Academy of Innovative Technology

It sounds like a teenager’s dream: Spend your school days designing video games, then get a job fixing computers or coding web pages. That’s the promise of the Academy for Innovative Technology, one of five small schools on the Franklin K. Lane campus near the Cypress Hill Cemetery on the Brooklyn-Queens border.

Ninth graders take mini-classes in five fields: web design, video game design, computer repair, robotics and graphic design. In grades 10 to 12, they concentrate on one field. Some have paid summer internships.  When they graduate, they may receive Career and Technical Education certificates that lead to entry level jobs in the industry.

Students also have a regular academic classes in English, a foreign language (Spanish), history, math and science.

The school is safe and students, teachers and administrators trust one another, according to school surveys.

The school is 83 percent male and nearly one-quarter of students receive special education services, according to the Comprehensive Education Plan.

Although many students arrive with weak academic skills, about three-quarters graduate on time. Advanced Placement courses are offered for top students. However, only a few graduates earn a demanding Advanced Regents diploma and most must take remedial classes if they go to college.

ADMISSONS: Students are admitted according to the educational option formula designed to ensure a mix of low- average and high-performing students. (Clara Hemphill, web reports, June 2018)