[Vision2020] Harvey Milk High School

[Melynda Huskey]

I'm having trouble understanding all the fuss about Harvey Milk High School. 
  There are about 1200 public schools in New York City.  There are 
performing arts public schools, science and math public schools, single-sex 
public schools, experimental public schools, magnet schools, small cluster 
schools within large schools, gifted and talented schools, law and public 
service schools, Montessori and Waldorf and Classical schools, Hirschean 
cultural literacy schools . . .

and one school with one hundred students who are either glbt, or who want to 
go to high school in a climate that is safe and supportive of glbt students.

NYC has the most extensive system of school choice that I know of 
nationally.  The kids who end up at Harvey Milk are chosing to be there 
because they can find something there that they couldn't find elsewhere, 
just like the kids choosing the Fordham Leadership Academy for Business and 
Technology.

And I can promise you that there are more than 100 gay kids in NYC.  The 
majority of them will choose schools for some other reason.  There will 
still be plenty of gay kids to go around; no school will be forced to make 
due with less than its fair share.

Back when HMHS was still the Hetrick-Martin Institute, it was primarily a 
school of last resort for kids who had experienced overwhelming 
challenges--the kids who had been injured or emotionally harmed by 
homophobic students or teachers, who had become homeless after parents threw 
them out for being gay, who had been expelled for fighting back or talking 
back.  I imagine that HMHS will serve that same population, at least for a 
while.

I'd find Sen. Diaz's concern for the segregation of gay kids a little more 
compelling if he'd ever done anything to support the civil rights of gay and 
lesbian people in any context whatsoever.   As it is, it looks pretty 
disingenuous.

Melynda Huskey



Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Burnt Norton, T.S. Eliot

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