DISCUSSION DOCUMENT ONLY — NOT FINAL
DRAFT Alternative Campus Facilities Specifications DRAFT
#### District-Wide Healthy and Safety Committee May 5, 2021
Discussion on Facilities Specifications for NRHS Campus School
WEDNESDAY MAY 5 2:30 PM on ZOOM
Zoom Link for Wednesday, May 5, 2021 at 2:30
https://zoom.us/j/95475150467?pwd=NzZ1WkN6eklxMVhBYjliK1YvOGx5QT09
Meeting ID: 954 7515 0467
Passcode: RESCUE
Many stakeholders were distressed over the decision last year to relocate campus school to Bethesda which ended with campus school at New Rochelle High School. A planning committee came up with a new vision for the school. The committee I co-chair, the District-Wide Healthy and Safety Committee, took on developing Facilities Specifications for a new “forever home”.
We meet tomorrow to discuss the document linked below. If you have an interest in the future of the campus please join us via Zoom at 2:30 pm on Wednesday, May 5.
If you intend to join us, I suggest you read the report below. We are still taking suggestions up to June 2, 2021.
This document was assembled over the course of the 2020-21 school year based on input from a variety of sources including Huguenot Academy Director Andrea Schwach and members of her planning committee (listed below), PTA Council members, members of the District-Wide Healthy and Safety Committee (listed below) and a variety of community members and stakeholders too numerous to mention here.
Under the New York State RESCUE Law, the District-Wide Healthy and Safety Committee has oversight responsibilities for facilities issues in a public school district. Our local committee includes the leadership of FUSE, A/S, the PTA Council, the New Rochelle Board of Education and the City Manager of New Rochelle, among others and as such is not only the legally appropriate venue for considering the facilities needs of the campus school but well-placed to do so by the nature of its membership.
The purpose of this document was to present a comprehensive list — a “wish list” — of every possible facility need of a reimagined alternative high school program as envisioned by Director Schwach’s planning committee. The District-Wide Healthy and Safety Committee is a facilities-oriented committee which does not consider programming and curriculum considerations, just bricks and mortar.
Our process has been to gather input over the course of the 2020-21 school year from every stakeholder, every community member, every voice and reflect all ideas in a single document to facilitate a discussion by members of the District-Wide Health and Safety Committee at the May 5, 2021, public session which includes a public comment period.
Following the May 5 meeting, any and all remaining ideas will be incorporated into a final document and added to a committee resolution endorsing the recommendations in the report which, if adopted, will be presented to Interim Superintendent Dr. Alex Marrero, and New Rochelle Board of Education President Rachel Relkin. We anticipate consideration of the resolution at our June 2, 2021, meeting.
Robert Cox May 9, 2021
Alternative Campus Facilities Specifications
The campus program, also referred to as “the campus school” or “alternative high school” and more recently The Huguenot Academy (we will use the terms interchangeably) currently serves 47 high school students grades 10-12 at space in New Rochelle High School that no one believes to be a suitable location. In 2020, the campus program was moved after several decades at St. Gabe’s due to concerns over infrastructure and security.
On January 27, 2021, Interim Superintendent Dr. Alex Marrero delivered a tasking document to the Co-Chairs of the District-Wide Healthy and Safety Committee (RESCUE Law) expressing the District’s desire to have the RESCUE Committee develop criteria for the Alternative High School. Specifically “Develop the Criteria for a New Facility” and “Recommend Potential Partners”.
Parallel to that, Dr. Marrero tasked Campus School Director Andrea Schwach with creating a vision document by assembling campus school stakeholders on a planning committee comprised of students, staff, parents, community members and administrators (see committee membership below). An early draft of a portion of that document was provided by Director Schwach to the District-Wide Healthy and Safety Committee on January 11, 2021.
The campus school planning committee met three times to discuss the future of the alternative high school program, drafted a mission statement, and articulated a vision for its future.
The vision for the program, under the new name of The Huguenot Academy of New Rochelle High School, addresses a range of topics including scheduling, problem-based instruction centered around skill building, experiential learning, internships, and the creation of a new “Bridge Program” to be offered to 50 rising 9th graders as a transition from middle school to high school and the facilities required to support that vision.
The campus program is intended for students who have struggled to find success at the larger high school (Academic, Social, Emotional, Credit Deficient); in past years the program served about 70-80 youngsters.
Director Schwach presented the result of the planning committees work to the New Rochelle Board of Education on February 23, 2021, and to the District-Wide Healthy and Safety Committee on March 10, 2021. She stated she expects to expand the number of 10th — 12th grade students, so the campus program serves 150-200 students. She stated she expects to add a 9th grade Bridge program for 50 rising 9th graders as a transition from middle school to high school that will prepare them for 10th grade at the main campus.
The assessment of the District-Wide Healthy and Safety Committee is that Director’s Schwach’s vision for The Huguenot Academy of New Rochelle High School requires space for a total of 300 occupants (250 students, 50 Faculty & Staff). Roughly, a facility about three-fourths the size of the Barnard Early Childhood Center.
New York State law requires high school classroom space to net out at 20 square feet per student or net (not gross) space of 5,000 square feet for 250 students. Gross classroom space is not described in state law but includes space taken up in a classroom by furniture, cabinets and so on. Classroom space calculations do not account for corridors, stair towers, egresses, elevator shafts, mechanical rooms and so on.
Director Schwach’s planning committee is proposing 30 classrooms in a space that meets all NYSED, Security and ADA requirements.
Bathrooms, based on 300 occupants, based on 1 water closet and 1 urinal per gender per 50 occupants by state regulation, translates into 6 male and 6 female bathrooms (not addressing that girls typically do not use urinals and transgender occupants may use either which is not addressed in the state code).
Parking Spaces based on 1 space per faculty member (?) and 1-3 for each staff member (?) and 1 for each student who drives to school (?) translates into roughly 40-80 parking spaces. This figure needs to be refined based on the actual number of faculty, staff, and students who drive to school planned for The Huguenot Academy.
Spaces (how to group?)
- Director’s Office with outer area for secretarial staff and private bathroom
- Nurses’ Office
- Physical Education Office
- Teachers Lounge
- Teachers Bathroom
- Conference Room/Meeting Space
- Communal Workspace
- Indoor Gymnasium
- 2 Gym Locker Rooms & Showers
- Swimming Pool
- Weight Room
- Outdoor Recreation Area
- Library
- Cafeteria & Fully Operational Kitchen
- Auditorium/Theater/Presentation Space
- Art Room
- Kiln Room
- Music Room
- Music/Video Production Studio
- Multimedia Art Space (digital/graphic included)
- Computer Room
- Lockers/personal storage for students, faculty, and staff
- Storage Area for books, educational materials
- Proximity to public transportation, in particular Bee-Line buses
- Other?
Campus School Planning Committee
- Campus Director Andrea Schwach
- Interim NRHS Principal Steve Goldberg
- Assistant NRHS Camille Edwards-Thomas
Staff
- Mariana Burgos
- Greg Foster
- Lindsay Generoso
- Maria Garcia
- Brittany Hastings
- Jonathan LaRosa
- Kettisha Nwonye
- Karen Tucker
- Lissette Van Voorhis
Parents
- Brenda DeGiacomo
- Amy Emanuele
- Tyeeshia Thomas
- Anna Maria Zinzi
Community Members
- Joyce Furfero
- Laraine Karl
Students
- Jennifer Avelar
- Sofia Iannello
District-Wide Healthy and Safety Committee
- Bill Coleman, FUSE VP for SRP
- Mary Breslin, FUSE President
- Robert Cox, Acting Co-Chair
- William Ianuzzi, NRBOE VP
- Mary Monzon, PTA Council Treasurer
- Chris Nole, FUSE Member SRP
- Melissa A. Passarelli, A&S Co-President
- Charles Strome, City Manager & Co-Chair
Potential Partners for School Business Office
- New Rochelle Development Office
- New Rochelle Industrial Development Agency
- Archdiocese of the State of New York
- Lower Hudson Valley Realtor Association
- Other?
History of Alternative Education in New Rochelle
The Alternative High School is currently located in temporary quarters at New Rochelle High School. Until the Summer of 2020, the school at St. Gabes or the “Campus School” is an amalgam of several programs which operated in New Rochelle between 1970 and 1994 then came together under one roof at St. Gabes between 1992 and 1994: the PROP Program (1977 to 1992), the Prep Program often referred to as “Sister Helen’s” (1970 to 1994), the Homebound Program (1993 to 1994), and students who struggled at New Rochelle High School for various reasons (1992).
The core of what became the Campus School was known as “PROP”, an acronym for “Positive Relations Opportunities Program.” PROP was created in 1977 as a joint effort of the New York State Office of Mental Health and the City School District of New Rochelle. Many students in the PROP program were considered “mentally disturbed” youngsters at the time — today such students are classified with an “emotional disability”.
The district supplied the building and pedagogical staff: two to three teachers a year and one teacher’s assistant; the State supplied and paid for all support staff. PROP as a state-funded program operated in the New Rochelle schools for 6 years before being taken over fully by the district in 1983.
PROP was initially housed at the long-closed and since sold Washington School at 60 Union Avenue near Odell Place. From 1977 to 1980, PROP occupied the second floor of Washington School. A Special Education program operated on the first floor. About 25 students — all “classified students” with Individualized Education Plans— were enrolled in PROP.
The building, visible from Union Avenue behind a black metal fence, still stands today as senior housing attached to the Washington House Apartments which were built on the front lawn of the former district property in the early 1980s.
Washington School was closed as a neighborhood elementary school in the 1950s. In the 1960s, high school students in the Business program attended classes like bookkeeping, typing, and stenography at Washington School.
After New Rochelle High School was heavily damaged following an arson fire on May 17, 1968, most New Rochelle High School students were dispersed to Isaac E. Young Junior High School and Junior High School to finish out the school year on a split session, sharing those spaces with middle school students.
In the Fall of 1968, temporary “trailer” classrooms were set up on McKenna Field and most students returned to the campus of New Rochelle High School. The business students continued at Washington School until the high school was fully reopened in the 1971-1972 school year at which point they were relocated to New Rochelle High School.
In 1980, PROP relocated to the YMCA at 175 Memorial Highway, now a medical office. The program had about 30 students, all classified. The building had a gymnasium, swimming pool, squash, and handball courts. The second floor was residential space where people could rent rooms. FBI agents, based out of what is now the Radisson Hotel in downtown New Rochelle, used the Y as a fitness center.
During the early 1980s, the City School District of New Rochelle — facing significant fiscal constraints, minority isolation and declining enrollment — put forward a plan to close four elementary schools: Mayflower, Roosevelt, Barnard, and Stephenson. The reorganization plan was developed and executed by then-Assistant Superintendent Dr. LaRuth Gray. Her daughter Dierdra Clark is President of the New Rochelle Public Library Board of Trustees.
With the district re-organization plan complete, PROP moved in 1983 to the now-closed Mayflower School. At the time, the district still owned the property. PROP shared the building with Iona College students and had full gym access. The program still had about 30 students, still all were classified students. In 1985, Iona College bought the Mayflower School and PROP was forced to relocate.
PROP relocated to Barnard School in 1985, taking up half of the second floor, sharing it with a Montessori School. PROP took up 4 classrooms and had full gym access. All PROP students were classified. The first floor was occupied by BOCES and a pre-K program. PROP served about 25 students with 5 teachers, two teaching assistants, one psychologist and a part-time social worker — eventually taking up 6 classrooms and a cafeteria area.
The Prep Program which predated PROP by several years, operated in parallel to PROP.
The Prep program was housed at the Remington Boys and Girls Club from around 1970 to 1994. Known as “Sister Helen’s”, the program included several part-time teachers and about 15 students, ages 14 to 21, mostly non-classified students kids who were considered “fragile” or needed tutoring or had been suspended or some combination of the three.
The Prep program was an off-shoot of Educage, a program first developed at the White Plains’ Cage Teen Center in the late 1960s to help students who had struggled in high school but still wanted to earn a high school diploma. The alternative high school program in White Plains was founded by Cage Director Leslie Fernandez, a former teacher and guidance counselor. Sister Helen McLaughlin of the Order of the Holy Child of Jesus, a certified public school teacher, worked with Fernandez in White Plains and established what became a similar program in New Rochelle.
When Sister Helen retired in 1994, the Prep program was closed. Several of Sister Helen’s students were enrolled in the Campus School.
About this time, a new program called “Homebound” was created under Ann Marcelino, a special education teacher, Homebound was housed in a separate room at St. Gabes. F.U.S.E. challenged the legality of the program; the program was closed and Marcelino was transferred to Isaac E. Young Middle School.
Due to elementary school space needs, programs housed at Barnard School were relocated. Moving the program from Barnard to St. Gabe’s was part of a larger organization plan to deal with increasing enrollment in the elementary schools, especially William B. Ward Elementary School.
The entire Ward half-day Kindergarten program was moved to Barnard in 1992 for a year while construction took place at Ward. Harriet Glick, a Kindergarten teacher at Ward, became the teacher-in-charge at Barnard and eventually, their Program Director and later Principal of the Barnard Early Childhood Center.
A team tasked by Superintendent Linda Kelly and led by Assistant Superintendent for Business and Administration Dick Schilling engaged in a collaborative effort within the school community before selecting the closed St. Gabe’s School as the best available space.
In describing the space at St. Gabe’s to Mrs. Yvette Goorevitch Director of Special and Alternative Education as “campus like,” she said let that be the name–the Campus School. Goorevitch coined the name “Campus School” because of the nature of the new location for the program.
During the move to St. Gabes there was no requirement to get approval from the New York State Education Department. The building was in “move-in condition”. A Certificate of Occupancy was issued by the State Education Department at the time.
The new location at 50 Washington Avenue was a bit of a homecoming, on the other side of Union Avenue directly across the street from the Washington School, the original home of the PROP Program.
The PROP Program name was dropped favoring the Campus School. The Alternative High School at St. Gabes or Campus School opened in September 1992 and has remained there continuously for 28 years.
This additional educational space at St. Gabes’ allowed for the development of new and additional instructional program for New Rochelle High School students both general education and special education who required a smaller, more nurturing environment to be successful. The larger space allowed the Campus School to expand its student population to also include general education students from New Rochelle High School who would likely benefit from a more personalized school setting. The Campus School grew to 55 students.
Since the Campus School was primarily a High School offering, it was supervised by the New Rochelle High School Principal, Don Baughman. Mr. Fridovich social worker at Campus was teacher in charge and eventually named Program Administrator. Since the program now included both general and special education students, it was decided that it would properly be supervised by the High School Principal. Once Fridovich received his administrative certification, he became the Program Director, but the program has always been supervised by the New Rochelle High School Principal since its relocation to St. Gabe’s.
Students request to attend the campus school there for a variety reasons but generally out of a desire to have the least amount of contact with the high school as possible.
A year after the campus school at St. Gabes opened, some students from Sister Helen’s now-closed Prep Program matriculated into the Campus School.
The Campus School was initially housed in 7 rooms but over time, as the program grew to a peak of 88 students, 4 rooms were added including 2 rooms contributed by the Archdiocese of New York.
The person originally hired to run the Campus School soon quit and Joel Fridovich, a social worker from Children’s Village was brought on board.
Fridovich did not have an administrative certificate so was not legally permitted to run the school. Fridovich eventually obtained his administrative certification and was promoted to Director of the Campus School at St. Gabes. Fridovich continued to report to the New Rochelle High School Principal from Don Conetta through to Reggie Richardson to Joseph Starvaggi. Fridovich retired in 2019 and was replaced by Andrea Schwach as Director. Schwach was a teacher at New Rochelle High School but earned her Initial Building Leader Certificate in 2012. Starvaggi retired in 2020 and was replaced by Steve Goldberg as Interim Principal with Camille Edwards-Thomas as Assistant Principal.
The origin of the Campus School emanates from a variety of programs cobbled together over the past 50 years — none of which originated at New Rochelle High School, but rather from programs intended to support youngsters with different levels of mental health needs, special education needs, and behavioral needs. Because the Campus School is an amalgam of programs, not a single program formally separated from New Rochelle High School, it is different than the Alternative High Schools in Mount Vernon and White Plains.
While the Campus School program was initially staffed with appropriately certified teachers overtime some teachers were not in compliance with certification regulations and electives did not meet minimum requirements.
Students who needed specific courses to meet State requirements were afforded the opportunity to do so at New Rochelle High School since the Campus School itself has always been viewed as a New Rochelle High School program.
The numerous relocations of PROP and its expansion to include a cohort of general education students was part of a broader school district plan intended to respond to enrollment increases and declines at various points, and a desire to create expanded and enriched program opportunities for students.
Robert Cox, 2020