atmosphere, we have a great, beautiful campus. Why do they want to close our school down?"

A vote on the fate of Jamaica High is set for the end of the month.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Re: Anonymous: Are the Tribune's people here? Gross.

These teachers, parents, students can rally all they want.
Klein couldn't give two sh@#$ what they think. He'll blame everything on Obama and that it's the Obama administration that wants a certain percentage of schools closed in every large school system.

To any Jamaica HS protesters:

BLOOMBERG & KLEIN DON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO YOU OR YOUR SCHOOL. TRUST ME.

Anonymous said...

Klein and Bloomberg better be listening to the fact that Jamaica High School has happy students who are learning. No one has said what the retention rate is at Jamaica High School for students who do not graduate in four years.

The DOE claims that new, small schools will "hook" students and "engage" them, but if the students are already hooked into entering the school, learning English, overcoming challenges, is that not a GOOD THING?

In the DOE's statements they speak only of the four-year graduation rate and they haven't even gotten the percentage right. The NYSDOE shows a 53% graduation rate.

Wherever you look, the JHS statistics are different. That should tell you a lot!

Anonymous said...

Carving up Jamaica HS into 4 high-schools is gimicky and destroys what works well already.

Shame on the NYSDOE 53% graduation rate. Catholic HS rates are at 99% whom should be hired to convert NYSDOE on how to run basic, successful HS.

Anonymous said...

But, of course, you're forgetting a few small details....

CATHOLIC schools can be very choosey about WHO they admit to their school. They can also expel disruptive and/or poor-performing students.
Public schools can't do that. Again, success of a school is based on its population and the level of parent's priority in education.
A well-run school just adds icing to the cake. Most of the teachers at St Francis Prep had nothing to congratulate themselves for back when I went there. The standards for admission were extremely high and the standards to stay there were even higher. They were very eager and often did expel students who were disruptive, couldn't keep their grades up or even got pregnant. Let's not forget parents who pay like $7,000a year and expect nothing but the best from their kids.
Put all that together. Of COURSE they'll have a 99% graduation rate.
Would you expect anything different?

Anonymous said...

all ny.taxpayers pay $19,000.00 /public pupil/year. while 47% of the public ,Jamaica H.S. "pupils" fail.

who were the past "educators" that enabled this situation ? are they getting this years "bonus"?

were these "educators" qualified ?

don't you think obama should give billions more of his stash to the n.y.c.,d.o.e.?

what percentage of Jamaica "pupils"are former "anchor babies" of illegal aliens ?

queens private school tuition is $7000 to $8000/per pupil/per year and the majority graduate.

michael savage graduated from Jamaica H.S. and has earned many higher education degrees.but in those days,teachers really taught and pupils learned. no social engineering as a priority at the Bd. of Education. the left wing was not in control.

Anonymous said...

The inner city life controlled by the outter world.