Really "Alternative" School to Open in NY

F

fasteddie

Mastermind Talker
PF Member
July 28, 2003 -- EXCLUSIVE
The city is opening a full-fledged high school for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students - the first of its kind in the nation, The Post has learned.
Operating for two decades as a small alternative program with just two classrooms, the new Harvey Milk HS officially opens as a stand-alone public school with 100 students in September.

The school, located at 2 Astor Place, is undergoing a $3.2 million in city-funded renovations approved by the old Board of Education in June of last year. It will eventually take in 170 students by September 2004, more than tripling last year's enrollment.

The Hetrick-Martin Institute - the gay-rights youth-advocacy group that manages and helps finance the school in conjunction with the Department of Education - has hired the school's first principal.

In the past, Harvey Milk HS - named after the slain gay San Francisco politician - was assigned an "off-site" supervisor who also oversaw several other schools.

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/1711.htm
 
I wish this was not necessary, but if they can't protect the students then maybe this is a good idea....?
 
On Yesterday @ 05:03 PM fasteddie had this to say in Post #1
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July 28, 2003 -- EXCLUSIVE
The city is opening a full-fledged high school for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students - the first of its kind in the nation, The Post has learned.
Operating for two decades as a small alternative program with just two classrooms, the new Harvey Milk HS officially opens as a stand-alone public school with 100 students in September.

The school, located at 2 Astor Place, is undergoing a $3.2 million in city-funded renovations approved by the old Board of Education in June of last year. It will eventually take in 170 students by September 2004, more than tripling last year's enrollment.

The Hetrick-Martin Institute - the gay-rights youth-advocacy group that manages and helps finance the school in conjunction with the Department of Education - has hired the school's first principal.

In the past, Harvey Milk HS - named after the slain gay San Francisco politician - was assigned an "off-site" supervisor who also oversaw several other schools.

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/1711.htm
Click to expand...

I heard about this on WB11 tonight. Why can't **** go to normal school? There should be a way to knock down discrimination in this world. :(
 
I'm afraid that will only happen when noone puts up with their bad behavior anymore.. This goes for alot of things that go on, why alot of people put up with friends and family they know who do and say stupid crap and don't tell them off is beyond me... It just validates it. I mean people are entitled to their opinions, but when it becomes any sort of physical example (and usually this starts earlier than these reported events) people have to try to at least talk to these idiots about this crap and just be like "oh, that's just larry..." like 90% of people do nowadays.

I think alot of these social issues will improve over the next several decades.. We have to weed out a couple of bad generations.. ;)
 
{said without reading the article}

I could've sworn there was a school like that in Texas. I know there was an MTV True Life thingie on a school like that, so it could just be that I made up that it was in Texas. Anyway. From the MTV thigum, they still had discrimination within the school - student against student. Odd, I think.
 
lots of kids at panache and my school are bi, gay, lesbian, or whatever you want to call them and we manage to get along with them okay. I mean we don't care who they like. But I'd be worried about people waiting outside the building rather than those at the other schools. Hopefully they can provide the shelter and safety the city thinks the kids needs.

=-bootz-=
 
On Yesterday @ 07:04 PM bootzboy had this to say in Post #7
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lots of kids at panache and my school are bi, gay, lesbian, or whatever you want to call them and we manage to get along with them okay. I mean we don't care who they like. But I'd be worried about people waiting outside the building rather than those at the other schools. Hopefully they can provide the shelter and safety the city thinks the kids needs.

=-bootz-=
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I tend to agree with you. People with strong opinions against these schools most likely will be waiting outside the school to cause trouble. I mean it's bad enough people gay bash and seriously hurt these people. Now having them in one area just means more for the taking for these gay bashers. It's sick even how people protest these days. I agree with freedom of speech but not freedom to harm or scare. I wish there was another way to control the freedom of gay men and women. it just makes me sad how closed we are to things that are different.
 
I was talking about this issue with my mother, an educator in the NYC school system. Apparently, the issue is that these kids feel very alienated and isolated in their lives (which high school teenager doesn't?!?). Part of the problem is that the suicide rates among gay/lesbian/bi/etc. teenagers is roughly 3-4x higher than the national average, which is the reason for having this school.

I'm not unsympathetic to their plight, but I fail to see how having an exclusive school is going to fix these problems. I'm not sure I understand how the educational system is responsible for helping them to feel less isolated, when every kid that age feels isolated, frustrated, and awkward in some way.

I also see it as somewhat discriminatory, in the same way private golf cources are racist, in that only one particular group is allowed to attend, at the exclusion of another group.

I'm all for getting these kids the help they need. I just don't know if this is the right way of going about it. However, I do applaud the school system for trying. Something is better than nothing...
 
I'm pretty much on the same page as Dan. As a human being, there's something I'm more worried about, that transcends opinion or debate. I'm worried for their safety. To have a reliably 100% gay group of people congregated in one place, all the time -- what a target for a psychotic hate-monger. I fear that all there need be is one extremist, and what may result will make any abortion-clinic explosion look like something small scale in comparison.... To isolate, to segregate in any way, makes for very homogeneous targets. And quite simply, I don't trust psychos...
 
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