THE HIGH SCHOOL FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 13TH ANNUAL GRADUATION CEREMONY

MICHAEL ZAMM, COUNCIL ON THE ENVIRONMENT OF NEW YORK CITY, KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Council Person Brewer, Ms. Matthews, all H.S.E.S. staff, all students and parents:

It is a special honor for me to speak at the graduation ceremony of the High School for Environmental Studies, for as I survey this 13th graduating class, I realize how far the school has come since its beginnings on the top floor of the old Stuyvesant High School Building in September 1992, and before that, as an idea that came to Ed Skloot, then Executive Director of the Surdna Foundation, in the shower one day, an idea developed by the Council on the Environment of New York City (CENYC) in the form of a concept paper at Ed’s request and with Surdna funding, and eventually accepted by the Board of Education. H.S.E.S. actually pre-dated the New Visions Schools and was one of the first in the wave of new theme high schools developed over the past 16 years by the BOE/DOE. It is also, as far as we know, the first truly comprehensive high school based on environmental education in the city, state, and nation, although many have followed.

The school’s opening in September 1992 was indeed humble. The week before the opening, the original Project Director, John Kominski, and his ten teachers stood and gazed at a pile of rubble that dominated the top floor of the old Stuyvesant building. There was no equipment - Stuyvesant had taken all the useful science and lab equipment to its new fully-stocked multi-million dollar building. There were no amenities of any kind.

Well, the staff rolled up its sleeves and got the place ready for those first 150 freshmen. One indication of just how basic the material situation was - John Kominski fashioned the table around which he held meetings from an old manhole cover he scrounged from a nearby construction site and a large block of wood.

Not long after the school opened, airborne asbestos was discovered and H.S.E.S. became the high school version of the University in Exile - first based at the American Museum of Natural History and then at Norman Thomas High School. Finally the school returned to the 15th Street building once the asbestos was cleaned up.

Discipline was somewhat lacking back then too, as the staff, some of whom were inexperienced, tried to structure a program which balanced environmental education with the rigors of a Regents curriculum.

I am very grateful to those pioneering students, teachers and parents who went through a very difficult first 18 months. Many could have switched schools but few did - they believed in the school’s mission and it’s potential. This gathering here today is proof of their faith in that potential. H.S.E.S. is now one of the best high schools in the city with a high college acceptance rate and a growing legion of graduates who are doing significant things in the world.

Two years ago, the Friends of H.S.E.S. and the emerging H.S.E.S. Alumni Association organized the 10 year reunion of the first graduating class. Almost 70% of the students returned on a near hurricane night. Their average age was 28. I was amazed by their level of accomplishment.

One student was a CPA with a Big Four accounting firm; another a student in Columbia Medical School; another a PHD candidate at Yale in non profit management; a fourth a PHD candidate in public policy at the University of Chicago; another a PHD in education, training teachers at Hunter College; yet another a consultant with a major environmental consulting firm. Several were public school teachers. One had started a business in the State of Georgia delivering medical supplies to homebound seniors. Some were in environmental work; many were not, but everyone I spoke to said they incorporated environmental values into their lives. They all expressed appreciation for what the school had done for them.

The Friends of H.S.E.S. has had similar feedback from other graduating classes. One graduate from 2001, who was working for a local city councilperson and was leaving to become an assistant to the Mayor of Washington D.C., said several of her fellow graduates had gone into politics, working for elected officials. And there are many more such stories and they are growing. One student, after receiving the Bill Gates Scholarship to attend Carnegie Mellon University, has gone on to become a PHD candidate at the University of Michigan in geology and physics. Another is doing volunteer work in South Africa and China on environmental issues. In fact, a number are involved in international environmental work. Some are involved in public health work; and of course there is Dylan Hass, who is now playing such an important role in the work done by the Friends of H.S.E.S. Over twenty students have gone on to the University of Vermont’s School of Natural Resources. They have integrated that school from an ethnic, socioecomic and urban/rural view point. In the future we hope to see them integrate the environmental movement as a whole. So we have come a long way.

The school has been blessed with two outstanding leaders. Alex Corbluth, the first regularly appointed principal, established a tradition of outstanding teaching in the school. He was an excellent pedagogue himself and he knew how to train teachers. The teaching in H.S.E.S. is amongst the finest I have experienced and I have had the pleasure of working with some of the most skilled and dedicated teachers I have seen in my 40 years as an educator. One of those teachers, Michelle Ashkin, has gone on to become principal of a new school - The Academy of Conservation and the Environment, which will open this September.

Principal Shirley Matthews has reinforced that tradition of excellent teaching and she has helped all the school’s constituencies focus on the school’s environmental and environmental education mission. She and her outstanding administrative team have shaped a school that has been rated as one of the best in the city at helping both students looking for academic challenges, and students who enter the ninth grade with academic performance problems but become successful and go to college.

I must tell you that I have had the unique privilege of working directly with H.S.E.S. students. Working in CENYC’s environmental education program, I have been inspired by many of the H.S.E.S. kids - much more than I have inspired them. In 1992, we measured helicopter noise together along the East River with the wind chill in the 20’s and ear plugs our only defense against the 100+ decibel sound. The students did it, and their report played a role in convincing the city to limit flights at that port, which was causing stress to the residents of the neighborhood.

We have gone on five winter overnights and once endured 13 below zero weather to explore the ecology of the Catskill Mountains. We have been to several of the major parks in Manhattan and the northwest Bronx, and to streams and rivers in the city’s Catskill Watershed to plant 6,000 trees and shrubs, thousands of willows, ground cover plants, and herbaceous plants, and remove thousands of square feet of invasive species and more than a ton of litter. The school has delivered approximately 150,000 hours of community service to the city and has played a role in our town’s revitalization.

Through all of this, H.S.E.S. kids have been dedicated to their tasks and to the school’s tradition of public service. It is an honor for me to have worked with them. The students graduating here today have acted in that tradition of community and environmental involvement. They are simply the best people to represent our school and community. I congratulate them and their parents on their graduation and their passage to the next phase in life. Thank you so much.