Welcome To Newcomers High

Immigrant teens learn ropes

Students enrolling at Newcomers High School waited in the auditorium holding their registration forms and, when their numbers were called, walked through the Hall of Flags to their first classes in an American school.

The flags, from every nation in the world, send students an important message: “Regardless of where you come from, we value your diversity,” said principal Lourdes Burrows.

The students, immigrants who have lived in the United States for less than a year, spent their first day of school getting a crash course on life in the city. They got lessons in taking the subway and on counting American money while finding out more about their classmates’ cultures.

“The first entry into the U.S. is our schools,” said Burrows. “They’re not just learning about the U.S. They’re learning about each other.” The high school in Long Island City usually has about a thousand students from Queens each year. A majority of students at Newcomers High School will be taught in English-as-a-Second-Language classes, but there are bilingual programs in Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Bengali.

Class programs are modeled after college schedules with students getting a variety of courses at different times during the school week and electives that allow them to study the subjects that interest them in greater detail. Students can leave the high school and attend regular schools when teachers think they are ready.

“For students, it’s good preparation to go to college,” said Burrows, who estimated that 95 percent of her students go on to higher education.

About a third of the curriculum consists of classes to teach students such as Fatima Ahmetovic, 14, an emigrant from Bosnia, how to speak English.

Michal Zajac, 17, who moved to Maspeth two months ago from Poland, said he had a good first impression.

“I think I’ll like it,” Michal said. He plans to try out for the soccer and basketball teams, sports he played at his old school near Krakow.

Vanessa Fondeur, 17, of East Elmhurst, found her new high school very different from the one she attended in Santiago, the Dominican Republic.

“It’s safer. The classes are more interesting and involving,” she said in an interview in Spanish. “I have more desire to continue studying.”



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