By Ivan Pereira
Teachers, students and Jamaica High School proponents pulled no punches last Thursday night when the city Department of Education took public comments on the city’s proposal to phase out the landmark high school.
More than 500 people attended the meeting at the school’s auditorium, but before the hearing began several Jamaica HS supporters held a rally on the front door steps of the building, calling on the DOE to rethink its plans to stop admitting freshman students next fall and establish three smaller high schools in the campus.
“Save Jamaica High,” the students, alumni and other protesters shouted as they marched in a circle in front of 167-01 Gothic Drive.
Although the outdoor protest ended before the DOE began the question-and-answer period, the school’s defenders kept raising their voices at Deputy Schools Chancellor John White, who was interrupted with boos as he explained the reasons behind the proposal. The school’s graduation rate has been below 50 percent over the last few years and received a D on this year’s school report card.
“We believe Jamaica will continue to struggle,” he said.
As part of its proposal, which will be finalized at the end of the month, students currently in the school will be able to graduate and the new institutions will be obligated to hire at least 50 percent of Jamaica’s instructors for qualified positions, according to White. The school, which has roughly 1,500 students, already shares space with the Queens Collegiate public high school.
Teachers argued their school was being unnecessarily targeted by the city and the DOE was skewing the statistics.
James Eterno, a social studies teacher and one of the 100 participants who spoke during the public remarks period, showed a different set of data that indicated the school was doing well. Eterno said several students were not counted for graduation last year due to clerical errors and some students graduated in the middle of the school year.
He also noted that 182 students graduated with a Regents diploma in 2009, a nearly 19 percent increase from the 159 Regents diplomas handed out in the year before.
“I hope you give the message that this is a school [and] this is a community of success,” Eterno said to a loud applause.
Numbers aside, several supporters told the DOE official that Jamaica High was too prominent in the southeast Queens community to be closed down.
State Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Fresh Meadows), who was one of several elected officials at the meeting, said generations of students have led successful lives after graduating from the school. The 107-year-old school, designated a city landmark this year, has many famous alumni, including Academy Award-winning director Francis Ford Coppola and Pulitzer Prize artist Art Buchwald.
“In my view, the idea to phase out Jamaica High School for three experimental high schools is a mistake,” said Lancman. “There are a lot of things at Jamaica High School that work well.”
One of the things that the school has done right recently, according to parents, was improving its image as well as discipline. Two years ago, Jamaica was placed on the state’s “persistently dangerous high school” list due to a large number of violent incidences on the campus. It was removed from the list last year, reflecting in part to the work of Principal Walter Acham, who was hired shortly after the state put Jamaica on the dangerous list, parents said.
Jackie Forrestal, of the Hillcrest Estates Civic Association, said Acham has achieved a lot in his short tenure as head of the school and the city needed to give him more time.
“He hasn’t even seen his first graduating class yet,” she said.
Reach reporter Ivan Pereira by e-mail at ipereira@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
