A Hispanic women's organization has succeeded in getting the city to finance a charter school for girls, most of them Hispanic, with a goal of putting the brakes on high drop-out rates among Latina students.
The school, called the Bronx Global Learning Institute for Girls, will open its doors for the first time this September, and already has all of its places filled, with 100 students now enlisted on its rolls. Nonetheless, the educational center is seeking approximately 20 more students, in case of last-minute cancellations.
The administrators of this education center in the Bronx say their intention is to elicit the best from each five- or six-year-old pupil, so that later they will succeed in graduating.
“This school has been my life-long dream. What we are going to do is to pay special attention to each little girl, to prepare them and encourage them so later on they will graduate,” explained Shirley Rodríguez-Remeneski, the president and founder of One Hundred Hispanic Women, the non-profit group that proposed creation of this school to the Department of Education four years ago.
The drop-out rate among Hispanic students in New York secondary schools was 19 percent in 2006, for African American students the rate was 15 percent and 9.3 percent of white students dropped out, a spokesperson for the Department of Education said yesterday.
“We have got to succeed in getting our girls to graduate from high school,” remarked Rodríguez-Remeneski, who is the chairwoman of the school's steering committee. Celia Domenich, a Cuban, has been appointed director for the center.
Rodríguez-Remeneski indicated that the city had approved the financing for Bronx Global six months ago. Although Bronx Global is to begin with only kindergarten and first-grade pupils, the school plans to add one grade each year until it reaches a student population of 800 to 900 through the eighth grade.
The school, which will use the Dual Language Instruction, with classes in English and Spanish, will share facilities with PS 156, at 750 Concourse Village West in The Bronx.
Hispanic girls are not the only fortunate ones this fall. In September the city will open a technical school in Brooklyn to draw primarily immigrant students who are interested in learning carpentry. The Frances Perkins Academy will open on the border between Greenpoint and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, and looks to enroll 108 ninth-grade students in September.
“We are very focused on attracting the Latino community. We want to provide more options for immigrant students,” explained Academy director Javier Guzmán, a Dominican.
The Frances Perkins Academy, which will grow into a secondary school center, will share a building with the Automotive High School at 50 Bedford Avenue.
For more information on this center, write to francesperkinsacademy@gmail.com, or call (718) 218-9301, extension 2563.
For more information on the Bronx Global Learning Institute for Girls, call 212 786-7900.
