THBT more of New York's Harvey Milk School should be established

Wikipedia…..
Harvey Milk High School is a high school in in the East Village of New York City designed to be a safe space for students regardless of sexual orientation[citation needed]; particularly for, though not limited to, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender young people, as well as those questioning their sexuality. It is named after assassinated San Francisco, California supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to office and one of the best known gay politicians of the 20th century. He was assassinated along with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone on November 27, 1978.
History
The school was originally run by the Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI), an organization that provides social support to at-risk youth, especially non-heterosexuals. After becoming a fully-accredited public school in 2002, the high school is now administered by the New York City Department of Education, separate from HMI. The school and the non-profit still share space in the same building.
The school was founded in 1985 as a small, two-room program with just over a dozen students by HMI in collaboration with the New York City Department of Education's Career Education Center. The Department of Education administers the school and is responsible for admissions. Harvey Milk was created as an alternative education program for youth who find it difficult or impossible to attend their home schools due to threats, violence, or harassment.

Students must themselves apply to transfer to the high school, like other transfer schools in New York City. The school has a 92% graduation rate, far above the state average, and 60% of students attend institutions of higher learning.[2]
Mission statement and vision
According to the schools mission statement and vision:
“ We envision a school where all students are challenged to question the world around them, to develop healthy, personal identities, to participate in meaningful civic and social experiences that will allow them to formulate and realize their educational and career goals. We seek to cultivate an inclusive, academic program emphasizing literacy, technology infusion, and life-long learning skills. With the support of the extensive services provided by The Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI) and the involvement of our students' parents/guardians in the educational process, we envision all members in the school community to share accountability for the creation and maintenance of a safe, supportive, academically rigorous, and standards-driven learning environment.
Harvey Milk High School (HMHS) is a transfer high school open to all New York City students who are seeking an alternative educational experience from their current high schools while freely expressing individuality and identity. HMHS provides students a unique, small learning community in a safe, nurturing setting designed to support educational, social, and emotional development to prepare them for adulthood, college, and the world of work. The school offers students a rigorous academic experience aligned with New York State learning standards and expectations. HMHS uses critical thinking to incorporate our history, our life experiences, and the lessons from the world around us.”
Expansion
HMHS came to national attention in 2002, when the Board of Education authorized a $3.2 million capital expansion of the school as one of its last acts prior to becoming a mayoral agency. At this time, the school also became a four-year, fully-accredited high school.
The capital provided by Board of Education allowed for the renovation of the school building. Enrollment jumped from 50 to 100 students. In 2003, “[t]he new school’s principal, William Salzman, said the school will be academically challenging and will follow mandatory English and math programs. It also will specialize in computer technology, arts and culinary arts.”[3]
Nevertheless, it has been alleged that the school practices discrimination.[citation needed] In general, the opposition comes from social conservatives. Fred Phelps protested outside the school when it opened as a public high school in 2003. State Conservative Party chairman Michael Long also criticized the creation of the school as social engineering, asking, “Is there a different way to teach homosexuals? Is there gay math? This is wrong… There’s no reason these children should be treated separately.”[3] Others[who?] claim that the school is trying to indoctrinate students in sexual minority culture by teaching about the history of gay people and creating an almost exclusively homosexual environment.[citation needed] Many[who?] assert that the solution to harassment is a zero tolerance policy against it in all public schools, not isolating gay students. While educators familiar with LGBT issues point out that harassment continues despite similar measures and speak to larger cultural biases.
Supporters contend that this school is a pragmatic solution, providing an alternative path to a diploma for students who are unable to succeed in a mainstream high school due to intolerance. Nor are all arguments against the school divided along partisan lines. Independent mayor Michael Bloomberg supported the renovation of the school while Democratic N.Y. State Senator Rubén Díaz opposed it.
In 2004, the HMHS underwent a 17,000 square foot (1,600 m²) expansion and an increase to eight classrooms and 110 students.
References in media
In Marvel Comics' Ultimate X-Men series, Northstar, one of Marvel's most prominent homosexual mutant superheroes, mentions his coming out experience and his mother trying to enroll him in the Harvey Milk School. He refused due to his belief that enrolling would only promote segregation of hetero- and homosexual students. Consequently, he refuses an offer by the X-Men to enroll at Professor Xavier's mutant school, the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning for similar reasons.[4]
Television

In the Law & Order: SVU Season 4 episode Fallacy, detective Olivia Benson and ADA Alexandra Cabot while discussing the situation of pre-operative male-to-female transsexual Cheryl Avery, they made mention of her teachers suggesting a transfer to Harvey Milk School.

2. http://edition.cnn.com/2003/EDUCATION/09/08/gay.school/
NEW YORK (CNN) -- A newly expanded gay-themed high school began the school year Monday with about 100 students attending classes, about 200 supporters rallying outside and a small band of protesters demonstrating against it.
Since 1985, Harvey Milk High School has served students who are gay or believed to be gay, but its recent expansion to 100 students sparked criticism from conservative groups.
Application to the school is voluntary. Teens are admitted regardless of sexual orientation, but must show they are at risk of dropping out because of harassment.
The school, located in Manhattan's East Village, has a 95 percent graduation rate. With its expansion, it will be run like other alternative high schools in the city.
Small protest outside
About 10 protesters, led by stridently anti-gay Kansas minister Fred Phelps, demonstrated across the street from the school and screamed at supporters to repent for their "sodomite behavior." Phelps is best known for picketing the funerals of gay men, including the service for Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming college student beaten to death.
The Hetrick-Martin Institute, which studies gay youth, helps operate the school. The institute says nearly all gay teens are repeatedly harassed at school and are three times more likely to drop out or commit suicide than other youths.
The school is named after San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official of a major U.S. city. Milk was assassinated along with Mayor George Moscone in 1978.

3. http://www.baywindows.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=65880
Harvey Milk School a haven for GLBT students
by Mubarak Dahir
Thursday Aug 28, 2003
Critics of the Harvey Milk School - a New York City school for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender high school students - are misunderstanding and misrepresenting the goals and purpose of this special academy.
Contrary to the alarmist yelpings of the naysayers, the Harvey Milk School does not have as its goal the segregation and isolation of GLBT students from the mainstream. It isn’t a step backward for integration or mutual understanding. It isn’t some covert plot to overthrow America’s school systems and set up "Homo High Schools" all across America.
The school is simply a last-resort alternative for a small group of GLBT students who have been so harassed, so attacked in their regular school systems, that they would otherwise drop out altogether rather than face continued persecution.
For students who face that grave choice, the Harvey Milk School is their safety net. For these students, the option is usually to go to Harvey Milk, or not to go to school at all. For them, the Harvey Milk School isn’t some horrible segregationist plot - it is a chance to get their high school diplomas unimpeded by anti-gay tauntings and abuse. The school gives these kids hope and a chance to complete their education - to go onto a better future. For many of the kids there, it is the last hope they have for completing school.
The Harvey Milk School is a program of the Hetrick-Martin Institute, which deals with GLBT youth. It’s not new. The program started in 1985, as an experimental, alternative school option for very troubled GLBT kids.
But the hoopla over the school started this summer after New York tabloids trumpeted the fact that the school district intends to expand the program over time from 50 to 170 students, and that the school’s status will change from one of an alternative program, to one of a fully accredited high school. The expansion begins this fall, when the school plans to increase its student population from about 50 to around 100 students. The upgrade in the school is being made possible by $3.2 million from the city’s Department of Education.
The fact that taxpayer money is being used to elevate the school has critics up in arms. The argument is that the public shouldn’t have to pay for gay segregation.
In fact, one of the school’s harshest critics, New York State Senator Ruben Diaz, a Bronx Democrat, has even brought a lawsuit against the school. His suit claims that the school is illegal because it violates the Education Department’s and the city’s laws against bias based on sexual orientation. He also claims that any money going to a specifically "gay school" is illegal because it sets up a so-called special class of students, effectively creating illegal segregation, and thus robbing money from other schools.
One has to wonder about Senator Diaz’s newfound concerns for gay and lesbian students, and his sudden interest in gay civil rights. After all, this is the same man who once tried to stop the Gay Games from happening in New York City, fearing that the event would spread AIDS.

But part of the mission of any city’s public education system is to create an atmosphere where all kids can get a proper education. For the kids who voluntarily enroll in the Harvey Milk School, it’s obvious that the school system is failing them at their "regular" schools. The fact that the Harvey Milk School has a nearly 20-year track record of helping such kids, and the fact that there is already a waiting list to get into it, shows that the school is working.
The existence of the school, and its expansion, is also evidence that the school system is failing to protect and educate GLBT students.
No one wants to weed out gay and lesbian kids from schools and isolate or segregate them into a school ghetto. In a more perfect world, kids would learn from one another at school that sexual diversity is natural, normal and healthy.
But we don’t live in that perfect world. That doesn’t mean that the school systems shouldn’t continue to improve programs and diversity training and protection safeguards at all public schools. Someday, maybe a place like the Harvey Milk School won’t be necessary.
But in the meantime, we shouldn’t turn our backs on the students who feel so hassled, so picked on, that they would rather give up their education - and thus likely their futures - rather than face the daily horror of their school lives.
To Senator Diaz and the other critics of this program, I have to ask: Where were you when these kids were getting hounded out of school?

4. http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/features/10970/

The Harvey Milk School Has No Right to Exist. Discuss.
The gay-high-school experiment is under fire from a conservative lawsuit. But even some progressives say it’s segregation by any other name.
In the morning of September 8, 2003, a small group of men and women gathered on a street corner in downtown Manhattan and shouted “Die, fags!” and “God is not mocked!” at the teenagers who were entering a high-rise at the corner of Astor Place and Broadway. The placard-wielding crowd, composed of members of a Topeka, Kansas, church, were protesting the opening of the Harvey Milk High School, known as the nation’s first public school for gay and lesbian youth. “I was scared,” recalls 19-year-old Chris Castro, one student who faced the protesters that day. David Mensah, executive director of the Hetrick-Martin Institute, and a driving force behind the Harvey Milk High School’s creation, was both worried and saddened. “I couldn’t believe the horrific visual and verbal assault they were subjecting these kids to,” he says.

At the same time, Mensah knew that Harvey Milk faced a far graver threat than hurled abuse. Three weeks earlier, he had learned of a lawsuit seeking to have the school’s $3.2 million in taxpayer funding revoked—on grounds that Harvey Milk, which serves just 100 students, is a waste of city money and illegal under New York’s sexual-bias laws.

Almost a year and a half later, the Harvey Milk High School has failed in its bid to have the suit thrown out, and the legal challenge remains a serious danger to the school’s continued existence. That the suit was brought by a state senator known for his opposition to gay causes, and supported by an Evangelical group, has prompted some to dismiss it as reflexive homophobia. But members of the religious right are not the only ones questioning the school’s need to exist. Even some gay-rights advocates call the Harvey Milk High School a decisive step backward in homosexuals’ quest for equality and acceptance—a “uniquely bad idea,” as one liberal critic puts it. The question today is whether the city of New York has come to agree with that opinion.

In the debate over the Harvey Milk school’s right to exist, one thing is certain: You cannot spend time within its hallways without acknowledging that it serves a real need—at least for a minuscule portion of the city’s 300,000 high-schoolers. Located on the third floor of a nineteenth-century high-rise at 2 Astor Place, the Harvey Milk High School could, with its chic multi-million-dollar renovation, be mistaken for the hip headquarters of a downtown ad agency. Eighteen spanking-new glass-walled classrooms, many outfitted with state-of-the-art computers, are arrayed along a curving hallway lined with candy-colored orange lockers. With its compact physical space and tiny enrollment, the school, David Mensah argues, is simply one example of the Bloomberg administration’s revolutionary approach to education: the breaking up of vast, anonymous, 7,000-student educational gristmills into smaller, more intimate schools devoted to a single theme—science, dance, the arts. “Within that continuum,” Mensah says, “it is simply one more very responsible option.” But by Mensah’s own admission, the school is also utterly unique: an institution based not on academic interests but on a fundamental building block of human identity—sexual orientation and gender identity. This makes Harvey Milk different from any other school in the city, or, indeed, the world—a fact hardly lost on the school’s religiously inspired opponents.

Many Harvey Milk students first come to the school as runaways seeking help from its umbrella organization, the Hetrick-Martin Institute, a social-services agency that for 25 years has been ministering to “at risk” gay teens. The school actually began back in 1985 as a tiny non-diploma-granting institution within HMI—a place for the agency’s displaced youths to earn a GED degree, taught by one full-time instructor hired by the Board of Education. Over the next fifteen years, enrollment grew from 17 to 40 students—until Harold Levy, school chancellor under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, set the wheels in motion in 2001 for the expansion of Harvey Milk into an accredited, four-year, diploma-granting high school.

At first, the newly renovated Harvey Milk High School made headlines chiefly for the crimes committed by its students. In the school’s debut semester alone, three students were arrested after a Brooklyn man was stabbed with a screwdriver at a nearby Starbucks, and four transgender students and one member of the after-school program were arrested on charges of impersonating undercover police officers and shaking down johns whom they’d lured into fake assignations—incidents that school officials blamed, partly, on the growing pains associated with a school that, within six weeks, had gone from a three-teacher GED-granting institution serving 40 students to a full-fledged public high school serving 100 students, with a new faculty of seven teachers, a principal, a new physical plant, and a new curriculum. But the tabloids had a field day portraying the school as an out-of-control collection of fashion-mad, transsexual juvenile delinquents and streetwalkers who channeled their illegal profits into buying sprees at Dolce & Gabbana. HMI’s Mensah does not deny that much of the student population does indeed belong to such at-risk groups—which is precisely why, he says, the Harvey Milk safety net is needed—but he says that the trial-by-tabloid was largely the result of discrimination. “All kids get in trouble,” he says. “They act crazy sometimes. But any time these kids got in trouble, it ended up in the paper.

The high-profile embarrassments led to the abrupt departure of the school’s first principal, William Salzman, a former Wall Street executive. He was replaced in February 2004 by Daniel Rossi, a seasoned educator with sixteen years of experience in the classroom and three and a half years as an administrator at the Satellite Academy, an alternative high school in midtown. A short, dark, intense, gay 38-year-old, Rossi tightened admissions procedures and generally lowered what one teacher calls the “tension” that had existed under the former principal. Today, staff and students say that the school is running more smoothly, and, Rossi says, “there has been an absolute reduction in the level of violence and dysfunction” that plagued the school’s first year.

Which is not to say that the student body is no longer made up of youngsters with a lot of baggage. “A majority of our kids are what we call Title I, poverty level,” says Thomas Krever, associate executive director of programs at HMI. “About 20 percent qualify as homeless, or living with someone other than their immediate parent or guardian. They are very academically challenged. The way they see it, high-school graduation isn’t really something in their future.” But Harvey Milk’s mission is not simply to fill gaps in the students’ education; it is also to help them in the process of coming to grips with their sexuality, and the emotional trauma associated with it. “These kids are volatile, aggressive, hostile, as a way to protect themselves,” says Maria Paradiso, HMI’s director of supportive services. “They’ve been harassed and bullied and beaten up so often, they have a thick armor. We’re trying to teach them how to manage difficult emotions, how to be confident about who they are. We help them with coming-out issues, and the struggle of gender identity.”

“Imagine waking up every day,” adds Krever, “and having to be so safeguarded about the lisp in your voice or the way you hold your body, your mannerisms—every moment of your life in public—then suddenly coming into a building where that’s not as much of an issue. All those layers have to get unpeeled, all those defense mechanisms, all those levels, have to be worked out.”

The suit says Harvey Milk is a waste of city money and illegal under sexual-bias laws.

Tenaja Jordan, 19, is one student who Harvey Milk officials say is on the way to such success. A dark-skinned girl of Brazilian and West Indian descent, Jordan ran away from her Staten Island home after coming out to her Jehovah’s Witness parents when she was 16. Excommunicated by the church and rejected by her disapproving parents, she spent several weeks “bouncing around” between friends’ couches, then ended up at Hetrick-Martin. “When I got to HMI, it was like, ‘Real live gay people beside myself! Wow!’ ” Jordan says. She transferred to Harvey Milk for her final year, graduated in 2003, and is now attending college. She credits Harvey Milk with helping her to grow up—fast. “It’s more than just being gay or lesbian or queer,” Jordan says. “Most of the people I knew had also been kicked out by their parents. So we were all talking about getting housing, getting jobs, getting through school—not about the new episode of American Idol. We didn’t have time.” Jordan credits HMI and Harvey Milk staff, the majority of whom are gay themselves, with knowing how to talk to her, and how to listen. “They weren’t trying to tell me how I felt,” she says. So closely bonded do kids become that the school has had to institute an “aging out” policy: At 21, you must leave. “I’ll ease out at 21,” Jordan says. “But I’ll carry this place wherever I go.”
Principal Rossi stresses that there is no special gay slant to the teaching, and that a condition of the school’s expansion is that it operate under Department of Education mandates to teach a city-approved curriculum of math, English, science, and other core subjects. At the same time, English teacher Orville Bell admits to addressing gay issues with greater frankness in the classroom than he would in another high school. In his late fifties, Bell is an exceptionally dedicated and skilled educator with 29 years of experience in the classroom, and who is, like many of his students, both black and gay. Described by his students as one of those magical and inspiring instructors, he brings a wealth of diverse life experience to bear in his teaching, having worked in theater, run a diving and fishing business in Mexico, and done voice-over work. Bell was ready to retire from teaching, but reversed himself when he heard about the launching of Harvey Milk. “I thought it sounded wonderful,” he says. At Harvey Milk, Bell teaches works “that I would never touch in a secondary classroom,” he says, citing as an example Bent, a play about homosexuals persecuted in the Nazi death camps that includes a sex scene between two men. Bell is aware that such an admission could create controversy—especially when the public-relations person who is monitoring the interview begins to fidget and interrupt. But Bell is unapologetic about his belief in tailoring at least some of his teaching to his gay students. He’s similarly unapologetic about what he sees as the importance of having gay teachers at the school.
5. http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolPortals/02/M586/AboutUs/Overview/Our+Mission.htm
The mission of Harvey Milk High School ("HMHS") is to establish and promote a community of successful, independent learners by creating a safe, supportive, engaging and meaningful educational environment. HMHS is a transfer school for students in grades 9-12 who have not felt successful in at least one other high school prior to admission and who are committed to taking full ownership of their learning. The school seeks to provide a rigorous academic program with all the necessary support systems to foster the development of an individual's character, self-respect and ability to succeed in a diverse community.
Program
Theater, Media Studies, Photography, Student Leadership.
6. http://adage.com/goodworks/post?article_id=136466

Levi Strauss & Co. is launching the "Give Them Hope Now" campaign today to raise $500,000 for the Hetrick-Martin Institute, a nonprofit organization that supports Harvey Milk High School. The New York school is dedicated to helping lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning students.
While Harvey Milk is a public school, HMI manages the facility and runs after-school programs and support services. Funds raised will go to the HMI Liquidity Reserve Fund, establishing a financial safety net for the organization.
"Levi Strauss & Co. believes deeply in the importance of equality, social justice, community involvement and corporate citizenship, and has a rich history of standing up for the rights of the LGBTQ community," says Robert Hanson, president of Levi Strauss Americas. "The Hetrick-Martin Institute, home of the Harvey Milk High School, is positively contributing to the lives of many LGBTQ teenagers, and we are proud to do our part to help raise money and awareness for this important cause."
Levi's worked with a number of partners on the campaign. Its digital agency of record, Razorfish, created the campaign's website, www.givethemhopenow.org. It also developed a digital effort -- with banner ads, e-mail outreach, social media and community outreach through Facebook and Twitter, pre-roll video and editorial coverage -- and it reached out to online publishers that have worked with Levi's, including AOL, Glam, Hulu, MSN and Yahoo
"We've put together a very impactful social media outreach strategy. We'll be reaching out to bloggers and like-minded organizations and people in the LGBT community," says Rob Toledo, senior account director, Razorfish, Seattle. "[The program] literally saves lives. These kids are in crisis; they've been kicked out of their homes. They have no one else to turn to.
"When you compare it to other schools, this school is highly successful," he adds, citing the school's almost 90% graduation rate.

In addition, Regent Media, owner of Out magazine and The Advocate, has given online and print media space, and photographers Jenny Gage and Tom Betterton have donated their services. The effort will include monthly fundraisers sponsored and hosted by celebrities, including Lance Black, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "Milk."
The campaign is set to run through November or until all the funds are raised.
"We were really excited when Levi's came to us with this project," Mr. Toledo says. "This is relatively new for Levi's and for my team. We've seen a lot of great examples of using social media for raising funds for great causes. We'll actively keep the content fresh and new, and see that we give them the most up-to-date information about the campaign."
LGBTQ issues have long been important to Levi Strauss. In the early 1980s, the company began promoting HIV/AIDS awareness and education. Standing by its commitment to progressive employment policies and practices, it became the first Fortune 500 company to extend full medical benefits to domestic partners of employees in 1992. More recently, it was the only California company to file an amicus brief with the California Supreme Court in support of same-sex marriage and was co-chair of the Business Council for No on Proposition 8.
7. http://www.givethemhopenow.org/whyHmi.aspx
What We Do
For thirty years, The Hetrick-Martin Institute has put into action our core belief that all young people— regardless of sexual orientation or identity—deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to thrive. Through a comprehensive package of innovative and creative after-school programs, supportive services, and referrals, Hetrick-Martin, with its experienced professional staff, is a leader in caring for our most vulnerable at-risk youth.
We are also host to the Harvey Milk High School, an inclusive, voluntary New York City transfer public high school focusing on the educational needs of children who are in crisis or at risk of physical violence and/or emotional harm in a traditional educational environment.
Who We Are
We’re a dedicated group of leaders, teachers, counselors, education and arts specialists, volunteers, mentors, and other folks committed to supporting LGBTQ youth through classes, internships, after-school programs, and most importantly, love and caring. We’re the ones truly happy to see you walk through the door. Here’s a little bit more about a few of us.
Where We Work
Open the doors. Come inside. What will you see? A lively, caring environment where LGBTQ youth can find a safe place to make friends, eat a meal, and learn. Many young people find us through friends and referrals because they are looking for a safe place where they won’t be judged. Maybe they start by dropping in to the after-school program, socializing, or maybe they start an internship, receive an HIV test, or learn about HIV prevention. After discovering the many services and programs, many also apply to be students at Harvey Milk High School. Nearly 90% of Harvey Milk High School seniors graduated in 2008. For many, a diploma or GED certificate launches the rest of their lives. And it can all be found inside these simple doors.
How We Began
In 1979, life partners and educators on gay and lesbian issues, Dr. Emery Hetrick, a psychiatrist, and Dr. Damien Martin, a professor at New York University, heard the heartbreaking story of a homeless 15-year-old boy who had been beaten and thrown out of his emergency shelter because he was gay. They were so moved that they gathered a group of concerned adults and created what was then called the Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth (IPLGY) to assist this group of young people who desperately needed support. In 1988, the organization was renamed The Hetrick-Martin Institute in honor of its founders and their lifelong commitment to service.
We're proud to be the oldest and largest organization in the nation helping gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth to reach their full potential.