Transit Technical Career And Technical Education High School

I have rated the school in the past , having numerous connections there , as well as having spent my entire teaching career there ( retired now ! ) . I must make an urgent correction to your basic information : The student register is all the way down to 689 as of March 28 , 2018 , and has been steadily dropping ( when students are absent long term , they are dropped from register , and parents have been regularly pulling their kids out after the fall semester , to start elsewhere in February ) . Enrolment is so low that the school building can easily be divided into two mini-schools , with the Transit Authority based curriculum confined to the first and second floors of the building , with the third and truncated fourth floor providing the platform for a new magnet school . Regardless , a change in administration is necessary , the uncommunicative , top down approach simply not being affective , or fair , in any sense of the word . While it is admitted that some staff members that have been forced out are cases of addition by subtraction , far too many good people have left in disgust ....albeit finding happiness and administrative collegiality elsewhere . The total focus on vocational education is long overdue after all , the city has nooooo shortage of academic high schools , in every dimension .

There are some pointed questions every parent, and prospective student, should ask of the powers that be here when considering the school as one of many options : 1) Exactly how many students from last year's graduating class found employment with The Transit Authority.....and how many Transit Authority employees are graduates of the school ? As the school, formerly East New York Vocational and Technical High School, adopted the "transit" curriculum in the spring of 1985, and changed its name as of February 1, 1986, every gradating class since 1989 has enrolled under the aegis of a transportation technology curriculum. Certainly, the TA keeps records even though the school has traditionally avoided doing so. 2) Exactly how large was the present graduating class in its freshman year ? Do not trust graduation percentages; ask for raw numbers. If 360 freshmen enroll one year, and 120 graduate four years later, that is a 33.33 % graduation rate, not 96 % ! The numbers the school provides, and has provided for the last 30 years , only reflect the percentage of seniors IN THEIR LAST SEMESTER !!! 3) Ask about college graduation rates. The school's mission was originally to provide vocational education, but a legion of administrators and teacher's working closely with them have padded their own resumes with statistics about college enrollment. But how many kids, pushed into college by self serving staff, actually were successful there ? Relatively few, from my 28+ years experience ( 1983-2012) . As a career Special Education teacher, I know of, and am proud of, my many students who found success in the military, serving all over the world's troubled spots, HOWEVER, I can not name one of my students who made a career working for The Transit Authority of NYC, or any other municipality. Oh, and lastly, find out EXACTLY what instruction will be provided working on the rail cars in the Rail Car Lab. Ask to speak with a senior taking classes there. Most years, the cars installed are hardly ever or not used at all.