Great Article on BCNHS in NY Teacher

http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/general/big_picture/
Brooklyn Comprehensive Night HS staff feels Tweed missing big picture
by Ron Isaac
Apr 12, 2007 11:18 AM
‘Excellent’ school scheduled
Brooklyn Comprehensive Night HS, for 17 years a beacon of hope for some of New York’s most alienated youth, recently got some bittersweet news from the Department of Education. It won’t be closed at the end of this school year as had been announced; but the ax will fall a year later, in June 2008.
The school, which was lately rated “excellent” on its DOE “Quality Review Report,” emphasizes a core curriculum, has a high Regents passing rate and an enviable percentage of graduating students of those who regularly attend. It is being closed, allegedly, because of poor attendance, not academic failure.
As a result, recruitment has ceased and no new students are being registered.
“The immediate and pressing issue for us right now is trying to get permission to admit additional students,” noted Chapter Leader James Ferentino. “We could do that and still close our doors by June, 2008. Unlike other high schools being phased out, we often keep students for only one semester, or even one quarter, during which time they are able to complete their course requirements. It will be a shame if we were barred from helping any more students graduate and become success stories.”
Staff and students feel that the school is being closed because the DOE fails to see the “big picture.”
Comprehensive night high schools in the city serve more than 140,000 overage — 18-to-21— students who are under-credited but highly motivated. Those at BCNHS continue their studies, although in a relatively inaccessible location in Canarsie, while meeting full-fledged adult responsibilities during the day. Many of them must independently earn a living while caring for their own children, parents or siblings. Making daytime “transfer schools” their only option would amount to abandoning them.
BCNHS operates in the South Shore HS building during hours that the larger school is not in session. This arrangement has helped to free up space for younger students who attend already overcrowded high schools.
In a March 1 visit to the school, UFT President Randi Weingarten pledged “to do everything within our power to ensure that the vital needs of these special students are met without interruption.” 
Joseph Zwerling, who teaches English and technology at the school, noted, “Our success over the years demonstrates beyond a doubt that the night high school model works.”
That seems borne out by a sampling of student testimony.
One recent BCNHS alumna e-mailed some good news to a former teacher and mentor. She is completing her master’s after having earned an undergraduate degree with honors from John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Another student, after having lost one brother to untimely death and another to prison, had drifted away from school, but then returned and was welcomed by BCNHS where he reclaimed what he called his “blueprints to life.”
These are just two of the many students who have taken their cue from BCNHS’s motto: “Ad astra per asper” — “To the stars through difficulties.” But with the DOE’s plans to close the school, getting to the stars may be even more difficult.
As 19-year-old Marco Ponce said, “There are so many kids in this school who finally turned their lives around and now they want to shut it down on them. That’s not right.”