Hudson High School of Learning Technologies

Hudson High School of Learning Technologies has laptops for all children and most lessons incorporate technology. It is a safe school that is three-quarters male and ethnically diverse. One-quarter of the school population has special needs. Principal Nancy Logozzo says the staff prioritizes emotional intelligence, friendships and working through conflicts. Hudson is housed in the Bayard Rustin Educational Complex. Classrooms are on the first floor decorated with fresh, brightly colored paint.

In classes, children use technology, for example, to make bar graphs, using Excel, showing the distance of planets from the sun, or may shoot and edit short videos of scenes they act out from novels, such as Pride and Prejudice. Hudson offers culturally responsive lessons and students read diverse and challenging materials, Logozzo said, reflecting a school population with a significant number of students from Spanish-speaking households, as well as French, Haitian-Creole, Chinese and other home languages. The school offers about half a dozen advanced placement classes for high achievers.

The school has an informal feel: students may wear hats in class, for example, and may go out to lunch if they have good grades and their parents permission. The homework load is not oppressive; students do roughly an hour a night. 

Students may take part in sports teams with other schools in the Bayard Rustin Educational Complex or may sail on the Hudson River as part of the Hudson River Community Sailing program [photo from school website shows the staff sailing during teacher appreciation week].

Hudson has a robust internship and corporate mentorship program. Students are placed in major companies across the city. The Future Project has what is known as a Dream Director who works with students to identify and take action toward making their passions and dreams come to life, Logozzo said. 

A downside: Attendance is low. More than half the students miss 18 days or more of school. 

The school works with the Institute for Student Achievement (ISA), an organization that aims to help students who enter high school below grade level graduate on time and go onto college. Hudson also offers a school-wide literacy class known as Right to Read, which is required for all four years of attendance.

Special education: Logozzo was a teacher and assistant principal at the Queens High School of Teaching, Liberal Arts, and Sciences, a school particularly known for integrating students with special needs and general education students. Logozzo says this school integrates special needs students into regular classes with two teachers called Integrated Co-Teaching, or ICT. She says both general education and special education students benefit from having two teachers in the classroom. Students who would be placed in a self-contained class in other schools, are placed in an ICT class here, and also get extra help in the resource room.

Admissions: Priority to Manhattan students. Open admission is lottery based. (Saba Sebhatu, Web Reports, emails with the principal, Sept. 2018)