We are doing a bit of praying that one of the new mayor and Chancellor's first acts upon taking office will be to give a reprieve to the academic, comprehensive high schools that are phasing out, including of course the legendary Jamaica High School.
My former colleague Marc Epstein wrote the case in favor of saving our doomed schools on Diane Ravitch's blog. It is linked here and copied in its entirety below.
Please help us out.
Will Mayor de Blasio Grant Clemency to Doomed Schools?
Marc Epstein taught at Jamaica High School in Queens, New York City, for many years. The school is under a death sentence, which means the end of many programs that served children with different needs. Here he makes a plea to Mayor de Blasio to save some of the doomed schools.
This is the time of year that governors and the president issue pardons and clemencies. They are issued to prisoners who have either been exemplary citizens during their incarceration or set free because extenuating circumstances indicate that their punishment didn’t fit the crime.
Mayors aren’t granted this kind of executive power, but this year Bill De Blasio does have the executive power to call a halt to the systematic elimination of several of New York’s comprehensive high schools that have had their fate sealed by Michael Bloomberg’s school closing policy.
Ostensibly, these school closings were to result in improved student performance in small schools that were placed within buildings occupied by the traditional high schools. It was an idea hatched by Bill Gates, an idea that he abandoned long ago.
In the waning days of his mayoralty, Bloomberg has embarked on a citywide tour, touting his legacy. The papers have dutifully transmitted City Hall’s talking points, with hardly a demurral finding its way onto the printed page.
The Wall Street Journal’s 3,000 word “Bloomberg Reshaped The City” article credited the record high 60% high school graduation to Bloomberg’s stewardship of the schools and politely left out the inconvenient statistic that shows a record high number of New York’s high school graduates are unprepared for college and require remedial courses in math and English.
In an interview with Joel Klein, Bloomberg’s schools chancellor for over 10 years, that appeared in the Scholastic Administrator, Klein expressed his hope that the next schools chancellor will continue Bloomberg’s education legacy.
If only Mayor De Blasio will pick “someone who is committed to building on the progress of the last 11- plus years,” Klein’s tenure won’t have been in vain, at least according to Klein.
If that should be the case, we should prepare for record numbers of meaningless diplomas, more school closings, an unstable teacher work force, and a school system where academic apartheid defines education opportunity.
Record numbers of students now use mass transportation to get to the “school of their choice.” Why have 250,000 students using mass transit when many of them could walk to school instead, is a question that has gone unasked and unanswered by reporters and politicians for over a decade.
The community has been de-coupled from the neighborhood high school, because hardly a neighborhood high school exists anymore. The result is that parental participation suffers, after-school activities suffer, and the community suffers.
A record number of students attend boutique schools that screen their applicants. I estimate that close to 10% of the seats available to high school students are now reserved for these students. Most of these students used to help make up the population of the traditional high schools.
When Jamaica High School was handed its death warrant, the Department of Education, fearing a backlash from parents who simply didn’t buy the line that Jamaica was a failed school, cleverly carved a Gateway School out of the Gateway program that had existed in Jamaica for about 20 years.
And then, miracle of miracles, the new Gateway High School received an “A” on its report card!
Is there a serious argument that can be made for a public policy that is perpetually closing and reopening school houses because they are “failed”?
We’ve all heard of the Amityville Horror, but does that mean we should treat the schoolhouse as we would a haunted house? But if closing and opening hundreds of schools is the new normal, we’d do better to hire Shinto priests to exorcise the evil spirits in these buildings rather than renaming and re-staffing them.
Our lowest performing students usually carry baggage that includes unstable home life, poor to no healthcare, limited language skills, and physical impoverishment.
If instead of further destabilizing their school environment, Mayor Bloomberg had thrown his energy and resources into creating schools along the “Comer Model,” he might actually have had something to show to the public.
The Comer school model developed by Dr. James P. Comer at the Yale Child Study Center has been around for close to fifty years and has a proven track record in addressing the problems of low achieving students in the inner city. But the lure of the well-meaning philanthropist with no expertise proved irresistible.
Instead, we are left with the tired litany of the teachers and union as villains, and the mayor and his minions as heroic for taking them on. But beneath the surface Bloomberg has created a highly segregated school system that keeps the disadvantaged far away from the middle classes and the upwardly mobile.
If Mayor De Blasio wants to reverse this death spiral, he’d do well to grant clemency to schools like Jamaica High School and Beach Channel High School and give them the resources they need to make them work for the children and their communities.
In their heyday comprehensive high schools included students who were on multiple career paths. There were differentiated diplomas and a multiplicity of choices. The students might not have attended all the same classes together, but they played on the same teams, shared the same teachers, and developed mutual respect for one another.
Inexplicably that has been destroyed, and instead of these students existing side by side with each other in the same community, they live and learn as peoples apart.
When this consideration is no longer a part of our education system we all become impoverished. Clemency is one way to begin turning this around.
A De Blasio Clemency?
Mayors aren’t granted this kind of executive power, but this year Bill De Blasio does have the executive power to call a halt to the systematic elimination of several of New York’s comprehensive high schools that have had their fate sealed by Michael Bloomberg’s school closing policy.
Ostensibly, these school closings were to result in improved student performance in small schools that were placed within buildings occupied by the traditional high schools. It was an idea hatched by Bill Gates, an idea that he abandoned long ago.
In the waning days of his mayoralty, Bloomberg has embarked on a citywide tour, touting his legacy. The papers have dutifully transmitted City Hall’s talking points, with hardly a demurral finding its way onto the printed page.
The Wall Street Journal’s 3,000 word “Bloomberg Reshaped The City” article credited the record high 60% high school graduation to Bloomberg’s stewardship of the schools and politely left out the inconvenient statistic that shows a record high number of New York’s high school graduates are unprepared for college and require remedial courses in math and English.
In an interview with Joel Klein, Bloomberg’s schools chancellor for over 10 years, that appeared in the Scholastic Administrator, Klein expressed his hope that the next schools chancellor will continue Bloomberg’s education legacy.
If only Mayor De Blasio will pick “someone who is committed to building on the progress of the last 11- plus years,” Klein’s tenure won’t have been in vain, at least according to Klein.
If that should be the case, we should prepare for record numbers of meaningless diplomas, more school closings, an unstable teacher work force, and a school system where academic apartheid defines education opportunity.
Record numbers of students now use mass transportation to get to the “school of their choice.” Why have 250,000 students using mass transit when many of them could walk to school instead, is a question that has gone unasked and unanswered by reporters and politicians for over a decade.
The community has been de-coupled from the neighborhood high school, because hardly a neighborhood high school exists anymore. The result is that parental participation suffers, after-school activities suffer, and the community suffers.
A record number of students attend boutique schools that screen their applicants. I estimate that close to 10% of the seats available to high school students are now reserved for these students. Most of these students used to help make up the population of the traditional high schools.
When Jamaica High School was handed its death warrant, the Department of Education, fearing a backlash from parents who simply didn’t buy the line that Jamaica was a failed school, cleverly carved a Gateway School out of the Gateway program that had existed in Jamaica for about 20 years.
And then, miracle of miracles, the new Gateway High School received an “A” on its report card!
Is there a serious argument that can be made for a public policy that is perpetually closing and reopening school houses because they are “failed”?
We’ve all heard of the Amityville Horror, but does that mean we should treat the schoolhouse as we would a haunted house? But if closing and opening hundreds of schools is the new normal, we’d do better to hire Shinto priests to exorcise the evil spirits in these buildings rather than renaming and re-staffing them.
Our lowest performing students usually carry baggage that includes unstable home life, poor to no healthcare, limited language skills, and physical impoverishment.
If instead of further destabilizing their school environment, Mayor Bloomberg had thrown his energy and resources into creating schools along the “Comer Model,” he might actually have had something to show to the public.
The Comer school model developed by Dr. James P. Comer at the Yale Child Study Center has been around for close to fifty years and has a proven track record in addressing the problems of low achieving students in the inner city. But the lure of the well-meaning philanthropist with no expertise proved irresistible.
Instead, we are left with the tired litany of the teachers and union as villains, and the mayor and his minions as heroic for taking them on. But beneath the surface Bloomberg has created a highly segregated school system that keeps the disadvantaged far away from the middle classes and the upwardly mobile.
If Mayor De Blasio wants to reverse this death spiral, he’d do well to grant clemency to schools like Jamaica High School and Beach Channel High School and give them the resources they need to make them work for the children and their communities.
In their heyday comprehensive high schools included students who were on multiple career paths. There were differentiated diplomas and a multiplicity of choices. The students might not have attended all the same classes together, but they played on the same teams, shared the same teachers, and developed mutual respect for one another.
Inexplicably that has been destroyed, and instead of these students existing side by side with each other in the same community, they live and learn as peoples apart.
When this consideration is no longer a part of our education system we all become impoverished. Clemency is one way to begin turning this around.
29 comments:
James Eterno and I, at the time of the closing, wrote a piece about how all the stats on which the closure was based were false.
http://gothamschools.org/2010/01/13/save-jamaica-high-school/
As of this date, no one at the DOE or anywhere else has contradicted us.
It’s amazing they take a piece of something working well at Jamaica, chop it off, and leave the school without it. One more thing that was about to happen at Jamaica before its closure was the addition of a JROTC program. That program has worked very well at Francis Lewis, and the same people who started our program were going to initiate the one at Jamaica.
Unfortunately, John White, having gotten out of the wrong side of his coffin that evening, decided to close Jamaica after having ignored dozens of community members who passionately plead for its survival. It was a bad day, a bad decision, by a very bad administration that cared nothing for the community it ostensibly served.
Robert Croonquist
December 31, 2013 at 10:53 am
I taught at Jamaica High School for 19 years. It was a great school. As Epstein stated, we had differentiated programs that served a wide variety of students. Many of my students, particularly those in the Gateway program, were accepted to great colleges and universities and went on to successful careers, many in teaching. Jamaica High School was not a failing school, it was a complex school that was systematically dismantled by the Bloomberg administration, not the least because we had a strong and vocal union and a great campus. After I retired I founded a UN NGO that brought atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to schools in an oral history initiative. Out of loyalty we conducted programs at the Jamaica campus until it became so dysfunctional that programming there became impossible.
DiBlasio’s first job with the schools is triage. Although Jamaica is in shreds, I for one would offer my services to see it come back to life as a comprehensive high school and a model neighborhood school that not only offers a variety of educational opportunities for high school students but services for the entire community, day, night and weekends.
GreeNYC. End the daily educational diaspora. Create and defend neighborhood schools.
Well done.
Carmen Farina as Chancellor and DeBlasio as mayor will mean that as liberals they will be different more in image than substance. As liberals they will try to curtail some of the "excesses" of the Bloomberg years but they will not roll back the privatization of our schools.
They will allow the mostly white middle class teachers some breathing room but won't reverse the lose of tenure rights nor will they give parents any real power in the system. However, our debilitated and weakened forces can look for opportunities to rebuild our strength.
Give us an inch and we should build our strength so that we can take a mile. The only thing that will guarantee a significant change in our school system will be a broad-based education grassroots movement. Whether we like Bill D or not, let's not lose sight of our goals, among those goals we should include: End Mayoral Dictatorship of our Schools, Institute Popular Control, End the School to Prison Pipeline, Introduce an Anti-Racist and Anti-Sexist Curriculum, Respect the Rights of Educators and all DOE Workers, Improve learning and Working Conditions in our Schools....!
Judge people by what they do and not the rhetoric. History can only be a bit of a guide. We will all see when we return to school if there will be any changes
Jamaica Beaver
December 31, 2013 at 4:42 pm
As someone who has taught in small school East West School of International Studies and at Jamaica High School a large neighborhood based high school. I can state with confidence the new schools created by the Bloomberg administration lack a culture of community and continuity. The small school I was at had 1/3 of its teachers turn over every year, no ties to the neighborhood or community it serves, and constantly shifts strategies and priorities based on the whims of the principal or “new” assistant principal. East West School of International Studies had 4 new and different assistant principals in the three years I was there. The principal, Ben Sherman spent more time teaching English in Japan then in a New York City public school.
The school had no sense of tradition. The principal actual declares every new activity a tradition. Many of these traditions are never repeated. For example, the school talent show, a successful event run by student government was discontinued after 5 years. The school play ended when the principal fail to support the drama teacher. The drama subsequently left the school. As with most small schools their were not enough students to supports any PSAL team.
Jamaica provided students with a well-rounded education. In my time ten+ years the school had numerous champion seasons. I would be proud to return to Jamaica and help rebuild this 100 year community institution!!
N. Mostaccio
December 31, 2013 at 12:17 pm
What so many of the newly created small schools lack, is precisely what makes a good high school, and that is a sense of community and belonging on the part of the students and staff. This has been lost in the large buildings with 4 or 5 small schools housed within its walls. The atmosphere that has been created is one of rivalry, not only among the students but the faculty and administration as well. I may be wrong but I don’t see how an adversarial culture creates a quality learning environment for the students. I for one would be happy to return to a functioning Jamaica High School and face the challenges of reviving her, and once again serve her community. Former Jamaica staff member of 16 years.
js
December 31, 2013 at 1:11 pm
Great Blog. Jamaica High School was never a failing school – the only thing that failed was Bloomberg. How dare he label the school as such. I just returned from overseas and in the airport across the Customs floor I spotted a former student of mine who also remembered me as being one of his favorite teachers from 10 years ago.. He has a great job as a customs agent – did he fail? did Jamaica fail him? did I as a teacher fail him? The only thing that will definitely fail are all on the maggot cockroach infested small schools that Bloomberg has created. How many of them will be around in 10 years let alone over 100 years.? The small schools off the the kids NOTHING! Mayor De Blasio: I also plead with you to reopen the large community high schools that offered something for every type of student as well as school pride, tradition, and community. This is a necessity.
As a long-time teacher and now a "recalled" Chapter Leader at John Dewey HS in Brooklyn, I am keeping my eye on Mulgrew and the Unity Party to see if they will "seize the day" now that the new admin is one that even the clowns that run the union can extract a decent working relationship out of- if not a contract (I think the DeBlasio admin will nix the notion of a new contract for the municipal unions, by pleading "poverty" esp in terms of retroactive pay; I also predict that this will be a huge detrimental issue that will show just how much "skin in the game" Big Bill really has). Mulgrew will have to work hard to mess this up, but he is quite adept, and he has the Delegate Sheep to back up his blunderheaded "leadership". I agree with the "image" not "substance" remark in terms of the union as well as the DOE- the push to terminate older teachers will continue under the new mayor, as will the no-one-gets-out-of-here-alive eval system- the apple cart will not be upset!
Hope you are wrong Martin.
Can we please remember who the enemies are? Mulgrew doesn't wake up in the morning and say that he isn't going to advocate for the members. In the next few months we will have everything thrown at us. They will roll it all back out: The rubber rooms, the no good senior teachers, the poor new teachers who must go so that incompetent senior teachers can stay, the pensions, Tenure....... you know the rub. If we continue to fight eachother, they will have accomplished what they wanted. Solidarity is the answer not ignoring the tremendous PR machine that the rich and powerful have.
Jamaica High School is a good school that should stay open. I would know; I'm a student here and I am treated very well.
I am a student and I am getting a good education at Jamaica.
I like and love this Jamaica High School because, this school all teachers are really nice with their students and I don’t want to this school closed. This school is really important for every student……..Thank you….!!!
Milena S
I am an alumni of Jamaica High School and I will stand proud for the years to come as such. Jamaica High school was my beginning, an institution that taught me everything I needed to know about the real world. It prepared me well for college and the teachers that were employed cared about the students and what happened to them.
This was and still is a school that gives meaning to: No child left behind”. Attempting to fade out the school was one of many bad decisions that the past chair holders of the DOE made. I Graduated Jamaica high school in 2008 and moved on to John Jay college of Criminal Justice. I completed my degree this past May 2013. Now I am a forensic Toxicologist working in a lab that works with clients across the USA.
I would not be where I am and who I am with out the help, support and encouragement of those individuals in Jamaica. What the DOE needs to remember is that every school has has a few rotten eggs but that doesn’t mean that everyone is spoiled. Stop looking at the five or six impolite students and look at the hundreds of amazing. insightful and inspirational ones. Jamaica is my second home, I stood by this school in 2007 and I will stand by this school until the state realizes that it’s making a big mistake.
P.S. Statistics from 5 years ago do not inform you of the progress of the school in the present. Here is a little tip DOE, stop looking at the past and take a look at the present. Once you see what the present holds then determine if there needs to me a change.
tuli zaman
January 2, 2014 at 11:43 am
Jamaica High School is a great school. Jamaica High School’s teachers are very good. They always helps us; I love all my teachers .I love Jamaica High School.
Jamaica High School has been an amazing experience. I could not imagine my life the way it is without this school and its teachers. I passed all my regents and now I am getting ready for college with the help of all of my peers and pedagogues.
Sincerely, A senior of Jamaica High School.
PS: It should stay open for all the kids to have an even better experience than I did. Also, Jamaica High School was not in the news for pepper spray like QC.
Comment to James’s blog
Epstein continues to use the word disadvantage instead of oppressed nationalities to describe black and latino students. His overall comments are positive. The statements on the blog are also on target. However some statements do not mention the racist attitudes of certain white teachers towards other teachers and students. Two weaknesses in JHS I will like to point out are:1) the lack of organized work with parents, conscious coordinated alliance with parents, on a consistent basis and 2) the failure to organize a UFT coordinating committee that would meet independently to mobilize and activate the union members. A small group of leaders, organizers recruited by the elected members of the UFT under the leadership of our then chapter leader, in order to give guidance to the particular struggles in Jamaica HS and to coordinate with other schools to push the UFT to take a stand against the attacks of the DOE.
Unless these types of committees are organized throughout the city, we will never have a rank and file democracy capable of leading the union.
As to di Blasio as mayor we can not count on him to turn around the system he is after all the product of the Democratic Party, neither we can count on the Republican or the Tea Party to bring any change. History teaches us that only when we have people's movements is when real change takes place. The movement for a Peoples Board of Education is an example in mind that will push for a real public education under the control and power of parents and collaborating with teachers. What type of reform we need now? In education the chancellor has to be an educator selected by a process that involves parents and educators. Mayoralty Control has to end, the school districts will be responsible for selecting a Panel for Education Policy. the teachers should establish an evaluation system that is place for the purpose of assisting the teachers to succeed in their job as teachers, as educators.
With all due respect anonymous, I can't agree with your comment, particularly on parents. We have had the full support of so many wonderful parents in the battle to save Jamaica HS, including having parents with us when we made phone calls at the Queens UFT to tell people about the Joint Public Hearings. We also were out in the community talking up Jamaica on a consistent basis. Church support was there too. It wasn't just me or the amazing Susan Sutera. We had a team of people including parents, students and community activists. That group still exists and is out there still working for the school.
I have also been able to get in touch with so many of the excessed teachers, including Dr. Epstein, to have them write college recommendations for students. The bond between our students, alumni, parents and faculty is strong and goes beyond race.
I graduated from Jamaica High School, class of 2009, and I do truly miss it. To be more specific, the teachers were exceptionally wonderful. It's hard to believe that a school that was wide and open for all the Jamaica High School students is now completely broken down. We were able to attend gym, roam around the entire building(and not just parts of it), and go to the fourth floor as if it belonged to us students and teachers. It is sad how some of us thought that Jamaica High School would remain the same (one), Yes we took Jamaica High School for granted, thinking that it will always remain the same, basically living at the moment. But looking at it now, we wont even get the chance to ever visit Jamaica High School in the future if it keeps breaking down - and shuts down. I just hope that before June 2014, the plan to shut down Jamaica High School changes, and that it stays open. We had the most wonderful teachers, amazing classes, and up until this day I still look up to the teachers for all their hard work because that's where the foundation of my education was, and those of us that attended Jamaica High School.
Now that it's all gone I realized, three years of high school life in Jamaica High School was simply fun. Each and every person from principal to guidance counselor, school safety, custodians, my classmates, friends and most importantly these patience teachers played an important role in my life. The respect and the love I got from these people as a student, mate or friend I can't repay. There were days I met people and regretted not meeting them before. I met such amazing people on the last day and it made me sad when I realized, I will never get to see these them again. The Annual Card Boat Race is one of the things that I miss the most. I miss this building, I miss these beavers, I miss playing hockey, bad mention and these teachers. I learned a lot from these people.
All I want is a fair treatment from the Board of Education. I was graduated in 2013 and I know what we students and our teachers went through. I just don't know how shutting down a school will make things work in a country like America!
I graduated from Jamaica High School in the school year 2013 and I already missing my school so badly because of its wonderful alumni stuff and students. I really don't want this school to be close. I was an immigrant when I started my study there and I wasn't able to speak in English, even a sentence or few, all of my teachers there helped me so much to speak a new language and inspired me as well,especially my ESL teachers. And now, I'm a college student and I speak pretty fluently. This kind of miracle can only happen when Jamaica high school is there and its stars( teachers) are there. I love my school where I have achieved so much to get to the place where I'm standing today to reach my goal in life. At last, I politely reguest not to close such school. Thank you.
Hello, I was a student in
Jamaica High School and
Graduated in 2012.
I am an immigrant and obviously I didn't
Know English at all!! But because of
Great and endless effort that my
ESL teachers put not only on me but
My classmates too, I (we) learned the
Language, Jamaica High School is one
Of the coolest schools I know of
It would be such a shame if you close it
All the teachers are willing to help the
Students and they care about us
I was told not to go there but I did
And I graduated with honors. So people
Don't know what they're talking about
Jamaica High School deserves to stay open!!
Thank you.
I was a graduate of the class of 2010 from Jamaica High School and I have to say, it was a completely different experience when I had graduated Jamaica High School compared to my early days when I had entered Jamaica High School. Initially I had entered the school with much fear because of all politics and gossip that was going around in regards to the school, however I still had support from my family that the school would not be as bad as people had said it was. And it was true - Jamaica High School was not that bad, and I realized this within the first week of 9th grade. I remember having the best teachers and great classmates, who were also a bit nervous. I realized then that the students weren't so bad either, it was that a lot of us were brain washed with all of the lies in regards to Jamaica High School. After going through 9th grade I thought that I would enjoy Jamaica High School - I did being a part of the amazing Gateway Program that I was in with the amazing teachers, HOWEVER - I remember in 10th Grade a letter being sent home to every student saying that the school was dangerous and that we have the option to transfer out. I was confused to what the letter had said because it did not go with my experience with Jamaica High School. I know that many will argue that my experience may be different from what others have experienced at Jamaica High School, however I also had many friends who went to "great" high schools and specialized high schools where they had their own problems. I remember one my friends saying that there were small fires being started in garbage cans of their school from time to time which were not reported - and these are also experiences of students in "great" high schools that other people don't really talk in the media about - rather they target certain schools when in reality every school has its own problems. When I used to hear some of the stories from my friends who went to specialized high schools and the great high schools - I actually felt that I was much safer at Jamaica High School. It wasn't really until 11th and 12th grade that I understood about much of the politics that went on with Jamaica High School and I actually am very thankful that I understood about the politics because even though I didn't have fear of going to Jamaica High School by then as I did in my early days in 9th grade - I was confident that THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH MY SCHOOL - if low scores are the excuses that some people can come up with than it would make no sense for people to go to school. Every single individual is different from the other and everyone will not be performing at the same level. Rather than looking at the scores and numbers people should look at the improvements the students make - especially since Jamaica High School serves a lot of disadvantaged students - many of which speak little to no English. A person who speaks fluent English will score much better than a person a who speaks & understands hardly any and will likely to do worse in the other subjects (aside from math - which involves less language) in class because of the lack of understanding in the language they are being taught in.
Jamaica High School has helped many people in English and has helped them semester by semester in improving their English and the other subjects as well. If it were not for Jamaica High School I don't think I would have planned on completing major courses in college right now in the fields of Psychology, English, and Biology. It was the motivation I got from my parents AND the teachers that encouraged me to learn. I also remember my very last memories tied with Jamaica High School when I went to the Valedictorian and Salutatorian (as I was Salutatorian) party at Mayor Bloomberg's Mansion - there was one incident when he was talking to the students about his struggle with French class when he was in High School and how hard it was for him to pass the class - and I was thinking to my self "And you really want to shut down a school where they want to help disadvantaged students pass their classes?" - I would really appreciate it if Jamaica High School would remain open and help the disadvantaged students in need.
Thanks Sumaiya. Your class is a group I will always remember. Truly made teaching fun.
I also worked at Jamaica High School for 10 years...as a special education teacher...and working in smalls schools all I experience under the Bloomberg Administration is the lack of DE-service the special education population receives .....AT JAMAICA HIGH SCHOOL we provided great programs to help our students with needs, PARTNERSHIP WITH CHILDREN, CO-OP TECH, A GREAT SOCIAL WORKER, A SCHOOL BASE SUPPORT TEAM, ATTENDANCE TEACHER, IN many of the these NEW schools,, these things simply don't exist leaving our special ed kids to fail!! At Jamaica High School we care about our special ed population and we worked hard to provide them with all the services and out sourcing to various programs and agencies needed to make them be successful in life. New Schools just doesn't have what it takes to help special need students like JAMAICA HIGH SCHOOL DID!!
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