207- 01 116th Avenue
Queens NY 11411 Map
Phone: (718) 978-2135
Principal: Rosemarie Omard
Neighborhood: Cambria Heights
District: 29
Grade range: 09 thru 12
Parent coordinator: Heather Smith
PC phone: (347) 563-4454
Humanities and the Arts Magnet High School (Humanities & Arts) delivers on its name, offering students daily immersion in visual arts, theater, media, music or dance. It’s one of four small schools created when the former Andrew Jackson High School was shut down in the mid-1990's for poor performance.
The school offers a nice selection of visual and performing arts classes. There is a room filled with electronic keyboards, a spacious art studio stocked with Apple lap top and desk top computers, and a television studio and dance studio. Theater students put on an annual musical; music students can join the school’s steel drum band, which adds a Caribbean touch to the offerings. Students interested in media production may have internships at media organizations such as Queens Public Television (QPTV) and A&E Entertainment.
The school has an honors program, with select classes reserved for high achievers. There are College Now classes through Queens College and campus-wide Advanced Placement classes open to students in all four schools. All freshmen attend small group advisories, which gives them a forum to address social and academic concerns. Students can study Spanish or French.
Unlike the new breed of small schools that form partnerships with outside organizations and receive extra funding from philanthropic organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Humanities & Arts and its sister schools in the building opened with little vision and fewer resources. After languishing for years with poor student achievement, the school made some gains with rising graduate rates and a solid commitment to the arts. A very low percentage of students, however, are college-ready, meaning they will need to take remedial classes if they go to CUNY schools.
The entire campus was designated an Impact School in the 2006-07 school year, identified by the city as a facility in need of extra security. The school came off the Impact list a year later, and was reorganized, with each school assigned its own dedicated space as well as its own lunch and gym periods. Students in all schools must enter the building through a single entrance in the cafeteria where they must pass through metal detectors.
The addition of a campus-wide Assistant Principal of Security in 2010-2011 is helping the campus schools unify their efforts to improve student safety and the overall tone of the building. Students in all schools now wear uniforms; Humanities & Arts students wear hunter green polo shirts (seniors can wear white shirts too) and brown or black bottoms. Students may wear jeans on Fridays.
Humanities & Arts calls itself "the vertical school" because it occupies a portion of each floor in the east wing of the building, while the other three schools are each situated on a single floor. One downside to occupying the east wing is that it is the only part of the building without renovated science labs.
The Campus Magnet building is situated in a quiet, residential area surrounded by small homes. All four schools, which also include Business, Computer Applications and Entrepreneurship, Law, Government, and Community Service and Mathematics, Science Research and Technology share use of auditorium, gym, cafeteria, newly renovated library and sports fields out back.
The school is not located near any subway lines. Most Students take the E or F train to Parsons Boulevard and transfer to a bus.
There are special education services, and Collaborative Team Teaching (CTT) classes. There is a small population of English language learners, who get extra help from campus-wide ESL instructors who serve students in all schools.
Students can participate in campus-wide PSAL sports and in a variety of arts and academic-themed clubs.
Admissions: Students must audition for admission to the Institute of the Visual Arts. Admission to the Institute of the Performing and Media Arts, which encompasses music, theater, media, dance and film, is based on the educational option formula designed to ensure a mix of low, average, and high achieving students. Once admitted to Performing and Media Arts, students audition for placement in one of the arts concentrations. “We take into account students’ interests, but everyone must audition so we get a sense of everyone’s skills and talents,” said a teacher. (Laura Zingmond, school visit November 2008; updated through interviews at high school fair, October, 2011.)
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Thursday, May 31st 2012 at 4:26PM
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