Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts:

Student Population: 2,640

According to the NYC Department of Education, LaGuardia High School is a specialized high school with a visual arts and performing arts centered curriculum.  It was founded by Fiorello H. LaGuardia in 1936 to allow students to hone their talents in an academic environment.  He declared it his “most hopeful accomplishment” during his term as mayor.  In applying to the school, students are required to write an essay and, depending on their selected major, undergo an audition process.  A total of five majors are offered: vocal, instrumental, dance, art, and technical theater.  The courses a student may take vary according to one’s major.

The graph below displays the student population of LaGuardia by ethnicity/race using percentages obtained from the statistics listed on schools.nyc.gov.  There is a low percentage of black students, about an approximately equal percentage of Hispanics and Asians, with the largest percentage of students being white.

Student Interviews:

Audition Process: 

• “I was directed to a room, filled out a survey, and then waited to audition in a personal setting.  I offered two instruments for my audition, starting with trumpet, followed by tone and rhythm tests, and finished with a piano audition.” – White Male, 12th Grade
• “Stressful because I was alone through the process.” – South Asian Male, 12th Grade
• “I took a theory test in a crowded room of at least 35 people.” –  Black Female, 12th Grade
• “It was pretty easy because I had a guidance counselor from my old school that helped me through the process.” – Hispanic Female, 10th Grade

Security:

• “Well, I know that security is appropriately proportionate to the risk of crime in the area.  I also do see that areas with heavier security tend to have higher minority populations.  So I would say security is more relaxed around here.” –  White Male, 12th Grade
• ” I feel that security is much too strict.” – Black Female, 12th Grade
• ” Yes, it’s efficient. But sometimes they target out certain groups in the hallways and stuff.” – Hispanic Female, 10th Grade

Peer Relations:

• “I have a pretty diverse group of friends and acquaintances – I don’t stick with the “white crowd.”  Lats year, my Filipino friends encouraged me to join Filipino Club with them, so I did.  There definitely were other students who were not welcoming to me because I was a white girl in a Filipino Club.   And I guess that made sense.  They thought I wasn’t going to be appreciative or respectful of the Filipino culture, but I genuinely wanted to learn more about it.” – White Female, 11th Grade
• “There was this one time in my strings class where we would ask our teacher to play a song from his laptop that was connected to speakers. So I asked him to play an old Hindi song because that’s my culture and when the part where instruments that are native to South Asia and the Middle East came up a group of white boys started making fun of it so I stopped it.  The teacher asked everyone to be respectful but didn’t do much else, even though the same situation repeated the next day.”  – South Asian Male, 12th Grade
• “This year I joined the Asian Dance Club and though I was the only black person there, I didn’t feel ostracized.” – Black Female, 12th Grade
• “I notice that whiter races are given lead roles in the musicals and operas. The reason for it would always be “we are preparing for the real world”. There is a lot of favoritism.” – Hispanic Female, 10th Grade

Teacher and Student Relations:

• “My issues never really needed teacher intervention, so I handled it by moving on.” – White Male, 12th Grade
• “There were many teachers who have tried to help me personally.  Some teachers offered on their own, and others I had to ask.” – White Female, 11th Grade
• “During one period freshman year, I played a Chopin nocturne on the piano and the teacher told me to lower the volume because it was annoying her.  The next day a white boy plays the same song and the teacher praises him for his playing, and has been talking to him and giving him opportunities for the next four years simply because he’s white.  He has a grand piano at his apartment where he can practice on his own terms, and his parents donate a ton of money to the PTA. As a brown male, teachers would always assume that I’m doing something wrong even when I’m doing nothing.” – South Asian Male, 12th Grade
• “There have been a few teachers that noticed that something was wrong and tried to help. One even told me that he understood how hard it was to reach out for help about mental health issues and gave me tips on how to cope. There had been at least one teacher every year that didn’t make me as uncomfortable as the others but they were often helpful to other students.” – Black Female, 12th Grade

Guidance Support: 

• “My college process was mostly perpetuated without the help of my guidance counselor, most of my studying for the SAT came from that big yellow book.” – White Male, 12th Grade
• “In the guidance suite, there are always free SAT/ACT study materials to take advantage of.  School officials always make it known that if anyone needs a fee waiver for standardized testing, they could get the financial aid they needed.” – White Female, 11th Grade
• “I have met with my guidance counselor but she would immediately dismiss you the moment you try to speak as if everything that’s happening is your fault.” – South Asian Male, 12th Grade
• “My guidance counselor always makes sure that we understand that she has 600 other students to look after and she doesn’t have time to babysit me, which is true to an extent, I suppose, but not very helpful when even contacting her requires a great amount of courage from me. So I’ve only seen her a few times.” – Black Female, 12th Grade
• “I haven’t spoken to counselors because they wouldn’t take it seriously and would be a waste of their time.” – Hispanic Female, 10th Grade

Conclusion:

“You knows what’s weird? I first went into LaGuardia thinking that that place will help me get where I want to be, an American classical pianist, but I am about to walk out with a low self esteem and I don’t want to be a classic pianist anymore. I mainly gave up piano because I felt that LaG never nurtured my desire. I’m looking into other liberal arts fields now.” – South Asian Male, 12th Grade

While it appears that differences in ethnicity between peers does not typically influence student relationships, it does affect how they are treated by school personnel.  Not all students have equal access to the art and academic opportunities provided by LaGuardia, primarily due to favoritism of the white student majority and the assumptions made about the work ethic and potential of minority students in certain fields.

 Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Campus:

Martin Luther King Jr. High School opened in 1975 as a means to integrate white, black, and Hispanic students in a newly gentrified neighborhood.  However, because only a small percentage of white students enrolled, the school eventually struggled with frequent curriculum restructurings, declining student enrollment with increasing suspension rates, unsatisfactory academic performance, and the development of a violent student reputation.  The New York City Department of Education, under the approval of Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, permanently shut down the school as a part of an education reform policy on June 27, 2005.

Violent occurrences at MLK:

• 1990: a 15-year-old student was shot in the stomach by another student inside the building.
• 1992: A group of young men attacked two students with a pipe and a machete outside the building.
• 1997: Six students were charged with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl in a boys’ bathroom.
• January 15, 2002: On Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, two 10^th grade students are shot inside the building.
• 2002: According to NYPD reports, there was a total of 10 reported cases of weapons possession in the school within that year.

It was re-opened as the current Martin Luther King Jr. Educational Campus, a public school institution containing five different high schools, each operating on a different floor.   Campus sports, clubs, and activities are shared, but students have separate lunch hours and dismissal times.  Students are now required to pass through metal detectors and scanners each morning before entering the building, and the security staff has been increased from 14 to 40 guards including 12 police officers, with one posted at every door of the building each day.  Since then, there has been a rise in enrollment, full-time teaching, and student performance, effectively discontinuing the preceding issues and lessening the institution’s corrupt reputation.

High School For Arts, Imagination And Inquiry (est. 2005)

Student Population: 438

High School for Arts, Imagination and Inquiry (A&I), located on the third floor, is one of the older schools on the MLK Campus.  The school’s teachers integrate the arts into History and English classes through artworks, plays, and music, rather than teaching it as a separate subject.  However, the curriculum is not designed to educate and create artists.   The school offers small additional classes  with a collaborative team teaching approach to help students excel academically. Unfortunately, the school continues to struggle with poor attendance rates and high suspension counts.

Special Music School High School (est. 2013)

Student Population: 228

Special Music School High School (SMS), located in the basement, is the newest school on the MLK Campus, with their first graduating class being that of 2017.   The school is an extension of Special Music School, a school that serves grades K-8, and the Kaufman Music Center’s middle school program.   It provides intense musical training with courses in music theory, solfège (ear training), music history, and chorus.  Students are required to attend two free private instrumental lessons per week, and are given the opportunity to perform in the school’s after-school orchestra program called Face the Music.   Because the curriculum is designed to ensure individualized attention for each student, only a small number of students are admitted each year.

Using statistics from the MLK Campus Data packet, the graph below illustrates the percentage of student diversity in both  High School for Arts, Imagination and Inquiry (red) and Special Music School High School (blue).  The majority of A&I’s student population are minorities, with the largest percentage being Hispanic, the second to largest being Black, and the smallest being White, with little to no Asian population.   Meanwhile, the majority of SMS’s student population is white, with the percentage of blacks and Asians being nearly identical.

Student Interviews:

Audition Process: 

• ” My audition was pretty chill. I walked in and out; they knew me cause I played in Face the Music. ” – White Male, 10th Grade
• ” It was absolutely terrifying.  The audition required different pieces plus sight reading and a theory test that I only completed a quarter of.  But it had a slow pace so it gave you time.” –  White Female, 10th Grade

Security:

• “Security is slow, probably due to the theatrics of it all.  The metal detectors and number of guards is ridiculous.” – White Male, 10th Grade, SMS
• “Security is too efficient with metal detectors, scanners, and they take away our cell phones.   I notice that they get along better with minority kids.” – White Female, 10th Grade, SMS
• “Security is overdone with metal detectors, no phones, and a simple argument is escalated by five guards storming it to break it up.” – Black Male, 11th Grade, A&I
• “Security is efficient and does not target certain groups.” – Hispanic Female, 11th Grade, A&I

Peer Relations:

• “Most of my peers are white, and I haven’t had any issues with them.” – White Male, 10th Grade, SMS
• ” In ninth grade, I had a Hispanic friend named Azalea who was very liberal.  Because I am white, she assumed I would be a Trump supporter, called me ‘stupid,’ and pushed me against the wall.” – White Female, 10th Grade, SMS
• “Because the majority is Hispanic and black, everyone pretty much gets along.” – Black Male, 11th Grade, A&I
• ” There is not much diversity, its mostly Hispanics.” – Black Female, 12th Grade, A&I
• “It’s mostly minority students here, so sometimes there are problems.” – Hispanic Female, 11th Grade, A&I

Teacher and Student Relations:

• “If you do need help , you have to ask for it because teachers won’t offer it.  And even when you do you still usually get the bare minimum.” – White Male, 10th Grade, SMS
• “Teachers have helped me with both academic and emotional problems.” – White Female, 10th Grade, SMS
• “Teachers only treat you differently based on what you know.  Those who get higher grades have higher standards and are treated better.  Teachers will help you personally if its getting in the way of your work.” – Black Male, 11th Grade, A&I
• ” I did have a problem and I went to someone, but it wasn’t resolved.  There have recently been more white teachers, but they aren’t so willing to help unless the problem is academic related.” – Hispanic Female, 11th Grade, A&I

Guidance Support: 

• ” My guidance counselor, Ms. Hohm is nice to all the kids in school.  I’ve never felt turned away by her.” – White Female, 10th Grade, SMS
• ” (Scoff) I have received no guidance in my college application process. Overall, I’d say the guidance department’s level of helpfulness is 4 out of 10.” – Black Female, 12th Grade, A&I

Conclusion:

MLK has a history of violent acts committed by its minority students, but the increase in security methods and personnel has successfully prevented these events from repeating.   Because A&I’s student population is mainly minority, peer relations are not influenced by ethnic differences.  On the other hand, SMS students will sometimes altercate when assumptions are made based on race.   The teachers and counselors do not directly show favoritism to a certain racial group, but are more willing to be of service to those with a higher academic merit or rank of talent.  Unfortunately, the majority of students who posses these qualities are white, because their economic background allows them to  have access to educational resources outside of school.

Click here to learn about residential segregation in Manhattan

Sources

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