Flushing HS Wins College Readiness Grant

Flushing High School students and Assembly member Grace Meng, left

The city's oldest public high school is getting a vote of confidence as it struggles to shed its label as a struggling or failing school. Telecommunications giant AT&T; Is giving the Sports and Arts in Schools Foundation $300,000 to help Flushing High School with tutors and college advisors.

According to SchoolBook data, the school had a recent graduation rate of about 36 percent.

Flushing High School is one of the 24 struggling schools the city wanted to close in order to replace many of its teachers, but an arbitrator found that would have violated the union's contract. As a result, it had to take back all of its teachers who wanted to return.

Principal Magdalen Radovich, who took over last year, says she thinks the school has what it takes to improve.

"It's a community that really wants to move forward, it's a community that understands that change has to happen and that it's deep systemic change not just cosmetic change," she said.

The school would have qualified for a federal support if the city had been able to close it and reopen it with new staffers. Instead, the city offered all 24 of the turnaround schools a total of $18 million in extra support, far less than the $30 million they would have gotten in federal grants.

Still, Flushing High School's future remains in doubt. The school is among 123 city schools the state has labeled "priority," meaning they can be shut down unless big changes are made in the next two years.