Bard High School Early College
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| Bard High School Early College |
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| Established | June 2001 |
| Type | Public secondary, college |
| Principal | Raymond Peterson |
| Dean | Stuart Stritzler-Levine; Michael A. Lerner; Martha Olson |
| Founder | Leon Botstein |
| Students | Approx. 500 students |
| Grades | 9-12 |
| Location | 525 E Houston Street New York City, New York United States of America |
| Campus | Urban |
| Colors | Burgundy and white |
| Mascot | Raptors |
| Newspaper | The Horizon |
| Website | http://www.bard.edu/bhsec/ |
| Students graduate with a high school diploma, an A.A. in liberal arts, and 60+ college credits. | |
Bard High School Early College (BHSEC), is an alternative public secondary school in New York City that allows five to six hundred highly motivated and scholastically strong students (approximately 75% of whom are female) to begin their college studies two years early. Upon entering, these students embark on a writing intensive journey and engage in far more critical thinking than the typical high school student does. BHSEC is located in the Lower East Side, Manhattan in a building previously occupied by Public School 97.
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[edit] History
Founded in 2001 as a partnership of the New York City Department of Education and Bard College and originally funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the school accepts students into the ninth grade and allows them to earn both a high school diploma and an Associate of Arts (A.A.) degree in four years. BHSEC was the first school in the Gates Foundation's Early College High School Initiative, which aims to improve education in the United States by introducing smaller public high schools which help remove the barriers to a college education by offering students a college education in a high school setting. Many of the teaching philosophies that BHSEC has implemented were originally developed at Simon's Rock College of Bard, the nation's only liberal arts college designed to accommodate students who are capable of doing college-level work at a younger age.
Many graduates of BHSEC transfer their 60+ college credits to another college or university and finish their B.A. degrees in two more years; others opt to study for three or four years in their subsequent institutions. The tuition-free school is open to all New York City residents and attracts a highly diverse student body. Admission is highly competitive and is based on grades, writing samples, assessments and personal interviews. Due to the competitive nature of the admission process, a student's strength in mathematics is also considered. Several thousand applicants vie for approximately 140 seats each fall.
As of June 2006, four classes have graduated since the school's opening in 2001, and the first class to have gone through all four years of the program graduated in June 2005.
[edit] High school
In the BHSEC program, students spend what is traditionally ninth and tenth grade finishing the bulk of their high school work. Students take the five Regents exams required for the High School Regents diploma, which they receive in addition to the Associates of Arts degree from Bard College. Unlike most New York City high schools, however, BHSEC does not offer courses tailored to prepare students for the Regents, nor are there any Advanced Placement (AP) courses offered (as the last two years are spent in an accredited college program). In order to complete the high school curriculum in two years, courses are taught at an accelerated pace.
During the freshmen Fall semester, students are enrolled in Introduction to Foreign Languages, where they get to experience each of four foreign languages: Latin, Spanish,Chinese,and French. At the end of the semester, students choose the language they wish to study for the next few years.
As of the semester of Fall 2005, the high school science curriculum has been revamped, and over the two years of high school, students study an "integrated science" course taught by college professors, combining biology, chemistry and physics. Previously, students studied biochemistry as freshmen and chemistry as sophomores.
[edit] Early College
The two years spent in the college program are denoted First Year and Second Year (alternatively Year 1 and Year 2), respectively. As a college program, students may select their courses based primarily on their academic interests and preferences for certain professors; however, they must also meet the college program's core requirements. These requirements include four semesters of seminar, in which students read and discuss important literary works, two semesters of math, two semesters of laboratory science, one semester of history, one semester of literature, and two additional semesters of either social science or literature, and three credits of "doing art". Students may also create their own courses with the independent study program, provided that a faculty member is knowledgeable in the subject. Every semester, a student must take 13-18 credits. With permission from the dean, students may take more than 18 credits in a semester.
BHSEC's college program offers classes that are much more specialized than in the high school program, such as Multi-variable Calculus, Graph Theory and Linear Algebra, to name a few math courses popular with students in the 2005-6 academic year. Some popular liberal arts courses offered this year are Creative Writing, Novels of Dostoyevsky and Justice.
A complete list of all the college courses offered is available for online viewing: [1] It includes several courses under the arts, digital arts, environmental studies, further studies in language, literature, mathematics, musicianship, philosophy, psychology, the sciences, social sciences and theater production.
[edit] Faculty
The majority of BHSEC faculty members at the school hold PhDs and all faculty have a masters degree or higher (2003-2004 Annual School Report). Faculty often choose to teach courses in the area of their scholarly research. A full list of faculty is available on the school's website. [2]
[edit] Student resources
[edit] Library
The library was constructed, completed and opened to the student body in November 2004. It utilizes a fully automated catalog which can be accessed online [3]. The library covers a diverse selection of subjects, and has recently added a small collection of classic movies in circulation. There are also twenty-five wireless laptops available to students for work and research, complete with printer access. The library has become the unofficial student lounge, and always contains students studying or socializing.
[edit] Writing Center
In Fall 2004, BHSEC opened the Writing Center, where students can come at any time for assistance in writing papers from faculty and student volunteers. In addition, students can receive math and chemistry tutoring. Students will often find that many of their older peers are willing to help explain a key point or revise papers, and the majority of students believe the Writing Center is a valuable resource. Some professors are willing to take into consideration the time spent in the Writing Center working on their papers into the grading of their paper.
[edit] Student life
While studies occupy much of BHSEC students' time, they are also avid participants in community events. BHSEC has a wide array of clubs, student organizations and volunteer opportunities. In keeping with BHSEC students' initiative, a student can found a club for anything as long as there is sufficient student interest. Displaying the wide variety of passions in the student body, clubs range from the long standing philosophy club, to the food lover's club, to the award-winning step team. A full list is below:
- Acapella Club
- Anime Club
- Art Club
- Bard Design Club
- BHSEC Productions
- Book Club
- Cave Canon (BHSEC's literary magazine - Cave means Beware in Latin)
- Caribbean Club
- Chess Club
- Current Events Club
- Dance Dance Revolution Club
- Food Lover's Forum
- Foreign Film Club
- French Club
- Friends of Gauss
- Fun With Science
- Gay-Straight Alliance
- Glamour Gals
- Model UN
- Modern / Spanish Dance Club
- Newspaper (The Beat)
- Philosophy Club
- The Politicizer
- S+M's Strip (comic strip)
- Step Team
- Students for Human Rights
- The S-Word (Sex Club)
In addition, BHSEC has the Community Council, a student government consisting of three representatives from each grade and faculty representatives. The council is responsible for the organization of events and activities for the school and acts as the school community liaison between the administration and the students. Some of the programs organized in the 2005-6 academic year by the Community Council were the Fall Community Day (a celebration of the school's diversity and culture) and the Pink Dance (a dance for the students with the majority of the proceeds funding breast cancer research).
[edit] Sports
Bard High School Early College has many sports teams, including boys' and girls' tennis, girls' volleyball, boys' and girls' basketball, boys' and girls' soccer, co-ed Ultimate, boys' baseball, and co-ed track. Some students complain that these teams face low funding and a lack of support from the administration.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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Region 9 |
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|---|---|
| High schools | HS of Art and Design | Bard Early College | Murry Bergtraum HS For Business Careers | HS of Fashion Industries | Harvey Milk | Millennium | Baruch College Campus HS | Eleanor Roosevelt | Stuyvesant | NYC Lab School |
| Middle schools | 104| |
