First off .......... good gawd. Second, do you agree with the highlighted in red ?
Harvey Milk High School
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Harvey Milk High School is a
high school designed to be a safe space for
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) students located in the
East Village of
New York City, and named after
Harvey Milk, the first openly
gay supervisor of
San Francisco, California, who was
assassinated in
1978. The school was originally run by the
Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI), an organization that provides social support to at-risk youth, especially those who are LGBTQ.
After becoming a fully-accredited public school in 2002, the high school is now administered by the
New York City Department of Education, separate from HMI. The school and the non-profit still share space in the same building.
The school was founded in
1985 as a small, two-room program with just over a dozen students by HMI in collaboration with the
New York City Department of Education's Career Education Center. The Department of Education administers the school and is responsible for admissions. Harvey Milk was created as an alternative education program for youth who find it difficult or impossible to attend their home schools due to
threats,
violence, or
harassment.
Students must themselves apply to transfer to the high school, like other transfer schools in New York City. Approximately 95% of the students are
African American or
Latino. The school has a 95% graduation rate, far above the state average, and 60% of students attend institutions of higher learning
HMHS came to national attention in 2002, when the
Board of Education authorized a $3.2 million capital expansion of the school as one of its last acts prior to becoming a
mayoral agency. At this time, the school also became a four-year, fully-accredited high school.
The capital provided by Board of Education allowed for the renovation of the school building. Enrollment jumped from 50 to 100 students. The new
principal, William Salzman, said the school would be academically challenging and would follow mandatory
English and
math programs while specializing in
computer technology,
arts and
culinary arts.
Nevertheless, the school has come under attack, with manyalleging that it practices
discrimination. In general, the opposition comes from
social conservatives; for example,
Fred Phelps protested outside the school when it opened as a public high school in 2003.
State Conservative PartyChairmanMichael Long also criticized the creation of the school as social engineering, asking "Is there a different way to teach homosexuals? Is there gay math? This is wrong. There's no reason these children should be treated separately." Others claim that the school is trying to indoctrinate students in
***** culture by teaching about the history of gay people and creating an almost exclusively homosexual environment. Many assert that the solution to harassment is a
zero tolerance policy against it in all public schools, not isolating gay students.
Supporters contend that this school is a pragmatic solution, providing an alternative path to a diploma for students who are unable to succeed in a traditional high school due to intolerance. Nor are all arguments against the school divided along partisan lines.
Republican mayor Michael Bloomberg supported the renovation of the school while
Democratic State Senator Rubén DÃ*az opposed it.
In 2004, the HMHS underwent a 17,000 square foot (1,600 m²) expansion and an increase to eight classrooms and 170 students.
Harvey Milk High School
