Forest Hills High School

Forest Hills High School is a large, high-achieving yet severely overcrowded neighborhood school. Attendance is great, and most students graduate on time and go on to college. It offers more than 20 Advanced Placement courses, half a dozen foreign languages (including Mandarin, Hebrew, Latin and American Sign Language), and dozens of clubs and sports teams.

Forest Hills offers special programs that include a Law Academy featuring mock trials and moot court, in which students stage trials and argue appeals. The Carl Sagan Program for high achievers provides student with four years of research classes in addition to science and math. Other options include a small Academy of Chinese Studies, a Dual Language Spanish program, and drama and music academies.

Expectations are consistently high. Students must keep up their grades if they want to go to the prom or be on an athletic team. In the majority of the school’s Advanced Placement classes, enrollment is open to all and encouraged, according to the yearly plan, but anyone who signs up for an AP class should count on finishing it.

Forest Hills wants its low-performing students to graduate—whether it takes after-school tutoring, Saturday classes or pestering parents. The graduation rate far outpaces the citywide average, and most graduates are prepared for college work.

None of these achievements, though, mitigate the severe overcrowding. Designed to serve 2,500 students, the building has close to 4,000. Students attend school in three overlapping sessions, with some arriving as early as 7:20 a.m. and the last class ending after 5 p.m. The building stays open until 8 p.m. in an effort to provide extracurricular activities and instill school spirit.

"It's pretty crowded," said one boy arriving in the late morning for the third session on our last visit. By the time he leaves school after 5, eats dinner and does his homework, he complained, the evening is over. Despite the crunch, many students praised the teaching staff.

Overcrowding also means less personal attention: fewer than half the students say teachers notice if they are having trouble learning or support them when they are upset—numbers that fall below the citywide average. However, students say they are engaged in classes, and most teachers would recommend the school to other families.

The college office has two counselors according to the school website.

Benjamin Sherman came to the school as principal in 2017. He was the founder and principal of the well-regarded East-West School of International Studies.

ADMISSIONS: The majority of Forest Hills students come from its zone, although some special programs take students from elsewhere. The very popular Law Academy accepts students using the educational option system, which is designed to admit a range of academic abilities. Students in the Sagan program are chosen based on achievement and attendance. The Spanish program is screened for language, and the drama and music academies require an audition. (Lydie Raschka, web reports, March 2018)