Eight new schools to open

Mayor Bloomberg promised to push forward on the creation of more small schools in his January State of the City address. Eight of these 36 new schools will be located in Queens.
“We’re committed to ensuring that students at every level have more paths to success and these schools will help provide them with opportunities they need and deserve,” Bloomberg said during a press conference held last week with School Chancellor Joel Klein.
The schools will first open for the 2006/2007 school year but only to a limited capacity. For the five new high schools, they will begin by teaching ninth grade while the three new middle schools will begin with sixth grade. Each year, the schools will add another level until they reach full capacity.
Cypress Hills Collegiate School will be located at 94-02 104th Street. It will focus on Latin American and Caribbean studies with attention paid to college preparation and community involvement.
The East-West School of International Studies, whose location has not been announced yet, will have an emphasis on Asian languages with classes being offered in Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
The High School for Construction Trades, Engineering and Architecture, which will be located at 94-02 104th Street, will have a state-of-the-art facility that will help students prepare for college, technical school and apprenticeships.
The Preparatory Academy for Writers will open on 143-10 Springfield Boulevard. The school, which will center on writing and publishing, will have all students writing for either print or online publication.
Serving grades six to 12, World Journalism Preparatory will have a writing program that will prepare students to work in newspapers, magazines and on television. The school’s location has not been announced yet.
Knowledge and Power Preparatory Academy, one of three middle schools that will be added in the borough, is set to open at 8-21 Beach Street and will teach sixth, seventh and eighth grades. This school, the sixth of its kind in the city, will prepare students to attend top high schools and universities as they pursue higher education.
Located on 138-25 Guy R. Brewer Boulevard, York Early College Academy middle school/high school will teach grades six to 12. At this school students will have the opportunity to earn up to two years of college credits.
The third middle school to be added in Queens is Young Women’s Leadership School Astoria. It will be a single gender school that will focus on the developmental needs of young women while emphasizing leadership and college readiness.
“These schools will continue to have a big impact on the lives of New York City’s children,” Klein said during the press conference.
Students interested in attending any of the new high schools can apply by requesting a New Schools Choice Form from a guidance counselor. All completed and signed forms need to be returned to the guidance counselor by Tuesday, February 28th. Students will then be placed with a school that was their highest priority that also ranked them.
All new high schools are following a policy of giving preference to students who have proven that they are making an informed choice by having attended an informational session.
Admittance to middle schools will be based on the region a student lives in and its specific guidelines.
There will be a new school community open house on Saturday, February 11th and Sunday, February 12th from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Queens sites for the open houses are the Springfield Gardens High School campus at 143-10 Springfield Boulevard and the School for Applied Communication, which is located at 30-20 Thomson Avenue, 5th floor, in Long Island City.
For more information go to www.nycenet.edu.offices/newschools.