Societal values, ethics, self-worth, competition and group dynamics are an integral part of the school philosophy. The Academy has a different philosophy, and it is the key to the students' personal and intellectual transformation. It is all about caring and being cared about. We surround students with a benign conspiracy of adults and make it difficult for them to cut school, misbehave, or fail. As stipulated by the Board of Education, continued enrollment beyond the student's disciplinary period is voluntary.
Students can return to their old school in their old neighborhoods anytime.
The Academy had its first graduation in June 1994. Fifteen students received their high school diplomas, seven of them went on to college. This past June, twenty students graduated from the Academy, fifteen of whom are enrolled in college beginning this Fall. Click HERE for a JVL Evaluation Summary Notwithstanding their daily lives outside the Academy, which expose them to more temptations, risks, tragedies and difficulties than most of us see in a lifetime, our students' levels of achievement, measured by the classic standards of attendance, graduation rate, college enrollment, employment and RCT and SAT scores, far exceed the average results for New York's other alternative high schools. In many cases they exceed the NYC average for conventional public high schools too.