Forest Hills High School, a school whose name has been associated with excellence in education for 56 years, is located in the middle class tree-lined neighborhood of Forest Hills, in the borough of Queens, New York City, New York. The neighborhood is serviced by public transportation that allows for access to Manhattan in just 25 minutes. The school ranks as one of the largest in Queens, with a current population of more than 3,500 students. The vast majority of these students attend the school because they live within the school zone. Students are not preselected for attendance at Forest Hills High School, nor do they compete through an application process. As a result, the school, on the one hand, reflects the nature of the neighborhood it serves. The sea changes in the demographics of Queens in the past 50 years are mirrored in the changes in the population of Forest Hills High School. It is a neighborhood school. On the other hand, the school has the cosmopolitan feel of a big city high school that is strongly connected to and cognizant of the teeming metropolis of New York City in which it is situated. It has and continues to fulfill a prominent place in the development of public education in New York City.

The foremost goal of Forest Hills High School is to successfully meet the educational needs of all its students, recognizing that these needs differ for many throughout the school population. Secondly, the school considers its mission to be to maintain and further develop the level of excellence in education for which it has been known through high expectations for academic success for all its students. Thirdly, the fostering of respect and appreciation for all peoples and ideas, and the inculcating of fundamental values of honesty, integrity, and civility are integral components of the school’s goals and priorities.

The needs of our students now are similar to and strikingly different from those of our students throughout much of the history of the school. Through the late 1970s the population was largely second- and third-generation American Caucasians, the offspring of traditionally tightly-knit families of European background, for whom English was not very different from the language of their own ancestors, and for whom blending into the mainstream American culture required only slight modifications. And they prospered: they excelled in Westinghouse Science Talent Search Competitions, they produced award--winning publications, and they were accepted at the finest institutions of higher learning.

Today, students of Forest Hills High School continue to excel academically, with 90% moving on to college. Yet, how different the population is. Students in the school today represent more than 40 countries. Asians (primarily Indians), Chinese and Koreans, children of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Colombia, and other Latin American countries, as well as newly arrived émigrés who have fled the former Soviet Union, make up large portions of the school population. In addition, African Americans have opted to forego their zoned high schools, and joined the student body at Forest Hills. By 1997, the makeup of the school population was 22% Asian, 8% African American, 20% Hispanic, and 50% other, with 76% of the school's 3,500 students now coming from homes where the predominant language is not English. In 1985, there was one ESL teacher, and she taught fewer than 75 students. Now in spring, 1997, a dozen teachers teach more than 650 students in ESL and bilingual Russian, Chinese, and Spanish classes. The educational needs of this very varied student population are more extensive than those of their predecessors. Many of our students must learn a new alphabet, must be shown the opportunities and responsibilities of one who lives in a democracy, and must be helped to become conversant in and write adequately in English, while staying in touch with their varied and unique roots. Some have had little formal education, while other excelled in math and/or science in their homelands. In many cases, the family as a unit does not survive the move halfway around the world, and the normally firm foundation on which the child builds his character and emotional strength is badly damaged; to assist in this area is also the mission of the school. Add to this a society where adolescence includes child abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual activity, and the risk of diseases such as AIDS and one sees the magnitude of the task faced by our school.

The school building with its distinctive clock tower is located on a hilltop within view of Flushing Meadows Park, the grounds of the 1965 New York World's Fair. The well-maintained building is in the process of receiving significant upgrading and new facilities: a $1.5-million upgrading of all four science laboratories and 13 science demonstration classrooms; a $500,000 distance learning studio connected by fiber optic cable to educational institutions and networks throughout New York City; and a new, fully automated elevator.

Through collaboration with KMart, a school store with modern commercial fixtures was created recently from an unused woodworking shop. Special education and business education students work in tandem to operate the store. Reflecting the emphasis on instruction and recognizing the fact that the school is currently operating at 167% of the capacity for which it was designed, at least nine new classroom spaces in the past two years have been created out of underused office space and other obsolete areas. A recently upgraded computer-controlled telephone system with new wiring schoolwide is being adapted at sites throughout the school to provide Internet access in designated classrooms, offices, and research areas such as the Library Media Center. Forest Hills High School maintains the strong tradition of academic excellence for which it is known. Former Science Department Chairman Paul Brandwein in his book, Gifted Young in Science (National Science Teachers Association,1989), commenting on the fact that the school ranks third in the nation in the number of Westinghouse Science Talent Search finalists, speaks of the school as having an "ecology of achievement." The science research program continues with one of the only annual high school science fairs in New York City occurring each May, now 14 years and running. Rising seniors are sent to prestigious science research programs throughout the country each summer. A medical biology program coordinates the teaching of advanced anatomy and physiology to seniors with one-term internships consisting of two-week rotations through eight departments in the neighborhood's North Shore Hospital at Forest Hills. Under the aegis of the Social Studies Department, the law and humanities program provides elective courses in civil and criminal law and is centered on a fundamental principle that the rule of law is the basis of a literate and civilized society. Students in the program participate in citywide Moot Court and Mock Trial competitions and are placed in about two dozen law firms, political offices, and with judges. Each year about 40 students travel to Washington, D.C. to meet government leaders and tour relevant museums and monuments.

Our Preparation for Accounting and Career Exploration (PACE) Program allows students to explore a variety of business career choices while still in high school. In the junior year, these students take "Business Organization and Management." Emphasis is placed on business economics and the stock market with our students participating in the stock market game. These students will also take college accounting during their senior year and have the opportunity to take courses at Pace University for college credit while having the cost of tuition waived.

Forest Hills High School participated for three years in the New York City Writing Project, an initiative of the Writing Teachers Consortium of Lehman College, City University of New York (CUNY). A facilitator from Lehman College joined with a member of the English Department to teach a writing class while teachers during each year of this project participated in after-school workshops. In addition, a schoolwide Writing Committee has been established to foster interest by staff and students in writing projects throughout the school such as a student--faculty journal, on-line pen pals, or intramural writing contests. Very high standards are maintained in mathematics instruction as evidenced by the large number of students sitting each year for the Advanced Placement calculus examinations and the introduction of a new Advanced Placement statistics course in 1997-98.

At our school we offer instructions in a wide selection of foreign languages including French, Hebrew, Italian, Chinese, Russian, and Spanish, stressing a highly conversational and functional approach. Communicative competence is our ultimate goal. We recognize that a citizenry which has an understanding of the culture and civilization of other countries and the ability to speak their languages is better equipped for the demands of a modern society.

The Health and Physical Education Department led the way in Queens with its model HIV/AIDS Education Team, begun in 1990. Through the New York City Project Arts Program, the school is currently in the process of increasing instructional opportunities for students in the visual arts, chorus, and instrumental band.

It is the mission and the determination of all those in the Forest Hills High School community to meet its current and future challenges with the resourcefulness, integrity, grit, and love for the task of educating our youth that have been the hallmarks of the school throughout its 56-year history.

Let Us Raise A Song...
To Alma Mater Strong.