Bayside High School (Queens)


Bayside High School is an American public high school located in the Bayside neighborhood of the New York City borough of Queens. It is administered by the New York City Department of Education.

Performance

Bayside is one of the highest performing schools in the New York City Department of Education. Its students are admitted into six newly updated programs: Digital Art & Design, Music Performance & Production, Environmental Engineering & Technology, Humanities & Non-Profit Management, Computer Programming & Web Design, and Sports Medicine & Management. These programs offer students the opportunity to earn college credits, participate in industry internships and learn more about careers in the field.
The school has a 98.6% four-year graduation rate, the highest of any large open-admissions high school in the NYC DOE. The school has pioneered Whole Child Guidance practices and is further improving curriculum through the additions of internships and of numerous college-accredited courses. Bayside High School has been recognized for "closing the achievement gap" for minority students, English language learners and students with special needs.
As of the 2018-19 school year, the school has an enrollment of 3,017 students and 164 classroom teachers, for a student–teacher ratio of 18:1. There were 1,909 students eligible for free lunch and 365 eligible for reduced-cost lunch.

History

Bayside High School, Samuel J. Tilden High School, Abraham Lincoln High School, John Adams High School, Walton High School, Andrew Jackson High School, and Grover Cleveland High School were all built during the Great Depression from one set of blueprints, in order to save money. Bayside and Andrew Jackson HS were the final two schools to be completed. The design was based on Kirby Hall in Gretton, Northamptonshire, England. The schools were designed as small campuses to provide a "somewhat collegiate atmosphere". The design of Bayside High School and the other schools, created by architect Walter C. Martin, was considered to be "a modern adaptation of the Adams, Lincoln, and Tilden High Schools", which had all been completed by 1929. Bayside High School was also the first school building in the city to be constructed using Federal funds, built by the Public Works Administration from 1934 to 1936 at the cost of $2.5 million.
Bayside opened its doors on March 16, 1936, taking in 2,300 students from Flushing High School.
In 1978 the Bayside High School music program, then under department chairman Sidney Lovett and teacher John Benza, was among the first secondary schools in the nation to purchase and teach Music Synthesis on a synthesizer, the Roland System 100.

Notable alumni