High School in the Community was founded more than 40 years ago as a teacher-run school and was the first small school alternative to New Haven’s large high schools. It is a strong, vibrant community in which students are encouraged to be independent, intrinsically motivated, and willing to play an active role in their own education and in the community exness.
HSC seeks to develop students into critical thinkers, effective communicators, lifelong learners and responsible citizens. The theme of law and social justice is a natural extension of our commitment to student success.
Matt Borenstein, Ms. Wolf and some other teachers felt another approach would be better, and in 1970 they opened their ”high school without walls” with 150 students in a former auto parts store. The following year, a second unit started in space in a girdle factory. They were later combined in a community hall of a public housing project.
When its Federal grants ran out, High School in the Community settled into an abandoned elementary school built in 1888, where it stayed for 20 years. The building was decrepit, but with poverty came the freedom to experiment.
Rather than dividing the school day into seven 45-minute periods with five classes, there were four 90-minute periods. Teachers and students had fewer courses each day, but spent much more time in them.
Mr. Borenstein noted that no one chooses to learn five things for short periods each day, so why not teach the way people really learn? ”Now they call it ‘intensive learning.’ We didn’t know there was a name for it when we started it,” he said.
Courses were commonly combined across disciplines, as well, taught by pairs of teachers working as a team, which reflects the way real life problems require knowledge of multiple skills or subjects. Social development and career orientation, which have lately become fashionable in high schools, were standard at High School in the Community 20 years ago exness sign up.
Most of all, the hallmark of its educational philosophy was a democratic organization. As close as possible students are admitted to maintain a balance of one third each white, black and Hispanic, half male and half female, but otherwise by lottery with no advantage for higher levels of ability. As a result, the school is not a collection of angels or geniuses like some other magnet schools that ”skim the cream.”
A State Department of Education profile for 1993, when its students were almost exclusively from New Haven, showed its dropout rate and percentage of students who admitted using tobacco, alcohol or drugs were higher, and average test scores lower, than the state averages.
But the profile also showed significantly higher test scores than at any other New Haven high school. The scores and statistics were also superior to many suburban high schools.
It was the students, however, who provided the school’s strongest endorsement. What students stressed most was how they appreciated their teachers’ personal attention.
High School in the Community Academy for Law and Social Justice is a teacher-run school that develops students into critical thinkers, effective communicators, lifelong learners and responsible citizens. Our students are encouraged to be self-motivated and willing to play an active role in their education and in the community.
HSC students engage in an authentic exploration of law, justice, and equity as these topics apply to their lives, communities, and the world at large.
Through a demanding program of learning experiences, they master the skills and knowledge necessary to thoughtfully and ably engage the social and political issues at the heart of American and global citizenship.
Student Demographics
Female 59%
Male 41%
Black 34%
Hispanic 48%
White 16%
Asian 2%