The history of Jamaica High School

From the New Yorker:

As late as 1998, Jamaica held a respectable standing among the city’s large high schools. Though it was no longer the élite institution of earlier years, more than seventy-five per cent of the students graduated on time. But, by 2009, the graduation rate had tumbled to thirty-nine per cent. A confluence of events brought about the decline. In that period, talented students in northern Queens were given the option of attending two other high schools, both based on college campuses. In 1995, Townsend Harris, a magnet high school on Parsons Boulevard, moved onto the campus of Queens College. With roughly half the number of students as Jamaica, Townsend Harris had graduation rates that fluctuated between ninety-nine and a hundred per cent. During the eighties and nineties, Jamaica allowed students to enroll in courses at York College, a liberal-arts institution about a mile south of the high school. In 2002, York became the location of Queens High School for the Sciences, which granted admission based solely on standardized-test scores.

In 2004, in the name of greater choice, the Bloomberg administration revised the districting rules to allow students to attend any high school in the city. Given the realities of residential segregation, and of school quality as a determinant of real-estate values, there was something almost radical in that idea. It’s even possible to see the Bloomberg plan as a long-awaited response to Arthur Levitt’s claim, in 1954, that the problem in New York was not segregated schools but segregated neighborhoods. But it also meant that students whose parents—owing to language difficulties or work demands, immigration status or a generalized fear of bureaucratic authority—could not or would not pursue other educational options for their children found themselves relegated to increasingly unappealing schools.

The demographic balance that characterized Jamaica during my years became impossible to maintain. In 2011, the year that the city formally decided to close the school, fourteen per cent of the student population had disabilities and twenty-nine per cent had limited English proficiency. In the year before the school closed, it was ninety-nine per cent minority, a demographic that would not in itself be a concern were it not also the case that sixty-three per cent of the students qualified as poor.

Jamaica High School graduates its last class

From DNA Info:

Jamaica High School, which has been a fixture in the neighborhood for more than a century, closed for good earlier this week, the Department of Education said.

Despite initial protests, the school closed four years after it was slated to be phased because it was one of several of the poorest-performing schools that the previous administration targeted for closing.

A document discussing the possible closure of the school, issued by then Chancellor Joel Klein in 2010, stated that "the New York City Department of Education (DOE) is proposing to phase-out Jamaica High School based on its poor performance and the DOE’s assessment that the school lacks the capacity to turn around quickly to better support student needs."

The document also said that "the Progress Report results for Jamaica High School put the school in the bottom 7% of all high schools that received a 2009-2010 Progress Report" and that the school's graduation rates remained around or below 50 percent for more than a decade.

No new students were admitted to the school since 2011, but those who were already enrolled were allowed to stay until they graduated.

According to the school's website, only 35 students were enrolled in the school during its last year.

CPC approves Vallonia expansion

From Brownstoner Queens:

Also at today’s meeting, the commission approved zoning changes for the $1 billion Hallets Point project planned for the Astoria waterfront. The project (pictured above) will bring 2,600 units to a now-sleepy corner of Astoria. Plans for this mega-development have been floating around for years so it’s big new that it’s finally ready to roll. The commission-level approval today follows the Community Board 1 vote of support back in May.

Lastly, the CPC approved landmarking of Jamaica High School and Forest Park Carousel. No surprises there, since the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted to landmark these two structures earlier this summer.

Jamaica High School landmarked

From DNA Info:

The building that once housed Jamaica High School, designed by prominent Brooklyn architect William Tubby in the Dutch Revival style, was granted New York City landmark status, the Landmarks Preservation Commission announced Tuesday.

The three-story building on Hillside Avenue, constructed in 1896, housed Jamaica High School until 1927.

Tubby, known for his historical revival style projects, also designed the Pratt Institute Library in Brooklyn.

He chose the Dutch Revival style for Jamaica to acknowledge the area’s earliest European settlers, according to information provided by the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

Contrasting decorative details, stepped gables, arched windows and a tall roof with high chimneys are typical elements of the style, according to the commission.

Grin and bear it!

It's the end of a looooong week, folks. Why not blow off some steam by commenting on this gem of a photo?

Jamaica High School being neglected

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.

Kids flee schools on closure list

From the Daily News:

Overcowding in some of Queens' large, generalized high schools appears to be up this fall - and the culprit could be the borough's high number of struggling schools.

Parents are pulling students out of schools that the city and state have identified as failing, local leaders and parents said. And those students are now exacerbating overcrowding in nearby high schools, they said.

City officials were quick to point out that there was no data to support this claim.

Let's not use common sense, but instead rely on "data".

Jamaica High can't find students

From Crains:

One of the 19 New York City schools that narrowly escaped closure earlier this year may not be as safe as it had thought—this time because of low enrollment numbers.

A judge put a halt to the phasing out of these schools in March, after ruling that the Department of Education had not followed state procedure. However, the DOE is appealing the ruling, and sent out letters to eighth grade applicants warning them of the pending phase-out.

“After getting those letters, most parents didn't want to come within 10,000 miles of these schools,” said James Eterno, a teacher's union representative from Jamaica High School in Queens. The DOE's letter, coupled with the bad publicity from the school's potential closure, has left it with only 23 incoming freshmen, compared with more than 400 in years past, Mr. Eterno said.

“They're starving the school to death. We can't run our programs with only 23 kids,” Mr. Eterno said.

Because of the low enrollment numbers, teachers speculate that two smaller schools—the newly created High School for Community Leadership and the Hillside Arts and Letters Academy—will open up in Jamaica's building, in addition to Queens Collegiate, a school with 163 ninth- and tenth-grade students that is already in a wing on the school's third floor.

Photo from the NY Times

Jamaica High School teachers speak out

Phony stats used to close Jamaica High?

Hi Queens Crapper,

I notice that you post clippings from the Post and News about Jamaica. Given your apparent point of view, I thought you might be interested in something edgier, specifically things I've been posting at Gotham Schools:

http://gothamschools.org/author/arthur-goldstein/

My most recent column is a collaboration with Jamaica HS Chapter Leader James Eterno. It reveals the statistics Klein is using to close Jamaica are fraudulent.

Please feel free to use any of my stuff on the blog. We're particularly keen on getting out as much as we can this week, before the PEP decides Jamaica's fate next week. The closing of Jamaica will cause a chain reaction, perhaps hitting current C-rated John Bowne and Martin Van Buren next year, and certainly hitting us eventually.

I'll have another piece on Gotham soon about how Bloomberg is killing neighborhood schools and what an awful idea that is.

Thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Arthur Goldstein, ESL Teacher/ UFT Chapter Leader
Francis Lewis High School

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.

Bye, bye, Jamaica High

From the NY Times:

New York City education officials said on Thursday that they planned to close an additional four schools for poor performance, including Jamaica High, a 1,500-student school that has been open since 1927.

The announcement brought to eight the number of schools that education officials said this week that they planned to phase out, beginning in the next school year. More such announcements are expected over the coming weeks.

As part of his effort to reshape the school system, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has announced the closing of 91 additional schools for poor performance since 2002, generally replacing them with clusters of smaller schools, often in the building where the failed school once operated.

Enrollment at Jamaica High School has been falling — it was 2,500 a decade ago — and its graduation rate has remained below 50 percent for years, education officials said. Under the city’s proposal, the school will stop accepting ninth graders in 2010 and slowly shrink.

3 cheers for overdevelopment & our sanctuary city!

From the NY Post:

Francis Lewis HS in Queens will be the city's most overcrowded when classes start Wednesday -- cramming an astounding 4,700 kids into facilities designed for only 2,572, barely half as many.

The school's efforts to accommodate the crowds border on the comical, but critics aren't laughing.

Hundreds will crowd into eight trailers in the schoolyard and "half-classrooms" -- large rooms divided in two by thin wallboard.

Incredibly, Jamaica HS, a mere two miles away, is 400 students under capacity.

At Francis Lewis, which boasts an 82 percent four-year graduation rate, more than 13,000 kids applied for admission last year.

"The city doesn't want to say no to the parents," Goldstein said, referring to an application process that has kids rank their top 12 preferences for high schools. "It wants to place students where they want to go, because we really are a great school. But this is a cancer. We will reach a breaking point. Eventually, it will affect the quality of the education.

DOE spokesman Will Havemann admitted, "Francis Lewis is certainly too crowded," adding that the city is building nearly 10,000 new high-school seats in Queens to fix just such problems.

And from the Daily News:

The trailers parked in city public-school yards to ease overcrowding are themselves packed with too many students, according to data obtained by the Daily News.

At least 6,400 students attended class in trailers filled beyond capacity, according to the latest available figures from the 2007-08 school year obtained bythe Independent Budget Office (IBO).

Queens had the most trailers overall, with 166 trailers at 59 schools.

So long as we're vibrant and diverse, who cares about this?