Thomas A. Edison High School (New York City)

Thomas A. Edison Vocational and Technical High School (often referred to locally simply as Edison) is a public secondary school in Queens's Jamaica community in New York City. The school is rather distinctive in that it is one of the few public high schools in New York City to offer vocational training programs as well as traditional college preparatory tracks and well known for its large male population. The school is operated by the New York City Department of Education.

Location

The campus is located near the top of a fairly steep hill at the corner of 168th St. and 84th Ave., and sits on the south side the Grand Central Parkway; it is situated diagonally across the parkway, southwest from St. John's University. Hillside Avenue, at the foot of the hill, is several blocks to the south.

Jamaica High School is also located near, separated from Edison by 84th Ave. and the Jamaica High School Track and Football Field. Hillcrest High School, another nearby high school, is located at Highland Avenue and Parsons Blvd.

Academic Offerings

Students at Edison generally take required courses in health, music theory, and art appreciation during their freshman year, at the end of which they choose a track to pursue in grades 10-12. Edison offers college-preparatory technological programs such as mechanical, electronic and pre-medical pharmaceutical technologies as well as more trade-oriented programs such as automotive and computer repair (A+ Certification), mechanical engineering / AUTOCAD, C++ programming, computer graphics design, and the Cisco Networking Academy, in which one can earn a CCNA network certification upon completion of the program.

In information technology, students takes Electronics or Cabling for one term. After they pass both classes, they have the choose of picking their major (i.e. A+ Repair, Cisco, Word) for junior and senior year.

Demographics

The school has an enrollment of just over 2,800 students of diverse ethnic backgrounds, including African American, Hispanic, South Asian, East Asian, White American, Bosnian and Greek. Edison's gender population is approx 60.0% male and 40.0% female.

In autumn 2006, Edison admitted 873 freshmen (9th graders). The total student population is approximately 250 larger than the 2005-2006 school year. The increase in student population has required the hiring of more than 20 new teachers. Crowding is an issue in a building designed for 1,600 Students.

Other information

Edison participates in a wide variety of citywide sporting activities (excluding football). Its teams are known as the Inventors. Also, unknown to some, their maskscot is a lightbulb, but it is never used during a game.

The current principal is Anthony Barbetta.The New York City Department of Education's eldest employee, Hazal Barr, just retired from edison.

As a Vocational & Technical High School, teams from Edison have performed highly in Annual Competitions dealing with Auto Repair. In the 2005-06 School year, Edison teams finished First and Second in NYC. For the Current (2006-07) School Year, Edison teams have taken the top three spots in the NYC Competition (1st, 2nd & 3rd).

The high school was created in 1950.

The school began its first technical course in Electronics.

Every boy was required to wear a tie and could rent one for 10 cents from the secretary a day.

Girls were admitted to Edison in the late 70's

Students were originally admitted into Edison by taking an exam.

There used to be 700 kids when the school first started.

Edison is currently listed as the 11th most popular high school in the city as the school 8th graders want to enter in fall with 1320 choices. [http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=our_schools&id=5324667 http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=our_schools&id=5324667]

The school colors are blue and gold.

Their honors society is the National Honors Society.

The school has an annual talent show show called "Le Show".

Spirit Week is in the middle of November during the week sophomores and juniors take the PSATs.

The Physical Education classes the school offers are Basketball, Soccer, Volleyball, Fitness, Team Conditioning (for the athletes in school), Self-Defense, Jump-Rope, and Dance.

First period starts at 7:10AM and ends with tenth period at 3:25PM.

The school requires a gym uniform consisting of a yellow shirt and blue shorts with the Thomas Edison logo on it. Any students in a gym class that's indoors are not allowed to wear sweatpants unless they have religious reasons.

Notable Alumni

*Stephen A. Smith ESPN sports personality and "Philadelphia Inquirer" sports columnist is a member of the graduating class of 1986.
*Mike Windischmann Professional Soccer Player, [http://www.soccerhall.org/famers/Mike_Windischmann.htm 2004 National Soccer Hall of Fame]

References

[http://thomasedisonhs.org/Student_Handbook_9-2007.pdf Student Handbook]

External links

* [http://schools.nyc.gov/OurSchools/Region3/Q620/default.htm?searchType=school NYC Dept. of Education page on Edison]
* [http://maps.google.com/?ll=40.716286,-73.799195&spn=0.001675,0.003659&t=h Google Maps Hybrid Image]
* [http://www.psal.org/psalsports/school/psal_schoolprofile.asp?cschool=28541 Public Schools Athletic League] Thomas Edison pages link on the PSAL Public Schools Athletic League Web Site.