Mar 13, 2008 4:22 PM
Next September, young, eager students fresh out of middle school will enter high school. Their schools will have exciting names, such as Victory Collegiate Academy, or Expeditionary Learning School for Community Leaders, or High School for Public Service: Heroes of Tomorrow. (Everyone wants to be a hero of tomorrow!) The schools will be bright and colorful and these students will have been lured by the promise of better instruction and personalized attention.
The scene will be played out in high schools all across New York City. But not for the students who have been left behind, the students whose current schools are closing, who must make way for the new schools coming in. Nobody talks about them, for they are simply “collateral damage” in a mayor’s master plan to break up large high schools.
I am a guidance counselor at Canarsie HS, which, shortly before Christmas, became slated to close to make way for three of these new, smaller schools. As such, I have a firsthand view of life in a closing high school.
Unfortunately, I have traveled this road before. My first job as a counselor was at Eastern District HS. When it was phased out I had little seniority and was excessed quickly. I then became a staff member at the Office of High School Admissions where my job was to help close out my former school and to transfer hundreds of students to other high schools.
The trouble was, these children had “closing school” written all over them. Deals were made with principals around the city to take these children. Day by day the students would come back to me, often in tears, because they were turned away by these same principals who sometimes would not even meet with them. It often took several attempts to enroll them in school and with each unsuccessful attempt their self-esteem sank lower and lower.
Canarsie is a thriving neighborhood high school. For many years, we flew under the radar — never the best of schools but by no means one of the worst. Children graduated, went to college and often came back to Canarsie to give back what they had been given. As recently as 2003, we were proud to graduate a class of students who went on to such prestigious schools as MIT, Cornell and PolyTech.
With the announcement that we would soon close, the wheels were set in motion for an exodus of key faculty members — to the detriment of our students. Younger teachers, whose passion and dedication have not been blurred by the cynicism that comes of years spent working for the Department of Education, were the first to go. Last month, a young special education teacher left. She had spent many years working at Canarsie while attending college — the dream of becoming a teacher here always within her grasp. Now, she is forced to leave. She doesn’t want to but the opportunity of a new appointment and medical benefits must come first.
In the past few weeks, we have also lost a popular foreign language teacher as well as an ESL teacher who was responsible for preparing her students for the Language Assessment Battery (LAB) exam in June. There is no one to replace her.
Our faculty suffers, but what about the students who have been left behind? Since we are phasing out, we cannot hire any new teachers and, even if we could, who would come to a doomed high school? We “killed” our band class last month because we no longer have a band teacher. What happens when the physics teacher leaves? Or the advanced placement English and history teachers? What happens when the popular poetry teacher leaves? As our student population shrinks, so will the teaching and counseling staff.
What do I tell our current sophomores and juniors who want to stay with their high school — who probably would meet the same difficulties as my earlier Eastern District students should they decide to transfer. By the time they become juniors and seniors, many of their classes, as well as their opportunities, will be gone. What do I tell one of my juniors who got a 2240 on the SATs and would like to do cancer research, or my young student who was placed in honor courses for the first time this term and whose future should include advanced placement courses?
The options left to our students are shrinking academically — and physically. Where once our students had the run of their high school they will now be relegated to a floor, and probably soon to half that.
For some students, Canarsie will have been their second or third high school. What of the children who have come to Canarsie from other closing high schools like Jefferson, Wingate, Prospect Heights and Erasmus? What about that concept of “continuity of instruction” that was once such a buzzword?
At Eastern District, I considered myself unfortunate: with little seniority, I was excessed quickly. Looking back, that was a blessing. Today, with 30 years in this system, I am the senior member of my department. How lucky for me that I get to watch as my more fortunate students leave for high schools with more programs, those left behind struggle in increasingly dire circumstances and longtime friends and colleagues leave for more secure positions. Seniority definitely has its perks.
Paulette Dollinger has worked in New York City schools for 30 years, 13 as a teacher and 17 as a guidance counselor, the last eight at Canarsie HS.