Kids fear it, parents cheer it – it’s back to school, 2011.
Bells rang and doors swung open as the city ushered in the new school year on Thursday, September 8. With backpacks full and pencils sharpened, fresh faces from all five boroughs began the long wait for summer.
But it’s not just business as usual in all boroughs – six new Queens schools kicked off school year operations in the hopes of alleviating pressures on failing and overcrowded schools.
Five of the new schools are replacements operating out of buildings occupied by struggling schools the city has decided to phase out. The one truly new school, the Academy of the City Charter School in Long Island City, made its debut. Maspeth High School, which will open its own doors next fall, occupies space inside the Metropolitan Avenue campus in Forest Hills.
The Collaborative Arts Middle School and the Community Voices Middle School opened in Intermediate School 231 in Springfield Gardens – which is slated to close in 2013. Also, P.S. 354 takes the place of P.S. 30 in Jamaica.
The city also opened Jamaica Gateway to the Sciences amid the phase-out of Jamaica High School, while Rockaway Collegiate High School in Rockaway Park replaces Beach Channel High School. Both Jamaica and Beach Channel high schools are being phased out one year at a time due to poor test scores and graduation rates.
Jamaica Gateway will join 14 other Gateway programs in city high schools, which prepare students for post-secondary study or work in health care and medicine.
Principal Caren Birchwood-Taylor, who has been a science teacher for 28 years and helped establish the Gateway program at Bayside High School, said the school’s small size will help her staff give “individual attention to every student – not just academic support, but emotional support, exposure to the outside world, and early college advisement.”
Rockaway Collegiate High School, another much smaller school, focuses on college-prep and operates with an extended school day and a required summer program. The school day runs from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. with a half-day on Fridays. College preparation begins in ninth grade and includes trips to college campuses.
Both new schools require students to wear uniforms.
