Rockaway Park High School for Environmental Sustainability

The Rockaway Park High School for Environmental Sustainability is designed to offer projects and activities to students who may be turned off by traditional academics. Students may paddle a kayak or learn carpentry to build boats. Community partners offer students paid summer jobs, according to the high school directory.

The school, housed in the Beach Channel Educational Complex, was founded in 2010 by Principal Jennifer Connolly, who previously taught in an alternative high school. Connolly was born on the Rockaway Peninsula; her mother graduated from Far Rockaway High School and her grandmother was a crossing guard in the neighborhood.

Like the rest of the Rockaways, the school suffered a blow during Hurricane Sandy in October 2012, and the building was closed for four months.

“The aftereffects are still felt today, through student displacement and economic hardship,” according to the school’s 2018-19 Comprehensive Educational Plan. There are “no bookstores, one small public library, no movie theaters or arts venues, one YMCA, and limited grocery and restaurant options.” Most student live in surrounding housing projects and small bungalows or former summer cottages.

Beach Channel Educational Complex offers free childcare for students’ children in the LYFE center.

Graduates have been admitted to St John's University, Wells College, Buffalo State College, Delaware State, SUNY Farmingdale and Hunter College, according to the CEP.

Admissions: The school has not filled its seats in recent years. (Clara Hemphill, DOE statistics, December 2018)