Gay High School
Public School to Open in Fall in NYC
The Associated Press





N E W Y O R K, July 28— A small alternative public school program has been expanded into a full-fledged school for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students.

The Harvey Milk High School, an expansion of a 1984 city program consisting of two small classrooms for gay students, will enroll about 100 students and will open in the fall.

"I think everybody feels that it's a good idea because some of the kids who are gays and lesbians have been constantly harassed and beaten in other schools," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a briefing today. "It lets them get an education without having to worry. It solves a discipline problem. And from a pedagogical point of view, this administration — and previous administrations — have thought it was a good idea and we'll continue with that." So, let's have a school for nerds, another one for overweight kids, another one for kids with braces, another one for kids with greasy hair, another one for black kids, one for latin kids, one for skinheads, etc.etc.etc.

The school, at 2 Astor Place in the East Village, is undergoing a $3.2 million renovation approved by the old Board of Education last year.

On its Web site, the Hetrick-Martin Institute describes the Harvey Milk School as "the nation's first accredited public high school designed to meet the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth (LGBTQ)." It says the school "offers LGBTQ youth an opportunity to obtain a secondary education in a safe and supportive environment. … We believe that success requires the ability to respect and value the diverse human community." The school is named after San Francisco's first openly gay city supervisor, Harvey Milk, who was assassinated in 1978 along with Mayor George Moscone.

Ok so, they want gay kids to go to school in a safe environment... never mind that when they leave school every day to go back home, there will be people outside who will probably harras them even more. It sounds like a really stupid idea to me. It's as stupid as having all girl's school's or all boys school's. All of us live in a society and we need each other to survive in this world. We can't separate people because of their sexual orientation, in my opinion, it only makes the problem worse than it already is.