From the Daily News:Jamaica High School, the once-venerable neighborhood institution, has become a neglected stepchild in its own home, community leaders charged Tuesday.
Several specialized schools that were moved into the Gothic Drive building to eventually replace Jamaica High as the lone tenant are less crowded and better equipped, said state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside), who vowed to fight the city's proposal to phase out Jamaica after touring its building Saturday with local leaders.
They met with the principals of the four schools - including Jamaica High - that now occupy the building and compared class sizes and resources.
Classes at Jamaica have as many as 34 students, said teachers union rep James Eterno.
Meanwhile, at the High School for Community Leadership, classes top out at 24 kids and the largest class at the Hillside Arts and Letters Academy has 26 students, Avella said. The city created the two schools last fall to also occupy the Jamaica High School building.
Classes at Queens Collegiate: A College Board School, which also occupies the building, have as many as 32 students, Avella said. But every classroom is equipped with a smart board and each student has a computer.
But Jamaica High School, which has approximately 1,200 students, has only two functioning smart boards and roughly 120 computers - and many of the machines don't work, Eterno said. The cash-strapped school has also been forced to cut its music program and scale back its after-school and tutoring sessions.
5 comments:
"Jamaica High School being neglected"
Paging NYC Department of Education spokeswoman/hack Italian Girl........
Bloomberg couldn't shut Jamaica HS because of a court order, so he is not trying to give it a slow death.
Jamaica High School has been in decline for the past decade students there have changed, for the worst the mayor is take necessary steps to preserve education in the city. As a student who went to Jamaica High School I feel it is the correct choice to shut down Jamaica and rebuild a better school system for the students in New York!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It sounds more like it's being reorganized. The problem is the students should apply themselves to learning instead of all the negative activities we've all heard about. After all, you only hurt yourselves in the end.
I am a NYC high school teacher and I know several teachers at Stuy High. The Stuy teachers have told me the tech budget at Stuy High has been cut back to near nothing and that it's because Bloomberg's big thrust has been that large schools don't work... he has broken them all down to many smaller schools in large buildings. Because he believes large schools don't work -- and has built policy around that idea, even the crown jewel Stuy High must fail. Bloomberg has dissembled an entire school system, no problem. EEEEKKK!
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