Since its inception in 1976, Jersey City’s McNair Academic High School has won accolade after accolade, including a New Jersey “Star School” designation, five state-level “best practice” awards, and a three-time consecutive vote as New Jersey’s best high school by New Jersey Monthly magazine.
Such distinctions, naturally, make McNair Academic a coveted high school among talented Jersey City grade school students. Close to 1,000 eighth graders qualify each year for admission to the high school located Downtown on Coles Street, but because of capacity limitations, a mere 15 percent are allowed into the program. Since an overwhelming number have to be turned away, the Jersey City school district will next year rectify that problem by implementing duplicate academic magnet programs at the remaining four city high schools.
At a community meeting last week at School 11 near McGinley and Journal squares, district superintendent Dr. Charles T. Epps Jr. announced to McNair applicants and their parents that the successful program will be duplicated at Dickinson, Ferris, Lincoln and Snyder high schools.
“Each year, the number of applicants to McNair Academic has far exceeded the number of students able to be admitted,” Epps said in a release. “We will provide another option to these students and enable them to enroll in a rigorous and competitive academic program at each of our four comprehensive high schools.”
Added Epps, “This will create – in addition to McNair – Dickinson Academic, Ferris Academic, Lincoln Academic, and Snyder Academic high school programs. Creation of these new magnets will allow for more choices for the best and the brightest students in our district.”
The magnet programs will begin next school year by allowing approximately 40 incoming freshmen at each high school to take advantage of the same honors-level coursework and the same course offerings that are currently offered at McNair. The 2005-2006 school year will then add another freshman class, and it will continue for the next two years until a full program for grades nine through 12 is complete.
The district’s decision to start the magnet programs was made because of a perceived lack of alternatives among students who unfortunately had to be turned away from admission into McNair, assistant superintendent Joanne Kenny said.
“What motivates the decision is listening to our children and listening to what they have to say,” Kenny said last week in a phone interview. “And also to provide them and their parents the best educational choices.”
Getting in
The method the district uses in determining which students are eligible for entry in McNair Academic has for years followed a comprehensive point system, Kenny said, using scores from the Preliminary Scholastic Assessment Test [PSAT] test as an initial benchmark in the admissions process.
The scores that eighth graders earn on the PSAT count toward 20 percent of the point system. An essay submitted along with the application to McNair counts as another 20 percent while the application itself – which includes grades from sixth, seventh and eighth grades, extracurricular activities and teacher recommendations – counts for 60 percent of the points.
After holistic scorers evaluate the essays, an evaluation board – that both reflects the city’s demographics and changes annually – then ranks the anonymous applications.
The application process at the four magnets will be identical to the one currently employed at McNair, superintendent Epps said, and students who do not meet the same standards as McNair students will not be permitted to continue in the program.
While the academic program admissions process is geared toward filtering out the most qualified eighth graders, a great number of students still technically qualify for consideration.
“We have 1,072 kids that take the PSAT test,” Kenny said. “We only take the top 160 to 170.”
Once admission into McNair is secured, students then embark on a highly rigorous academic schedule of honors classes and Advanced Placement [AP] courses, she added. The only non-academic courses offered in the Academic program are electives.
“We seem to gear a lot towards kids taking the AP tests,” Kenny said. “Whenever a child can sit for that test and score above a 3, you know her training and coursework has been very, very rigorous. It does test critical thinking skills, but you also have to know a good deal of material. That’s basically what the goal is.”
The success rate at McNair has been outstanding, current principal Robert Roggenstein said. Not only are 100 percent of McNair’s students accepted into four-year colleges, but the attendance rate at the high school hovers at 97 percent. The positive climate at the school is also notable, Roggenstein said, with events like lockdowns from fights or non-enrolled intruders – which are relatively common at high schools like Lincoln or Dickinson – being a rarity.
“It’s a good idea for the district to model our program to enable the district to capture the youngsters that don’t make it to our school,” Roggenstein added. “I’m just very thankful for the fact that they recognize a good program and will start it at the other schools.”
The fact that McNair has performed so well is another reason the district wants to duplicate the program at other schools, associate superintendent Kenny said.
“We’re always looking for ways to enhance what we already have,” she said. “The school system is always moving, moving, moving. [We’re always] tweaking it and making it better.”
Student, parent reaction
While most parents interviewed understood that the program would undoubtedly increase Jersey City students’ access to an academically rigorous high school environment, some nonetheless said that if it came to choosing between either McNair Academic or Snyder Academic, they would still choose McNair.
“She’s going to McNair,” said one Greenville mother who asked not to be named. “It’s either McNair or a Catholic high school. That’s it.”
Student reaction to the new initiative, however, was a bit more mixed. While most seventh and eighth graders interviewed after school last week at the Miller Branch of the Jersey City Public Library felt similarly exclusive about McNair Academic, others expressed no preference on which high school they would attend.
School 24 eighth grader Terrence Herbert, 14, said he would choose to go to either Ferris or Lincoln. He demonstrated a particular affinity for Lincoln High School because it was his sister’s alma mater.
Familial ties were also strong for School 22 eighth grader Michael LaRocco, 13, who said he might pass up first-choice Hudson County School of Technology to go to Ferris High School if he was admitted into the academic program.
McNair Academic still ranked high as an option, however. It was consistently named as a top choice above the four other comprehensive city high schools, mostly because of the negative environment perceived by some of the eight graders.
“I would rather go to McNair because Ferris is dangerous,” said School 24 seventh grader Sean Anderson, 12. Other students, however, didn’t give much stock to the stories they hear or read about Dickinson, Ferris, Lincoln or Snyder. It was, after all, two students from Dickinson High School who last year won the prestigious Siemens Westinghouse Science Award.
Marie Thornton, 14, an eighth grader at School 41, said she has her mind set on the ROTC program at Lincoln and would go there regardless of whether there was an academic magnet program.
Nesha Hampton, 13, also an eighth grader at School 41, said she would choose whatever high school offers the best vocational program in business and marketing. That’s what would motivate her decision, she said.