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| Harvey Milk School, the nation’s first full-service public high school dedicated to gay students, follows on the heels of similar institutions that have struggled with accreditation and program quality. |
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HOME > NEWS > NATIONAL NEWS
By: KEVIN SPENCE COMMENTS
 
NEW YORK — The first public school specifically for gay students is set
to open this fall in Manhattan’s East Village, thanks to a $3.2 million
city grant awarded in June.
The Harvey Milk School first opened its doors in 1984 as a private institution
with no more than 50 students. The school was named for the first openly gay
elected official in California, who was assassinated in 1978 by a fellow supervisor.
It follows in the footsteps of other private institutions around the country
that have struggled with program quality and full accreditation.
This coming school year, the program expands to become a full academic institution,
granting diplomas. By 2004, officials anticipate 170 full-time students.
“It will be focused on the same academic standards that the [city’s]
chancellor’s reform has put into place, an academic curriculum focusing
on math and English,” a spokesperson with the New York City Department
of Education said this week.
Activists lauded the move to open the school as an historic step in the gay
rights movement.
“It’s unsafe for these kids to go to school, that’s why
we applaud New Yorkers for going the extra mile for these kids,” said
David Tseng, executive director of Parents & Friends of Lesbians & Gays,
a national advocacy organization.
The Harvey Milk School, originally designed as a safety net for gay students
who may have otherwise dropped out of school, is necessary in today’s
society, Tseng said.
“When GLBTQ youth are at a disproportionate risk for their personal
safety, fair-minded citizens see this effort as a basic necessity,” he
said.
But the school provoked mixed emotions for Ron Madson, a member of the Lesbian & Gay
Teachers Association of New York. “I find it a sad state of affairs that
lesbian and gays have to leave their host schools because they’re not
being protected there,” he said. “[But] I’m very happy that
they’re giving full recognition of the school as part of the public school
system.”
Other groups opposed the school’s purpose as unconstitutional.
“To isolate them, to separate them, to segregate them, is an injustice,” said
Shaun Marie Levine, a spokesperson with the Conservative Party of New York
State.
“By going into a school, they are not learning how to deal with the
real world,” Levine said. “They’re mean to chubby kids too.
Do we start a school for chubby kids, Russian kids, Haitian kids?”
William Salzman, a former Wall Street executive, is scheduled to head the
school. He served most recently as assistant principal of guidance and business
information technology at Brooklyn’s Automotive High School.
“This school will be a model for the country and possibly the world,” Salzman
said. “We intend to have 95 percent of our students go on to college. … We
want to steer these kids in the right direction.”
Other programs for gay youth have been initiated nationwide. Places like Walt
Whitman High School in Dallas, Texas, and Project 10 in Los Angeles began to
place “one safe person in every school,” according to Miriam Yeung,
coordinator of education and training services at the Los Angeles Center.
Gail Rolf, an advisor at Project 10, hopes that Harvey Milk will be used as
an enrichment school or “magnet center,” rather than a “dumping
ground” for problem students like some other gay schools.
“We’re not quite as enthusiastic as everyone else in that we’re
afraid the New York Board of Education might be avoiding their duties in terms
of making all their schools equitable safe places for safe learning for the
LGBTQ students,” Rolf said.
The Empire State Pride Agenda — the state’s primary gay lobbying
group, which also supports an statewide anti-bullying law that includes protection
for gay and transgendered students — supports the school.
But more work needs to be done, ESPA Executive Director Alan Van Capelle said
in a press statement.
“The debate should not be over why Harvey Milk High School is providing
an environment where students can learn,” he said. “The debate
should be over why a similar environment is not being provided to every student
throughout the state.”
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