After a period of decline, W. H. Maxwell Career and Technical High School is poised to recover some luster and academic strength. The tone in the building is safe, congenial, and generally respectful, with the school's principal, Mr. Jocelyn Badette, a frequent and popular presence in the school's shops, labs, and classrooms. However, both attendance and graduation rates remain well below city averages.

Badette, who arrived in 2008 and leads a corps of dedicated teachers that includes veteran faculty and New York City Teaching Fellows, aims to bolster attendance and academic rigor with strong teaching, compelling vocational courses, and thoughtful guidance. The school's four ‘academies' or small learning communities include a freshman academy, which will be housed on its own floor beginning in 2009-2010, and three Career and Technical Education (CTE) academies (cosmetology/fashion, communications media, and a two-stranded academy, vision technology and medical billing/office management). Altogether, many more girls than boys attend Maxwell, attracted by its fashion and beauty track.

Each freshman class (there are 10) takes its core academics together and is offered a ‘sampler' of CTE subjects from each of the upper-class academies. By the end of 9^th grade, students select a major, which they pursue for the next three years. Students can graduate with cosmetology or barbering credentials; some in the vision tech program, which seamlessly blends mainstream and special-education students, are placed in internships that lead to jobs.

Students we saw seem fairly well engaged by their academic classes, whether debating the meaning of habeas corpus in American history or exploring the ecological effects of declining wolf populations on grasslands in biology. Moreover, they are positively enthusiastic about the CTE workshops, especially fashion studio and vision lab. Because students from each CTE track share common academic programs but have different CTE electives, there's not a lot of integration between the tech courses and academic classes.

Maxwell's vision technology students learn vision screening, the anatomy and physiology of the eye, and how to craft lenses, often fabricating new and replacement lenses for students and teachers. Their teacher, Charles DiDonato, a practicing optician for three decades, says, "You have to nurture these kids. Everyone has a niche."

Kendall Overton, a fashion teacher at Maxwell for nearly 17 years, relishes working with her students, who eagerly share patterns they've designed, the computer programs they used to create them, and the frilly garments that result. In a large sewing room filled with mannequins and professional machines, students plan for college at FIT-where they're granted preferential consideration for admission-and elsewhere, focused on a future beyond high school. Many have gone on to college at Penn State and Syracuse, said Overton, "and they're finishing!"

While such outcomes are gratifying, Maxwell still faces enormous hurdles. Improving attendance is the first and biggest challenge, says Badette, who has set up a friendly ‘competition' between academies to highlight the best outcomes. "Kids who come to school every day, who take advantage of the structured environment, of what's being offered, are successful," he says. About a quarter of Maxwell students have special needs (the citywide average is 11%), addressed through support services both in and out of the classroom; collaborative team teaching; and small, self-contained classes. "Seventy-five percent of my absences are from that 25% of students," said Badette, along with students who tack on extra days to three-day weekends and school holidays, or whose families don't emphasize the importance of daily attendance on prank-prone days like Halloween.

The administration makes strong and frequent efforts to follow and support students, Badette said, from biweekly assessments of student progress to calls home when students miss too many classes. An afternoon "PM" school meets daily to offer credit recovery (programs to help students make up missed coursework in classes required for graduation) and Regents prep. The school also offers numerous clubs and teams to engage students outside of regular classes.

A clean, bright new building (annexed to the original campus) has ample space for classes and labs; diminishing enrollment in recent years means that classes aren't overcrowded, although they are for the most part traditionally structured - desks in neat rows, teacher up front. The school uses metal detectors to scan students when they enter the building; students prepare by carrying in their belts and other buzzer-prompting accessories. Students we spoke with didn't object to the scanners, but said the school needed additional machines because long lines at the start of the school day make some kids late for their first class. One girl said she'd waited 20 minutes to enter the building.

Badette and his team actively recruit new students from local middle schools, both to promote the school's offerings and make certain that prospective students understand that CTE demands extra credits in addition to academic requirements. Despite a disheartening graduation rate, the school seems headed for renewal in a community rife with challenges.

Special education: About a quarter of Maxwell students have IEPs (Individualized Education Programs). The school offers Collaborative Team Teaching (CTT) and self-contained classes and has a few high-need, wheelchair-bound students.

After-school: PM school provides programs to help students make up missed coursework in classes required for graduation and Regents review and prep. Teams include boys' and girls' volleyball, basketball, softball, and tennis.

College admissions: Fashion grads often go on to college at the Fashion Institute of Technology; other grads attend Howard University, NYU, Cornell, SUNYs Albany and Buffalo, and two- and four-year programs at the CUNY colleges. (Helen Zelon, November 2008)

The city announced that William H. Maxwell Career and Technical Education High School, on a state list of “persistently lowest achieving” schools, will most likely be phased out and replaced with new schools, it was reported in The New York Times on June 25, 2010.

“Ms. Overton? You’re going to see her more than you see your mother,” said one 12^th- grade fashion student to a group of prospective students.

"The teachers and staff have a goal for every student, and that is to suceeed in whatever they plan on pursuing in the future," writes an alumnus who graduated in 2000. He said one coach is "a father figure to all." (December 2002)